Sony to no longer produce optical disc drives

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After ceasing operations next year, the company will liquidate everything remaining, so stay tuned for some cheaper DVD drives.

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Back in the day there were some very good NEC/Optiarc drives, but I haven't bought a new DVD burner in quite a while now.

It may have been 10 years since I remember owning a Sony optical in one of my computers & I'll guarantee you I didn't buy it.

I've also owned at least one NEC & it may have been worn out by the time I got hold of it so I don't want to pass judgement. But at least the thing DID work. Sounded like an old Cox, fueled model air plane we used to play with as kids, when the thing spun up, yet work it did.

Back in the 80s I used to have a thing for Sony, but then somewhere in the break into the 90s it all seemed to fall apart. Part of me wants to blame it on their steady escalation into the entertainment industry. Kind of like they were working on a revenge scenario or something.

The other is like a Paris Hilton mixed with Sid Vicious. Too much money & stupidity mixed with a disastrous dose of self destruction on a highway to hell.

A cheap blueray drive would be grand with me : )

bluray is what Sony care about really.

I have a Pioneer BDR-205BK and I am so impressed with it, I don't think I would buy from another company for an optical drive. I think Sony's problem is they try and dabble in everything. Most of the time you had no clue they even made a product for what you where wanting, not that Sony is all the "special" anymore.

lol optical drives. I remember when I couldn't live without one. Now I use it once in a blue moon.

Well, Sony is, in essence, a modern zaibatsu, and zaibatsu generally do "dabble in everything".

It isn't that they are involved in too many areas, as much as (as previously noted) falling quality, inflated prices, and terrible customer service. That's death to *any* company.

Good riddance, and don't come back. I've had nothing but trouble with their drives in a past life.

Panasonic (AKA Matsushita) dabbled in everything -- even bicycles and "vibrating massagers". Some of their products may not have been economically successful but everything worked well. Sony started failing in the early 90's. Their TV's had faulty tuners, their VCR's went downhill after the demise of Betamax, and MiniDisc was a failure as was their MemoryStick format. Sony is the Apple of the consumer electronics world. Apple and Sony did business together -- the 3.5" floppy drives with the weird motorized eject was designed and built by Sony for Apple as well as the PSUs in those systems...

Originally posted by Mr_Bill06:

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I have a Pioneer BDR-205BK and I am so impressed with it, I don't think I would buy from another company for an optical drive.

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Hate to see jobs being lost. That is never fun to deal with.

Originally posted by core2kid:

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lol optical drives. I remember when I couldn't live without one. Now I use it once in a blue moon.

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I can honestly say I haven't burn a disc in over a year.
Hard drives all the way.

I don't have any valid reason to avoid Sony drives but I still do. I'm not sure why.

I haven't burned a disc in a long time either, but I still use previously burned discs quite often. All of my OS's and essential software are stored on discs and kept together. They are easy to find and I won't be tempted to erase them and store something else on them like I would with a flash drive or hard drive. Plus I haven't met the computer that won't boot from a CD or DVD, but many won't boot from a USB device. In my opinion, optical disc drives are still a necessity.

Originally posted by dali:

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Originally posted by core2kid:

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lol optical drives. I remember when I couldn't live without one. Now I use it once in a blue moon.

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Same here. It's been years since the last time I used any sort of optical media. Optical technology is dead; it simply has no sense anymore.

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You are right, KillerBug, but I gave up on BR since the last few times I bought one and it freezed my computer in the middle of playing, or forced me to upgrade firmware and/or software for what I had paid... Of course, paying a bit more (PowerDVD). In fact, I had to end up downloading ripped copies of movies I had paid for in order to be able to watch them entirely. So, bye, bye, BluRay! It's a crappy so called standard which adds new "features" every day which are continuously breaking my setup.

It's annoying how legal customers have to cope with so many trouble to watch a movie, including unavoidable trailers and warnings, while pirated copies can be played without any issues after a single click, isn't it?

Anyway, I can't understand why optical technology can't die for good, living in an era on which you can store so many GB in a small microSD. Why not developing a standard for music and movies based on small ROM cards once and for all?

You know, MPC-HC, along with several other players out there, will play BR disks from any region with no update requirements or whatnot.

Originally posted by Bozobub:

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You know, MPC-HC, along with several other players out there, will play BR disks from any region with no update requirements or whatnot.

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Originally posted by KillerBug:

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Originally posted by dali:

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Originally posted by core2kid:

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lol optical drives. I remember when I couldn't live without one. Now I use it once in a blue moon.

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Same here. It's been years since the last time I used any sort of optical media. Optical technology is dead; it simply has no sense anymore.

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There is still some use for it...like when an album only gets released on iTunes and CD...I buy the CD and make FLACs (even if I didn't hate Apple, I wouldn't pay for their crummy rips). Plus, the difference between Netflix and Blueray on a 40" HDTV is night and day.

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Good riddance, if you ask me! I used to like Optiarc before Sony got their hooks into it. The last Optiarc I had gotten in January lasted only six months before it needed replacing. The tray would reload every time it was touched after being ejected. The Optiarc I had before that needed replacing after only a year.


I used to like Sony products back when they made the Playstation and the early, pre-slim models of PS2. Then, they went downhill fast. They used cheaper optical drives in the later PS2's that I had to have replaced after 6 months, again with the six month life span! Had a top loading slim PS2 that skipped on playbacks of DVD movies. The PS3 does not like Ritek branded Blu-Ray media, causing all kinds of playback issues that do not occur on Panasonic standalone Blu-Ray players.

Originally posted by brockie:

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bluray is what Sony care about really.

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