Question Physical Copies.

[WoodenSaucer]

@mainer You're right about Fallout coming with really cool stuff.

I would postpone getting a game for now if it was only in physical format—it's just so much more convenient and reliable to go digital. Same with music, I made sure to rip all our CDs to hard drive, and all my books are ebooks—I had to sell my 1,000+ print collection one time in 80s for space reasons, and never built it up again.

I'm pretty careful with stuff in general, but I've lost a heck of a lot more physical music, books, software, photos and games than digital ones. My current living space wouldn't support any significant physical collection anyway, they'd have to be boxed in the attic. Add in the planet benefit, and it's no contest unless you're a collector.

I did the same thing. A long time ago, I ripped all of my CDs to MP3s. Ever since you could buy MP3s without DRM, I've been buying all my music that way. I also spent a lot of time ripping every one of my DVDs and Blu-rays. I have them all on my PC and also on an external HD. Now we buy all of our movies on Amazon and just stream them. As for books, it's all Kindle for me now. I pretty much refuse to read physical books. If someone wants to loan or give me a book, and I'm actually interested in it, I'll just buy the digital version and read it that way. I do all my reading on the Kindle app on my phone. I can carry a whole library in my pocket.

 

[Zloth]

I pulled all my music to MP3's, too. Well, almost all. I found a few CDs that didn't get moved over and now my PC has no CD to rip them with! I might have to do some hacking and pull the old CD player out of my pervious PC then hook it into my new one. There's no place on the case for an external drive, so I'll have to leave the case open to rip those final CDs. Ugh.

I still do all my movies and TV show collections on DVD and BluRay, though. I suppose I could rip them off the discs, too, but it would be a huge undertaking. I don't know how many I've got now, but I've been collecting them since Red October was fairly new.

I've got MANY physical books, too. No way am I switching those to e-readers. I did finally get sick of trying to keep them sorted by author, though, and have been buying all my new books on Kindle.

 

[Slasken]

I pulled all my music to MP3's, too. Well, almost all. I found a few CDs that didn't get moved over and now my PC has no CD to rip them with! I might have to do some hacking and pull the old CD player out of my pervious PC then hook it into my new one. There's no place on the case for an external drive, so I'll have to leave the case open to rip those final CDs. Ugh.

I still do all my movies and TV show collections on DVD and BluRay, though. I suppose I could rip them off the discs, too, but it would be a huge undertaking. I don't know how many I've got now, but I've been collecting them since Red October was fairly new.

I've got MANY physical books, too. No way am I switching those to e-readers. I did finally get sick of trying to keep them sorted by author, though, and have been buying all my new books on Kindle.

Yeah same here. I ripped all my DVDs and BDs and moved them to a Plex server. It's a huge task, so I started with with movies my kids watch, so they don't have to mess with the discs. Finally done now. Now when I buy a BD, it goes straight to the server. I don't buy a lot of movies anymore, unless it's something I can't stream anywhere, and those are mostly classics. Same with music. I have all my collection on MP3s and I also have Tidal. If it's one of my favorite bands, I buy the CD.

I use DVDfab to rip DVDs and BDs. It's pretty fast, and it takes advantage of Cuda cores.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

I pulled all my music to MP3's, too. Well, almost all. I found a few CDs that didn't get moved over and now my PC has no CD to rip them with!

Computers don't come with optical drives much anymore, especially laptops. I still have an external Blu-ray USB drive lying around somewhere if I ever need it.

 

[Brian Boru]

hacking and pull the old CD player out of my pervious PC then hook it into my new one

Does previous PC still work? Pull from CD to USB drive there.

DVD and BluRay, though. I suppose I could rip them off the discs, too, but it would be a huge undertaking

Why not locate the already ripped files online, and download those? Save a bucket of time, and if you get say FLAC files, you can convert them automatically locally at your leisure—eg overnight.
Caveat—I don't know if this is legal, but there's certainly no moral problem imo.

I use DVDfab

Yeah, that's good, as is MakeMKV. EAC might be the best for audio, I haven't used it.

For anyone with a job big enough, you could spend a few hundred $ on a multi-tray loader. You would load say 5-10 discs at a time and let them rip to ISO, then convert to MP4 etc later at leisure. Ideal gizmo for a local community hall to buy, and rent for 10-25 cents a disc

 

[mainer]

What, no fallout 76 "Canvas" bag? you managed to avoid that pitfall. Hopefully Microsoft might keep them from repeating that in the future.

Not for me, I'm only into the single player type of game. All FO76 did was to delay the development of Starfield and Elder Scrolls 6

 

[mjs warlord]

When local stores started selling games and you only got a steam card inside i felt cheated because i did not have a disc in my hand , then i changed my mind.

My local store refused to give refunds on games because they would say once you open the box the game licence belongs to you and cant be sold to anyone else ????? how can you sell a faulty game disc to somebody else.

Steam give refunds without a problem.

You can put steam and your library on as many pc as you want and thats a bonus because when i have bought a new pc and tried to install an old game the famous " its already in use box comes up " ... yes it is .... by me. I have a lot of old games i cant use because makers refuse to issue a new code unless you can show proof of purchase .... how many of you have got a 6 year old reciept.

Forgot to mention other games clients are available lol

 

[WoodenSaucer]

My first experience with Steam was with Half-Life 2. I bought the physical version of the game, because it came out when you could still buy everything physically. I was able to install and play from the disc, but it also made me sign up for a Steam account and register it on there. Steam still wasn't even close to being mainstream yet at that time. To me, I had the disc, and having to do that was an unnecessary hassle. It actually kind of ticked me off because they didn't give me a choice; I was forced to register it on there.

But then a year or so later, I had a different PC, and I was in the mood to try playing HL2 again. I couldn't find my disc, so I thought I was out of luck. So I decided to install Steam and just try rebuying the game on there so I could play it on my new PC. When I signed in to my account, that's when I found out I didn't even have to buy it because I registered the disc when I bought it. I could just download the game for free. That was the moment that I understood the value of Steam and digital gaming. I've had a ton of laptops and PCs since then, and I could still get on there today and download it if I wanted to. When I saw that, I was sold, and have never looked back.

 

[ZedClampet]

Goodly Morning,

Is there anybody that misses physical copies of games? Going to your local store to pick it up, the excitement to get back and install it. While it's installing checking out your collectors edition content? A poor mouse pad and some graphic art book.. or is everyone much happier with their digital copies now days?

And if you do like collectors edition, what's your best and favourite ones you've seen or been lucky enough to own?

My wife refused to go with me when I went to CompUSA or Best Buy. I would just wander back and forth in the PC games section forever, picking up box after box, reading the back of the boxes, etc. I didn't have a lot of money then, so game decisions were more important. I'd go read boxes a second or third time. Half the time I'd leave the stores with nothing because I couldn't make up my mind and didn't want to waste my money. But I had a ton of fun shopping that way. I really miss it.

The death of CompUSA just about killed me.

I mentioned this in another thread somewhere, but I think that GameStop should create a section just for PC collector's editions. I would definitely shop there for that.

 

[ZedClampet]

I might have to do some hacking and pull the old CD player out of my pervious PC then hook it into my new one.

You can get external ones on Amazon for $15 or less just in case your hacking goes awry.

 

[Slasken]

Yeah, that's good, as is MakeMKV. EAC might be the best for audio, I haven't used it.

For anyone with a job big enough, you could spend a few hundred $ on a multi-tray loader. You would load say 5-10 discs at a time and let them rip to ISO, then convert to MP4 etc later at leisure. Ideal gizmo for a local community hall to buy, and rent for 10-25 cents a disc

I only have one drive, so when I have a more than one disc to rip, I rip them to ISOs one at a time when I feel like it. When all are ripped I queue the ISOs up to made into MP4s. This is certainly something I would with a TV series.

I mostly buy concert/music DVDs and BDs, as they are not very easy to catch on stream providers. And it's something I like to watch several times as well. I mostly buy on sales, and when there's a sale, I buy a batch of them.

Computers don't come with optical drives much anymore, especially laptops. I still have an external Blu-ray USB drive lying around somewhere if I ever need it.

It's even hard to find a case to put an optical drive in. There are USB options though.

 

[Frindis]

As for books, it's all Kindle for me now. I pretty much refuse to read physical books. If someone wants to loan or give me a book, and I'm actually interested in it, I'll just buy the digital version and read it that way. I do all my reading on the Kindle app on my phone. I can carry a whole library in my pocket.

Same here. I got a few physical books and the rest on my PocketBook Touch Lux 4. It can read just about anything, with PDF files being the hardest for the processor. Does not beat the feeling of going through a physical copy, but it is definitely more practical, especially since the battery life lasts for about a month.

 

[SleepingDog]

I love the physical stuff back in the day when you got all sorts of bits and pieces. Maps with the Ultima series, rulebooks, guide books about the world you were entering and the odd solutions book. The problem was that over time my DVD and book collection also got bigger but the space at home did not! Finally the crunch came and hard decisions had to be made.

Almost all of my games collection is digital now and I cannot remember the last time I bought a physical copy. Books can be either but every couple of years I remove those I will not read again. DVDs also suffer the same fate. The local charity shops seem to welcome me with open arms.

On the optical disk question I use an external Blu-ray drive on the PC mainly for music CDs. Films/ TV series are played through the Panasonic BD player - it's performance seems much better than using the PC.

Electronic books are read using my Kindle (second one I have owned) and I am happy with it. Electronic graphic novels (we used to call them comics when I was young) are read on the PC (but I usually buy paper copies if I can).

 

[Pifanjr]

I do miss reading manuals. I had a lot of fun reading a whole bunch when I got Tabletop Simulator and found a whole bunch of awesome games. Too bad I never got around to playing any of them.

 

[Brian Boru]

PDF files being the hardest for the processor

For those without much familiarity with ebooks:

PDF files are intended to be printed out and read on paper, they are usually poorly suited to on-screen reading. There may be a case for documents which must rigidly preserve their designed layout to be read as PDF.

EPUB is the best format for ebooks, and now that Kindle has moved to it from their previous proprietary file format, it's the only one you should consider for general purposes. It gives the reader control over screen and font sizes, and reflows the content to follow changes in these.

If you need to convert one digital format to another, a long-standing stalwart program is Calibre.

Fun fact:
.epub is actually an archive format. If you change the filename to .zip—eg Book.epub to Book.zip—you can see all the constituent files which make up the book.

I got Tabletop Simulator and found a whole bunch of awesome games. Too bad I never got around to playing any of them

That's exactly my history too!

 

[Cooper88]

Physical copies lost their appeal and "collectability" for me after the fun giant sized PC retail boxes seemingly overnight turned into the size of a dvd case . With that transition the giant manuals, maps and random fun that used to come with games like Falcon 4.0 and Janes Longbow 2 were no more. The well designed boxes themselves would also give you a good glimpse into the game itself in an era before youtube and video reviews existed and were instantly accessible in the palm of your hand. I still remember the impressive (for a kid at the time anyway) velcro "fold out" box that the original Half Life was sold in. I don't however miss having to find a disc to play something, hope its not scratched, and deal with CD keys.

 

[redmark_]

sadly I didn't get this experience as a kid as we didn't really buy anything gaming related, the closest I could come to that was playing PC and consoles over at friends houses. 😂

that said, I would just stare at game stores and go window shopping. 🎮

 

[Zloth]

... and deal with CD keys.

Some of those keys were stupidly long. I remember calculating that the number of IDs was about the same as the number of atoms in the galaxy!

 

[Brian Boru]

I remember calculating that the number of IDs was about the same as the number of atoms in the galaxy

I can see how you'd calc the # of IDs—but how on earth did you calc the galaxy's atoms for comparison? Or how not on earth, if you went off-world to do it?

 

[Zloth]

6x10^23 atoms in a mole (call it 10^24, this is just order of magnitude calculations), which has a mass of 1 gram by definition. Multiply by average mass of a star in grams (10^33). Multiply by the number of stars in the galaxy (10^11), and you've got it. 24+33+11 is 68, so 10^68. I had to look the numbers up in my handy dandy college astrophysics book instead of Google, but it was pretty easy.

You can try going to the observable universe by throwing in another 10^11, but that gets a bit tricky. I think the Milky Way is on the large side of the average. Plus, you're going out FAR, so you have to think about whether you are calculating the number of stars that exist now or the number you are seeing, and whether the number of stars is going up or down over the life of the universe. I'm liable to have to do something harder than addition. Blah!

 

[Colif]

While you counting atoms I would get you to write out Graham's number but you won't have enough atoms.

Sorry, I just like stupidly big numbers.

 

[Brian Boru]

I'm liable to have to do something harder than addition

You are indeed earning your forum badge!

I just like stupidly big numbers

If you like big stupidly people, you'll like me…

 

[WoodenSaucer]

6x10^23 atoms in a mole (call it 10^24, this is just order of magnitude calculations), which has a mass of 1 gram by definition.

There's only one problem with that, unless I'm not remembering correctly. I think hydrogen is the only element where 1 mole weighs 1 gram. The atomic weight of everything else is higher. Like one mole of Carbon-12 weighs 12 grams.

 

[Volley]

I've kept all my hundreds of physical big box copies because even 20-25 years ago I knew that gaming would transition to Internet downloads as bandwidth kept getting faster, PC game boxes kept getting smaller, and with Steam in 2003, Online-only was slowly but surely becoming a thing.

I miss PC game big boxes quite a bit, besides the full printed manual, the box artwork was sometimes really well done, easy to locate System Requirements right there on the box, as well as brand & company name contact info. Going into my local Best Buy or Wal-Mart was an absolute joy seeing those boxes everywhere.

Thanks to legacy hardware which I've maintained and collected, I'm able to fire up my classic 80's, 90's and early 00's games at any time. Original unaltered games that cannot be modified or changed by modern agenda or culture.

 

[Zloth]

There's only one problem with that, unless I'm not remembering correctly. I think hydrogen is the only element where 1 mole weighs 1 gram. The atomic weight of everything else is higher. Like one mole of Carbon-12 weighs 12 grams.

Yeah, but most everything is hydrogen. The older stars churn out helium, carbon, and other funky stuff that sometimes ends up orbiting other stars in those little planet thingies, but they don't matter much.