January 22, 2008

DVD cases

Author wonders why no one uses hubless DVD cases. I think the answer to that is pretty obvious: automated packaging. It would take an entirely different machine to automatically place a DVD into one of those hubless cases than it does for the standard cases.

I, too, have noticed that hub damage has become quite significant on some of my favorite rewatches. That's particularly a problem for me since I watch using my notebook computer, which has the kind of drive which grasps the DVD using the hub. At least two of my DVDs have become unwatchable on that drive.

That's part of why I have an external USB drive. It has a tray, so it doesn't rely on the hub the same way. Those DVDs will still play on the external drive.

UPDATE: While I'm doing a random link-and-comment post, this guy watched G-On Riders and, well, wasn't impressed.

And every time I look at this picture, it always makes me think that the girl on the left is saying, "Yay! Falsies!" Yeah, I know what they really are. Just goes to show you what gutter my mind lays in.

UPDATE: Author sez:

This does not explain why I cannot buy these cases elsewhere though. There’s plenty of bad cases in places such as IKEA, but unless I buy 10,000 of hubless cases on a P.O., I cannot get them.

Sure it does. The aftermarket for empty cases is tiny by comparison to the number sold to DVD packagers. If the packagers aren't buying them, then the likelihood is that hardly anyone makes the things, and they aren't actively trying hard to sell them. It's economy of scale.

The ones you buy ten-at-a-time are as cheap as they are, and as available as they are, because they're part of the same production run that gets sold to the DVD packagers.

I wouldn't be surprised if this is a very new product, and it's obviously not a successful one.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 05:03 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 331 words, total size 2 kb.

1 I really recommend either ripping all disc-based media to hard drives, or backing them up to DVD writables and using only the backups. Disc-based media is more robust that tapes on disc readers intended to be permanently placed somewhere, like on desktops or home A/V readers, but I'd say they are less robust than old-fashioned tapes on portable players, including laptops and cars, both of which seem to chew through discs at an alarming rate.

That this is not the easiest thing in the world due to DRM is the fault of the DRM, not the suggestion.

I have a couple of CDs from over a decade ago that I can still listen to, but only because for the most part I listen to the resulting MP3s. If I listened to the CDs themselves at the same rate, they'd be long gone.

I always rip DVDs on my laptop to my hard drive, so I can control the shock during the ripping process and then have the disc spin down. (I use my laptop as an actual lap top, that is, on my lap, so it does get moved around some.)

Posted by: Jeremy Bowers at January 23, 2008 09:01 AM (ird9G)

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