Im just wondering what was the last dvd or cd you burned and what was it for? So you all still use dvds or cds? or have you found a alternative media?
I burned 4 low quality kids movies on a disk for the dvd player in my wife’s SUV.
Of course they all have devices now and access to jellyfin
I’ve been on a retro kick. Recently I’ve been messing with a Pentium 233 MMX. I burned a tinycore Linux CD a couple days ago so I could make this:
A PS2 game to test FreeDVDBoot on the PS2 Slim https://youtu.be/ez0y-hz3VuM
DVD was to make a physical media of streaming content for a relative who doesn’t use technology but wanted to watch it. This would’ve been about 5 years ago ish since we don’t see them much anymore.
CD was about 3 years ago for my car since its head unit didn’t have car play. We’ve since purchased an iPod 7th gen to do the job.
The last DVD burned was a release candidate for Debian buster. The last CD was a full i386 install of OpenBSD 6.4 for a ThinkPad T43p. Both happened in the last decade (2010’s).
I’ve ripped several music CD’s and movie DVD’s since then, but using it as a storage device just isn’t a thing any more.
Probably like a dreamcast game or a mixtape for the car
Haha I talked to my kids about burning CDs in the way of talking about old tech they’ve never encountered. They wanted a CD burner after that to try it out, so I found an external USB burner and a cheapo little boom box. They ended up downloading songs from our media server and some stuff from NewGrounds and burning a bunch of mix CDs. It was fun!
That sounds like a fun activity to do, neat idea.
CT Scan imagery. Apparently medical clinics have finally graduated from faxes to optical media. This was in 2025.
I burnt a Windows 7 install disc about a month ago. A guy I work with found his old PC and wanted a fresh install so he could give it to someone.
I discovered Ventoy about a week ago…
I rip music to play in the car for my kids. Mostly mix tracks they like.
Actually funny enough it was probably Linux ISOs
Hey kids! Pirating is cool, right? Who here likes to pirate, my friends? /s
Abstract: I burned a pair of audio CDs three days ago for listening to in my cars. Two (nearly) identical discs, one for each car. I have largely moved away from optical discs but am making an effort to re-embrace them.
Full text: So when I went to build my PC, I wanted a Fractal Meshify 2 Mini case. I built my cousin’s PC in one, I wanted one too, but they had apparently been discontinued. I wound up with a Pop Air Mini case instead, which in many ways isn’t as nice, but it does feature a pair of 5 1/4" bays hidden behind a magnetic panel at the front of the PSU basement.
One of my little projects was to install one of those multi-format card readers and an old optical drive there, and I got it done a few days ago. I have a USB optical drive, in fact a couple of them, but an internal one is just a nicer thing to deal with. It is my understanding that no one is actually manufacturing those external optical drives anymore; that the ones you see on Amazon with god knows what branding are old laptop drives of whatever spec stuffed into a new case with a USB controller. They’re flaky, janky, and flimsy. Plus there’s never anywhere to put them; they come with short little cables so they’re invariably hard to plug in. So instead I ganked a blu-ray reader/DVD writer drive out of an old Dell I have lying around and installed that, and man is it nicer.
My inaugural project was to make a couple of audio CDs for the car. This project involved little to no piracy; all of the audio came from legitimately purchased CDs that I bought as directly from the band as I could. I want to fund the artists, not the sniveling IP hoarders. So I’ve got discs now that have my favorite 25 out of ~120 tracks I bought from them in my cars. I ripped the discs to FLACs the second I had them and have been listening to them on my phone, my precious originals safely stored in a CD rack.
I also bought a new spindle of CD-Rs, which is also getting harder to do. The ones I bought have inkjet printable labels. And it just so happens my old inkjet printer has a disc printing feature that I’ve yet to use. So I tried it out. Getting this particular printer going in Linux for more than basic features is a no-go; CUPS+Gutenprint is available for at least a thousand makes and models of Epson printers including the models above and below mine in the range, but specifically not mine. I chose to take that personally, but in the meantime I have discs to print. Funnily enough the printer can do this without a PC at all; it has a feature specifically for printing JPGs onto discs, and another feature that I have to assume is designed specifically for piracy:
My Epson XP-830 Expression Premium “Small In One” printer has a built-in feature to copy a CD from the scanner bed to the disc tray. That is, put a CD label side down on the scanner glass, put a printable CD-R on the disc tray, and it will figure it out and copy it. I can think of no purpose for that other than to hand out copies of Now That’s What I Call Music 7 or Windows Vista Home Premium to all your high school friends. It’s useless for things like “File Archives 2011” or “Iron Butterfly Beach Party Mix” but it’s a very user friendly counterfeiting workflow.
So mostly I installed this optical drive for reading rather than writing. I can see a future where I replace this drive with an M-disc burner; I keep threatening to start a Youtube channel, and that might be how I archive video footage, but…I don’t know.
Last year a friend of mine was feeling romantic and wanted to give a physical audio disc to a crush. It’s not a mixtape but still …
I recently purchased an older vehicle that came with a standard CD player and no AUX input. Setting down to plan and burn a dozen CD-Rs was quite nostalgic. I was surprised the local mega-mart actually had them in stock.
I had a car stereo like this and I soldered a 3.5mm jack to where the audio comes into the main board from the CD player. The pins were even labelled.
A CD had to be playing for the amplifier section to be activated, so I burned a CD of silence that I made in Audacity. 👍
This is a memory trip haha! I never had to do this because I had cars with cassette decks, but folks with newer cars (maybe 07 or so?) were doing this. Auto forum days.
My car has a CD player also, and burning CDs is certainly more convenient than using the cassette player. (I did purchase the car new, but I guess I’ve had it a while)
Do the cars also lack radio? Bluetooth to radio transmitters have been around and are decent
I…I have never heard of these. Unfortunately, the car’s antenna was damaged years ago, so I’d have to work the corroded, broken remains out of the socket before attaching a new one. Might do this, thanks.
Where I live there are few unused radio frequencies.
And if you drive for 20 minutes to another region you’ll find that whatever frequency you were on is being used…
I doubt that’s a problem in the USA though.I forgot ppl live in denser areas, definitely not an issue here, Id have to change the station every 2-3 hours of driving
Gotta be easier to use a 10$ bluetooth to radio transmitter?
I’m no audiophile; but I’d rather jam toothpicks in my ears.
So you never tried it?
I used to work at a car audio store. I’ve installed literal hundreds of them. I guess it’s better than nothing; but I would almost rather sing to myself. The only decent ones are the ones that physically plug inline with your antenna. The broadcast style are so limited in power that they don’t work very well with the crowded local FM band (I swear some of these stations are broadcasting way above their limit)
I guess I am probably pickier than most when it comes to sound quality.
