Looking for most inexpensive universal disc player recommendations...NOT SONY!

[stoopid]

But do we know for sure that these players will play the obscure burnt media the Sony failed on?

It does specifically list "CD-R/RW, DVD±R/RW, DVD±R DL, BD-R/RE" in the media types list. But as we all know, that doesn't guarantee specific blank discs with custom authoring. Again, my experience with the Sony UBP-X800M2 is that it plays most burned media I have. Issues seem random and/or specific to certain media or authoring of the content on the disc.

$1500 for a bluray/dvd/cd player is steep. It looks good on paper. As I've speculated earlier in this topic, eventually there will be affordable options in this class player due to the relatively low cost of entry to make electronics nowadays. Someone will come out with a similar $500 player and still make a hefty profit. This assumes Sony discontinues the excellent UBP-X800M2, which has not been announced. For all we know, they'll keep making this player for years to come.

 

[Sal1950]

$1500 for a bluray/dvd/cd player is steep. It looks good on paper. As I've speculated earlier in this topic, eventually there will be affordable options in this class player due to the relatively low cost of entry to make electronics nowadays. Someone will come out with a similar $500 player and still make a hefty profit. This assumes Sony discontinues the excellent UBP-X800M2, which has not been announced. For all we know, they'll keep making this player for years to come.

Maybe, but the market for optical media really is dying, time will tell I guess.
Since the X800M2 has been on sale for around $229 most everywhere lately I have a feeling this is dealer closeout pricing. As I mentioned earlier, I just grabbed one up from BestBuy for backup. It really is a hell of a player, built like a tank, glass smooth and quiet transport, etc; the should last many years.

Only the Magnetar 900 offers 7ch analog out like some Oppos and to my knowledge none have undergone extensive measurement to see if they come close to measuring up to the Oppo 205's outstanding DAC performance, that quality audio feature was the Oppo's big claim to fame. I tend to doubt it since AFAIK the ultra quality DAC the Oppo used disappeared from the market in the AKM factory fire?

I tend to wonder if those of you looking to support the somewhat rare burnable media wouldn't be better off just using a PC with a quality transport and it's supporting software?
Just a thought.

 

[mandrix]

Not trying to beat a dead horse here, but I think it's perfectly reasonable that a disc player with DVDA playback capability play a burned DVDA.
Same with DVD's.

There are those of us that Author DVDA discs, not for the purpose of bootlegging a damn thing. I for one could not afford to have any discs pressed.

For some it's just authoring and burning old Quad that has been OOP for decades, e.g. for personal use. There also is, or was, a small German label that used to sell content on burned DVDA, perfectly legit AFAIK, featuring bands not so well known, and NOT bootlegged material.

I totally get that a Sony player would not play back SACD-R discs, that would be against their interests. But I have other disc players that will.

There are really no software players that will play DVDA that will show menus, graphics, etc, since PowerDVD stopped around v10 I think.

I use my pc 99% of the time to play music in .iso format mainly from my rips or whatever format a paid download is in. But for me, authoring a DVDA, though rare these days, needs be vetted on a hardware player because little "bugs" can creep in, and because that's just the way I do things.

 

[Sal1950]

But for me, authoring a DVDA, though rare these days, needs be vetted on a hardware player because little "bugs" can creep in, and because that's just the way I do things.

Send me one.

 

[jimfisheye]

This is a little anecdotal but I've noticed that the Pioneer BDR-206D I bought in 2011 seems to be a champ reading old home burnt CDRs, DVDRs, etc. Yes, BDRs too! While many other various apparently fully functional drives can struggle.

$1500?!?! That better be pretty highly specialty! It should be able to still read discs that are smashed to pieces with that price tag! I'd need to see claims of data reconstruction ability and all kinds of things for anything near that kind of price. The Pioneer was around $200 back then. $100 product nowadays.

 

[Owen Smith]

$1500?!?! That better be pretty highly specialty! It should be able to still read discs that are smashed to pieces with that price tag! I'd need to see claims of data reconstruction ability and all kinds of things for anything near that kind of price. The Pioneer was around $200 back then. $100 product nowadays.

Don't know where the $1500 comes from but you can buy a used Oppo 203 for about half that.

 

[jimfisheye]

I don't know if there's some optical drive that's considered the god-king-one-to-read-them-all of optical drives. Recommended by data archivists, etc etc. I'm listening though if someone thinks they know something!

 

[mandrix]

I don't know if there's some optical drive that's considered the god-king-one-to-read-them-all of optical drives. Recommended by data archivists, etc etc. I'm listening though if someone thinks they know something!

Recommended by data archivists?? If you want long disc life beyond your lifetime, there are discs that supposedly do that and the firmware is already built into most modern pc optical drives.
It's not so much what a disc player can read it's the restrictions that Sony and others tried to ram down all the manufacturers throats, with great success.

 

[Owen Smith]

It's not so much what a disc player can read it's the restrictions that Sony and others tried to ram down all the manufacturers throats, with great success.

Indeed. My Oppo 95 plays SACD-R and ignores DVD-A watermarking. My Oppo 203 could do the same but Sony et al prevented that.

 

[jimfisheye]

Yeah I was thinking more about when the drive can't tell between a one or zero data point anymore than copy protection gone wild schemes doing their thing.

 

[Owen Smith]

Yeah I was thinking more about when the drive can't tell between a one or zero data point anymore than copy protection gone wild schemes doing their thing.

I don't think there's any data about which drives are better at that.

 

[mandrix]

Yeah the disc player drives can detect whether a disc is pressed or burned. How that's implemented varies.
I have read that some pc optical drives will not play some discs, although I only use mine to rip, not for playback.

 

[jimfisheye]

Now I'm curious if anyone makes any kind of - maybe let's call it a scanner - that can scan the surface of the disc in high resolution and read faded or otherwise damaged discs. Thinking of burned discs with dye that might fade or however it becomes unreadable. Wonder about optical scanning with vinyl too! Maybe the optics needed would still be very challenging? I wonder if this is too challenging or just too niche.

 

[stoopid]

Now I'm curious if anyone makes any kind of - maybe let's call it a scanner - that can scan the surface of the disc in high resolution and read faded or otherwise damaged discs. Thinking of burned discs with dye that might fade or however it becomes unreadable. Wonder about optical scanning with vinyl too! Maybe the optics needed would still be very challenging? I wonder if this is too challenging or just too niche.

Best strategy is to make new copies of any OOP burned media every 10 years or so, to stay ahead of the burned disc degradation curve. I have burned discs that are fine 10+ years on, but specific brand disc burned at specific speeds, environmental factors, etc make it all way too variable though to blindly trust anecdotal experience.

 

[jimfisheye]

No disagreement there! I'm thinking of restoration scenarios.

 

[mandrix]

Well M Disc is supposed to be the best archival disc media available, AFAIK. sort of pricey...at my age not super worried as I have digital copies of my surround.
Most pc optical drives these days seem to support M Disc. I have two Pioneer drives that do; one for a full size bay in a pc: a rebranded Pioneer > Verbatim external drive.
I HAVE had a few purchased discs, and a few burned discs succumb to "disc rot" or whatever you wish to call it. But these are the exception, not the norm.
The most recent I can think of offhand is Styx - The Grand Illusion: Pieces of Eight BD. One day it just refused to play. But I had a backup .iso copy and burned it, even printing the disc art on the disc with my Canon printer. Love that printer for it's capability to print on an inkjet printable disc.

The weirdness: I have no idea why on that day, I decided to look through the racks for that one disc when I had the .iso on my pc.

 

[barfle]

I don't know if there's some optical drive that's considered the god-king-one-to-read-them-all of optical drives. Recommended by data archivists, etc etc. I'm listening though if someone thinks they know something!

There’s a disc format known as “M-disc” that supposedly will last 1000 years. My burners are supposedly capable of burning them, but they are not cheap, and frankly I’ve only had a couple of CDs age out, and those were kept in a car for a decade or so. Since I made the first ones, the replacements were simple.

 

[barfle]

Now I'm curious if anyone makes any kind of - maybe let's call it a scanner - that can scan the surface of the disc in high resolution and read faded or otherwise damaged discs. Thinking of burned discs with dye that might fade or however it becomes unreadable. Wonder about optical scanning with vinyl too! Maybe the optics needed would still be very challenging? I wonder if this is too challenging or just too niche.

I recall reading an article about the Smithsonian scanning old records in an attempt at reading them without contacting the surface, but I never found out if it worked.

I also recall reading about laser-based record players, but they were pretty sensitive to stuff that apparently couldn’t be controlled. But with some record players having six-figure price tags (and the first figure isn’t 1), it seems like there might be a way to try that again.

 

[mandrix]

I recall reading an article about the Smithsonian scanning old records in an attempt at reading them without contacting the surface, but I never found out if it worked.

I also recall reading about laser-based record players, but they were pretty sensitive to stuff that apparently couldn’t be controlled. But with some record players having six-figure price tags (and the first figure isn’t 1), it seems like there might be a way to try that again.

It's already a reality. There is a member that has one.

 

[barfle]

It's already a reality. There is a member that has one.

I know the optical record players were around, but from what I read (zero personal experience), they had a lot of issues.