Cases with internal cd/rw drive

[weare one]

Ok call me old fashioned but I like having a built in cd/rw drive in my desktop.

I would rather not have an external cd/rw drive

The choices given to me when I ordered my new PCS system were defiantly limited (especially in style/looks) in my opinion, although I am more than happy with my NZXT Phantom 410.

I realise there are alternative methods but as I previously mentioned a physical cd/rw drive is my preference.

Am I just being a dinosaur or do today’s modern manufactures and users no long see the use/need of this as an internal drive.

 

[polycrac]

I got my first PC from PCS with one (just over two years ago) because I kind of assumed it was needed and never, ever used it (except to press the open/close button to see if it worked!)

It might be different if your PC is the main entertainment centre in your house and you have loads of old dvds/blurays etc.

 

[jerpers]

It might be different if your PC is the main entertainment centre in your house and you have loads of old dvds/blurays etc.

That's me. I have the Fractal Design R5 which is very similar to the R6. Very stylish IMO

 

[SpyderTracks]

I haven’t used physical media for about 5 years now and if I do it’s always a usb stick that I’ve created a bootable image on.

Everything’s available downloaded. All my media is in file format and I stream everything else. My media server is all digital files.

I just have zero use for discs.

 

[weare one]

I have a large collection of music cd's mainly from days gone by, which I suppose I should get round to digitising one day.

I also have fully paid for and official versions of Office software and Adobe Photoshop plus others which still work on windows 10

 

[Oussebon]

I have a large collection of music cd's mainly from days gone by, which I suppose I should get round to digitising one day.

FLAC them all with powerampDB'd CDripper or whatever it's called, put them on a NAS like a WDMyCloud, and stream them to any device in the house Or make a share on your PC.

I'll probably go for cases with DVD/Blu Ray space in them in the future, but only as I will be ripping media to store on network storage and stream on the local network e.g. via Plex.

But everything else is digital - the OS, software, games. Even games that are sold with physical media either shouldn't usually be installed via them or have no real benefit to installing via them as by the time the media ships it's already out of date and would need to be patched even before day 1. So some people could prefer the aesthetic of a case that happens not to have drives and just use external ones which they put away after for their very occasional uses.

The real issue, imo, is the lack of space for 3.5" and to some degree 2.5" in what seems to be an increasing number of cases. As someone who has found themselves needing more and more HDD storage, that's an issue with some newer designs. However, network storage seems much more prevalent now than it used to be and I'd probably have a proper NAS rather than a dinky WDMyCloud if our home had the space.

 

[weare one]

FLAC them all with powerampDB'd CDripper or whatever it's called, put them on a NAS like a WDMyCloud, and stream them to any device in the house Or make a share on your PC..

Ok I have to admit it....I'm a dinosaur..........just spent a few minutes goggling what all these were (FLAC/NAS/WDMyCloud) :stupid:

Very interesting though especially FLAC :yes:

 

[SpyderTracks]

Ok I have to admit it....I'm a dinosaur..........just spent a few minutes goggling what all these were (FLAC/NAS/WDMyCloud) :stupid:

Very interesting though especially FLAC :yes:

FLAC is awesome, all my digital music is in FLAC and I stream it over Plex from my plex server, or have it connected to my stereo via DLNA. Great high quality, just smashes all over mp3 or m4a or any of those rubbish compressed formats.

If you’re thinking of going digital with music files, check out plex, it’s the most incredible, no fiddling media server I’ve ever come across and all free. Has apps on any platform and I’ve never had issues with it.

 

[Oussebon]

Great high quality, just smashes all over mp3 or m4a or any of those rubbish compressed formats.

+1. And even if you can't tell the difference due to pretty low end gear to listen to it on, as it's lossless it means you have a proper backup of your CDs for when and if they fail.

dbpoweramp to rip

mp3tag to edit metadata and add album art if required

musicbee to have my library on PC and play back.

Plex to stream around the home.

I keep the files on a WD Mybooklive (predecessor to WDMyCloud). While they are set up on the plex server I have (and with more advanced NAS solutions you could have the NAS itself run the server I think) you can just play them with any regular music player too like Musicbee and most smart TVs and DVD players with any network capability should be able to play the media right off the file share. The DVD recorder we got from 2012 can do this...

A WDMyCloud is a NAS that is ready set up and includes the drive and is a fair entry-level "my first NAS" type solution.

 

[ubuysa]

I read your question literally, and I see absolutely no need for a CD reader/writer these days. 640MB is a drop in the ocean compared to a 2GB USB stick that you can get for the price of a CD/RW disk!

A DVD reader writer is something else, I have one - but only because I have some installation media on DVD and several movies on DVD. A BlueRay player probably makes even more sense if you have a bunch of BlueRay movies....

 

[Stephen M]

I bought a decent external CD/DVD drive some years ago for less than 20 quid, could be cheaper now. All of my music is saved as FLAC and have also ripped entire DVD collection to a hard drive. I do not use BluRay but iti is likely that can be ripped as well. I would certainly not bother with getting an internal CD/DVD drive on anything now as the old external one does all I need.

One thing worth adding, although it is obvious it is easy to overlook, A CD or DVD collection ripped to a hard drive is legal as a back up or as part of a streaming system for personal use but only if you keep all of the original CDs or DVDs.

 

[weare one]

I have been reading up on FLAC as its been so highly recommended in this thread.

However I compile most of my cd's into compilation cd's that will play in my car cd player.

While I was searching the FLAC forum I found this post:-

"Ok, using dBpoweramp I used the music converter to convert some FLAC files to WAVE, 16 bit 44.1kHz and then dragged-dropped those converted files onto a blank CD on my Mac desktop and burned it. Won't play in any CD play in the house. Never had this issue with iTunes in the past, I'd just burn a music CD and it worked in the car. Since going over to NAS system and FLAC files after people saying Flac was better than Apple's codec I have not been able to burn CDs for the car anymore. What a drag. "

Any of you guys find the same thing.

 

[Oussebon]

They probably screwed something up. Apparently it needs to be converted to WAV files for burning to CD. Perhaps the user messed this up.

FLAC is lossless. It's the same information as what's on the audio CD, which is the point of it. So ultimately there's no reason why you can't get that information back onto a CD

Have a look at: https://www.avforums.com/threads/best-software-to-burn-audio-cd-from-flac.1717403/

 

[SpyderTracks]

They probably screwed something up. Apparently it needs to be converted to WAV files for burning to CD. Perhaps the user messed this up.

FLAC is lossless. It's the same information as what's on the audio CD, which is the point of it. So ultimately there's no reason why you can't get that information back onto a CD

Have a look at: https://www.avforums.com/threads/best-software-to-burn-audio-cd-from-flac.1717403/

When iTunes burns a cd, it automatically converts it from mp3 or m4a to WAV, unless you specify to burn an mp3 disc.

 

[weare one]

They probably screwed something up. Apparently it needs to be converted to WAV files for burning to CD. Perhaps the user messed this up.

FLAC is lossless. It's the same information as what's on the audio CD, which is the point of it. So ultimately there's no reason why you can't get that information back onto a CD

Have a look at: https://www.avforums.com/threads/best-software-to-burn-audio-cd-from-flac.1717403/

Thanks for the info and link Oussebon

When iTunes burns a cd, it automatically converts it from mp3 or m4a to WAV, unless you specify to burn an mp3 disc.

Although my wife has an ipad (like another arm for her actually) and we have an apple TV I personally have never found compatibility with apple and my desktops (probably just me) so I stay away from itunes

 

[Lez501]

I have been reading up on FLAC as its been so highly recommended in this thread.

However I compile most of my cd's into compilation cd's that will play in my car cd player.

While I was searching the FLAC forum I found this post:-

"Ok, using dBpoweramp I used the music converter to convert some FLAC files to WAVE, 16 bit 44.1kHz and then dragged-dropped those converted files onto a blank CD on my Mac desktop and burned it. Won't play in any CD play in the house. Never had this issue with iTunes in the past, I'd just burn a music CD and it worked in the car. Since going over to NAS system and FLAC files after people saying Flac was better than Apple's codec I have not been able to burn CDs for the car anymore. What a drag. "

[FONT=&]Any of you guys find the same thing.[/FONT]

If using the drag/drop method, not many burning programs automatically close the disk (it utilizes a "track at once" method), this leaves the CD open and you can add more tracks to it - this method will play on a pc, but not a cd player. You need to close the disk for it to be played in a cd player. Another common mistake is to burn the audio files as a data disk, again, not playable in a cd player.

 

[weare one]

If using the drag/drop method, not many burning programs automatically close the disk (it utilizes a "track at once" method), this leaves the CD open and you can add more tracks to it - this method will play on a pc, but not a cd player. You need to close the disk for it to be played in a cd player. Another common mistake is to burn the audio files as a data disk, again, not playable in a cd player.

Thanks....I haven’t actually burnt/ripped a cd for well over a year now (I've been waiting to purchase my new baby from PCS) but I do recall most of that.

Looking forward to getting around to ripping loads now though, hence getting up to date with FLAC etc as previously I used WMP....shock horror:yes: