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Yamaha To Withdraw From CD-R/RW Business 348

Posted by timothy from the when-giants-reconsider dept.
An anonymous reader writes "What's going on. When I first heard this I thought it was a bad joke. They make great burners! 'Tokyo, February 5, 2003 - Yamaha Corp. decided at a board meeting to cease sales of CD-R/RWs for personal computers and to withdraw completely from the business by the end of March 2003.'" Does any other company make burners that can burn an image on the CD?
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Yamaha To Withdraw From CD-R/RW Business More

Yamaha To Withdraw From CD-R/RW Business

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  • I never liked Yamaha (Score:2, Informative)

    by pfguy ( 321202 )
    Back when I used to work at BestBuy I got a great deal on a 24x burner, but I had so many problems with it that I returned it for a 12x TDK VeloCD. I guess I don't really care if Yamaha stops making them, as I wouldn't buy one.

    • Re:I never liked Yamaha (Score:5, Informative)

      by NoahsMyBro ( 569357 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @05:44PM (#5297440)
      I've ranted about Yamaha on many web forums previously, so I'll be brief here.

      In a nutshell, I bought a Yamaha SCSI CD-RW drive about 3 or 4 years ago for about $300. Within 2 months it died. For over a year Yamaha Tech Support (including Phone, Fax, & Email) absolutely, stubbornly insisted the problems were software-related, in spite of the fact that I had tried the drive with multiple software packages, on 3 different PCs running 3 different OSes.

      Then, one day I worked up the energy to call them yet again for help. This time, with a record of my previous contacts right in front of him, a rep told me that "the burner certainly did seem to be broken, sorry, and oh yeah, it was out of warranty so he couldn't do anything for me. But in a few weeks there was going to be an unadvertised promotion whereby I could trade in my old unit for a discount on a brand-new one, so I should call back in a few weeks." He adamantly refused to let me speak to a supervisor, repeatedly claiming he was the top guy and there was nobody above him I could speak to.

      Since then I've refused to knowingly buy anything from Yamaha (including a Ford SHO with a Yamaha-engine), and I've told anybody that will listen about this.

      I only hope this is the start of a steady downfall for the crooks.

      (Sorry, I tried to be brief, but got carried away...)

    • Re:I never liked Yamaha (Score:5, Informative)

      by Chupa ( 17993 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @06:11PM (#5297602)
      My first CD burner was a SCSI 4/4/16 Yamaha drive...failed in less than a year. I sent it back for warranty service after dealing with an extremely rude customer service rep. When I got it back, the drive tray would not open all the way and would instead jam. I opened it up and fixed the problem (bent support) and the drive worked after that. At least it did for another 6 months, whereupon it quit working again (basically would not burn CD-Rs that anything, including that drive, could read, regardless of the media quality).

      So I decided it was time for a new drive. Being the retard I am, I spent $250 on another Yamaha SCSI CDRW drive, this time a 16/10/32 model. It's been about two years, and I once again regret my decision...although it is not as bad as the first drive, this one will not burn CDRs readable in other drives unless I do it with the absolute best media available and at a max speed of 8x.

      About 8 months ago I got a Dell inspiron notebook that came with a TEAC 16/10/32 CDRW drive. This thing works perfectly, not a single problem. Now I do all my burning on it, leaving my expensive Yamaha crap aloneb.

      So basically I also could care less that Yamaha has quit making CDRW drives. Good riddance.

  • it's all about dvd's baby... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by goofballs ( 585077 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @05:24PM (#5297271)
    cd-r/w's are running into the $40 range these days- yamaha doesn't want to / can't compete at those prices, so they'll stick with higher margin dvd burners. makes good business sense.
    • CD burners have pretty much reached the end of the road for development, and there's not much money to be made at these prices. My Liteon 52x costs about $55, and you can't spin a CD much faster than 52x without it disintegrating (that's 52x on the outer tracks which is about 24x on the inner tracks at the same rpm). Kenwood has made faster CDROM drives using multiple lasers to read, but noone's tried it with CD-Rs yet.
      • Ok, maybe i'm being silly here, but what the heck difference does it matter whether its on the inside tracks or outside as far as speed goes? Is it not about RPMS rather than angular velocity? Outer tracks contain more info than inner tracks? This seems kind of strange.
        • RPMs == angular velocity. 2 * pi radians/second == 60 RPM. Are you perhaps thinking peripheral velocity?
        • I think he is referring to the velocity of the disk under the laser. On the outside, a cd-rom laser has a lot more disk go by it in the same amount of time, while on the inside the same amount of time results in less data being read. Angular velocity is equivalent to RPMs, the specification under discussion is the linear velocity of the disk under the laser.
        • Somebody more familiar with the issue can correct me if I'm wrong, but here goes my explanation.

          Most CD drives today are rated according to their linear velocity. I think, not sure, that most CD drives spin at a constant angular velocity (RPM, rad/s); therefore, when you are near the center of the disc, the linear velocity is slower (lin_vel = radius * ang_vel, or something similar to this at least). Similarly, near the outer edges, the linear velocity is substantially larger.

          In the good old days, most CD drives were rated according to their angular velocity. The CD always spun fastest when reading near the center of the disc and slowed down when reading the outer edges. You can only spin a disc so fast before it tears apart. (Some guys did an experiment to see how fast you can spin a CD before tearing apart; however, I forget the URL.) If I remember correctly, I think these drive maintain a more uniform transfer speed off the CD as well.

          Or at least I believe that's correct.
        • These disks spin at constant angular velocity. That means the oustide spins faster than the inside.
          • The outside does not spin faster. It spins at the exact same speed as the inside. The outside moves faster, therefore it is the limiting factor on the amount of information that can move past the laser.

        • Re:it's all about dvd's baby... (Score:5, Informative)

          by singularity ( 2031 ) <nowalmart@g[ ]l.com ['mai' in gap]> on Thursday February 13, 2003 @06:33PM (#5297758) Homepage Journal
          Point 1: CD speed (both reading and writing) is measured in data/time. In this case it is measured in chunks of 150kb/s. That is to say that a 2x CD-ROM drive could read 300kilobytes per second.

          Point 2: You make reference to this - angular velocity and linear velocity are going to be different based on where you are on the CD.

          The outer tracks obviously hold more data - the track length is longer ("track length" probably not the technical term, but I am using it to mean how far it is around at a certain spot on the CD). Using our familiar Circumference = (2 * r * pi) formula, we can see that as the radius increases (the distance away from the center of the CD), the length of the track length increases, as well.

          CDs store data as digital data stored in non-reflective pits on an otherwise reflective surface. These pits are a certain distance apart. This distance does not change as you get father out, and the size of the pits is a constant, as well.

          Think about cars parked in a spiral pattern. The farther you get out from the middle, the more cars are in each loop.

          So what does this mean for our CD-RW? Toward the middle of the CD, the CD is spinning at a certain constant rate. However, only so many pits are going by each second. For a 52x CD-RW, there are about (24) x (150kb) each second. As the laser moves out (since CDs burn from inside to the outside), the CD RPM stays the same, but now there are more pits flying by each second. Towards the outside, there are (52) x (150kb) each second.

          So the angular velocity (RPMs) does not change that much while burning. The linear velocity, however (how many pits are going by) changes greatly, more than twice as much.

          This is actually somewhat of an over-simplification, since modern CD-RWs use a mix of both CAV and CLV technologies.

          Two (or three) interesting side notes: DVDs work using several more technologies, but the end result is the same. For one thing, the pits used in DVDs are much smaller, as are the tracks. This allows a lot more information to be stored on a single DVD. In addition, DVDs are capable of using multiple layers using different laser wavelengths. So when the DVD player changes layers, the laser changes wavelengths, allowing it to "ignore" the pits on the first layer and instead read the pits on the second layer.

          In addition, DVD drives are measured using a different unit than CDs. At 150kb/s, a DVD would be an extremely fast CD drive reading off a DVD. A single layer DVD read at 1x is about 1.321 MB/s. More information about the speeds between CDs and DVDs can be found on the DVD FAQ [thedigitalbits.com]

          An interesting historical note: Laserdiscs could be found in both CLV and CAV formats. CAV (Constant Angular Velocity) discs came first, and had one frame per revolution (or maybe more, but there was a ratio between frames and revolutions). CLV (Constanst Linear Velocity) discs came later, and used a technology closer to CDs - allowing multiple frames per revolution, with the rate being based more on location on the disk. This allows for more information per disc (thus Laserdisc being called "CAV Standard" and "CLV Extended Play"

          And hopefully this has been "more than you ever wanted to know about angular and linear velocity of optical discs."

  • Doesn't hurt me (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Apreche ( 239272 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @05:26PM (#5297285) Homepage Journal
    Yeah, they made good burners. But any tech geek worth his salt knows Plextor is besto. I have an old plextor 8/4/32a. It burns a cdr in about 10 minutes. It can get by any sort of copy protection with the appropriate software. And I've never had buffer underrun. Ever. The newer Plextors are even faster and even more high quality. No burner is better. So, even though Yamaha burners don't suck, cause they don't, they aren't the best. And I probably would never have bought one. So, who cares.

    • Re:Doesn't hurt me (Score:3, Insightful)

      by sweetooth ( 21075 )
      I agree. I've had a couple of Plextors, and a couple of Yamahas. The Plextors have been better overall. Also, after the last Yamaha I bought I'll never buy one again. It was one of thier 16x burnders that sounds like a jet engine every time a disc spins up in it.

    • Re:Doesn't hurt me (Score:5, Informative)

      by Zathrus ( 232140 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @05:36PM (#5297378) Homepage
      Of course, tech geeks who really have a clue know that it doesn't matter anymore.

      Virtually all of the CD-RW's out there can burn any CD, regardless of copy protection, as long as you use the right software. None of them cause buffer underruns. And while they may not be better than a Plextor, they're not worse either.

      Of course, if you include cost then they are better - about 1/2-1/4 the price. For the same stuff.

      • Re:Doesn't hurt me (Score:4, Funny)

        by antirename ( 556799 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @06:59PM (#5297894)
        I have a Plextor, and I love it. Hell, I spilled beer in it and still works :) Try that with a lesser drive. If you spill a beer down the front of your computer, just wiping the mess off the case doesn't quite work. Beer is sneaky, and will wick into the cracks around CD trays, making the effort pointless. You will have to take the drive out and clean it of all traces of beer, especially the beer that is gluing your tray in place. Of course, this information is purely subjective as I haven't actually tried this with a lesser drive. If you want objective information instead of personal pet peeves and experience, spill some beer in your drive. Then let me know how it worked out for you. The guy with the "don't feed your computer beer" sig may have other insights on this issue.
      • I'm afraid you're wrong here. Before I switched to Plextor drives I had countless problems with drive compatibility of the CDs I burned. When I would burn a VCD, I would get countless data-loss artifacts... when I'd burn an audio CD, I'd get pops and crackes in the music. Plextor drives put your data on your CD exactly the way you master it. Maybe that's true of some other companies, but it's certainly NOT true of the majority.

    • Re:Doesn't hurt me (Score:2, Informative)

      by pokka ( 557695 )
      "But any tech geek worth his salt knows Plextor is besto"

      This was true 3-4 years ago when CD-R drives were less common and more expensive, but times have changed.

      Lite-On makes some of the least expensive drives you can buy, yet they are top quality. They consistently beat Plextor and other expensive brands, not only in burning performance, but in ripping audio and reading data. Lite-On drives are one of the few brands that have a dead-on implementation of C2 Error detection, which is great for anyone who is serious about ripping their CDs to digital format. See Nero's Advanced DAE Error test results [cdspeed2000.com] and you'll see Lite-on in 3 out of the 10 top spots. Not bad for a $48 48x CD-R drive.

      And this probably the exact reason that Yamaha is backing out. They can match the quality or the price, but they can't match both.
    • But any tech geek worth his salt knows Plextor is besto

      Any Tech Geek worth his salt burns his OWN CDs with a modified laser pointer, some chewing gum, a lighter, and Duct Tape.

      The good ones don't even need the CD.

      Amateurs.

    • Re:Doesn't hurt me (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Jucius Maximus ( 229128 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @06:55PM (#5297886) Journal
      "But any tech geek worth his salt knows Plextor is besto. I have an old plextor 8/4/32a. It burns a cdr in about 10 minutes. It can get by any sort of copy protection with the appropriate software. And I've never had buffer underrun. Ever. The newer Plextors are even faster and even more high quality. No burner is better."

      You've got that right. I've owned 2 plextors now (both IDE CD-R/w drives) and they were 100% solid with no problems ever. And I never found a copy protected CD which couldn't be properly ripped and then backed up with my drive.

      One other good thing is that if you life in Europe and buy a Plextor burner, you'll get a copy of Nero, which is IMO one of the best burning programs out there. Too bad they ship the Roxio EasyCD crap in North America.

  • profits are leaving the CD-RW market (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Indy1 ( 99447 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @05:27PM (#5297290)
    and yamaha knows they arent in a position to compete with the likes of Lite-on, Msi, LG, etc. Face it, the CD-RW has reached the end point as far as innovation goes. A modern Lite-on burner can record to even the shittiest media, handles most forms of copy protection without grief, can be purchased for under $60, and never coasters a disk.

    The next big frontier is Dvd recorderables, which is still a mess. And i am sure thats what yamaha is looking at for potential profits.

    • Very true... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by MadAnthony02 ( 626886 )

      How cheap are CD Burners? This week, OfficeMax ran a promotion where you buy a Cendyne 48x burner and a 100 pack of cd-r's, they would give you the burner free after 2 rebates. Yes, I know alot of people hate rebates, but $25 for a burner and 100 cd's is pretty cheap, and there can't be much in the way of profits in that. I regularly see retailers offering 48x burners for $10 to $20 after rebates. That's cheaper than retail on a CD-ROM.

    • Do you mean that it can automatically not be fooled by copy-protected audio CDs?

      • thats a MESS admittedly. It depends on what scheme they use for copy protection, but a lot of the protection schemes used for audio disks prevent them from EVEN being played in any sort of computer cdrom or cd-rw drive. Some car stereo's cant even handle these schemes. If your a big music phile and want to make backups of your disks, the best way to go is get a stereo with a good digitial or optical out, run it into your sound card, record it as a wave file, then use your favorite mp3 codec ( i suggest lame naturally) for the backups. I'm just glad all the music i like (60's and 70's rock) is already out there, so audio copy protection for me is a mute point.

        Of course, you just end up hitting Kazaa, and give the riaa fascists a giant middle finger anyways : )
        • I'm familiar with the copy protection schemes that futz with the layout and how they don't work with CDROM drives.

          It was also my understanding that it was possible for CD ROM vendors to upgrade the drive firmware to not be fooled by these schemes (DMCA, yadda yadda).

          I thought you might have meant that some of new cheapies cdrws out of asia had newer firmware that wasn't as fooled by these schemes.

        • Re:copy protected audio cd's (Score:4, Funny)

          by be-fan ( 61476 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @06:19PM (#5297673)
          mute point
          >>>>>>>>>
          That's 'moot' point. But given the topic of discussion, that's a very interesting play on words :)
    • I can attest to those Lite-On burners. I got my 52x24x52x for less than $65 including tax and fedex, and it is simply the best CD burner I've ever owned. If you're in the market for an IDE drive, you can't beat the Lite-On 48x or 52x for price/performance. 24x re-write capability sounds great; I just haven't picked up any fast RW disks yet.

      Some items of interest regarding these Lite-Ons (I don't work for them....really):

      - Copy protected software CDs are handled well. Copy-protected audio CDs are not (as expected).
      - Many (if not most or all) Sony, Memorex, and Cendyne IDE CD-RW drives are Lite-Ons that can be flashed to use the Lite-On firmware (to gain Mt. Rainier RW support, for example). They all share the same face plate if they are Lite-Ons - manual eject hole directly above the right side of the volume control. If you can get a good deal on any of them, you will be very happy with it. But Lite-Ons are typically even cheaper than these other brands, including after rebate deals.
      - In Windows, CloneCD loves this drive, and if you buy Lite-On brand, it comes with Nero.
      - Disk eject sounds noisy, but that's because the mechanism is gear-driven, not belt-driven. Disk writing is mostly quiet.
      - It only has a 2MB buffer, whereas other drives have 4MB and 8MB buffers now. Not too bad, especially if your burning software can take advantage of Smart-Burn, like Nero.

      Lite-On seems to be pushing Plextor around these days, especially when IDE Plextors are about $40 more expensive and are not as accurate as the Lite-Ons. I'm not surprised that Yamaha is backing away from this market, when good drives are getting so cheap as to be unprofitable for upscale manufacturers. They will be missed for their super-fast and accurate SCSI RW "tattoo" drives, though.

  • as long as.. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by crumbz ( 41803 ) <.<remove_spam>ju ... spam>gmail.com.> on Thursday February 13, 2003 @05:27PM (#5297291) Homepage
    ..they keeping making cycles like the YZF R-1 I'm happy. CD burners are a commodity item, I don't care about the brand name. Remember, they are the music & motorcycles company.

  • In related news..... (Score:5, Funny)

    by mao che minh ( 611166 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @05:27PM (#5297293) Journal
    In related news an RIAA accountant reported the mysterious dissapearence of millions of dollars from the organizations budget. Across the Pacific in Tokyo, a Yamaha senior exectuive just bought himself a new Ferrari.

    • Re:In related news..... (Score:4, Funny)

      by vrassoc ( 581619 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @06:27PM (#5297722)

      ...the executive has since claimed that he merely stated in a meeting: "No mo' seedy 'all", meaning, "No more city hall", because he was tired of the endless tea ceremonies that he had to attend with city officials.

      Unfortunately "No mo' seedy 'all" was interpreted by his pretty, blonde secretary who was taking minutes, as "No more CD-R". He has denied owning a Ferrari.

  • Makes sense: (Score:3, Insightful)

    by holysin ( 549880 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @05:27PM (#5297298) Homepage
    a) burning "images" on a cd i just a marketing thing, generally speaking the average user that burns cds would like to use ALL of the cd for data (or music!!!!) storage. b) as has been mentioned before, cdrws are cheap, they will remain cheap, therefor they can't mark up the cdrws to the place where they will be happy. (Thank companies like lite-on.... I do daily :) ). Yamaha's have always been known as decent burners, if more then a little overpriced. They won't be missed by most of the community.
    • Hell no! I use CDs largely for backups and shifting project trees to and from work. They are seldom more than 40-50% full. As there is never a permanent marker around when I want one, and as my handwriting is at best messy, I would love to be able to use this as a means of labelling CDs. If the tool could take the CD title and append the date and time, and image that onto the data side of the disk then that would be perfect.

      • Re:Makes sense: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by holysin ( 549880 )
        Well, it CAN I'm sure (but only with nero 5.5 it seems ;-) ), however the yamaha (44x)cd burner that does this is between 69 (refurbished) and 86+ bucks a pop (new) after being out for 3+ months. The refurbished price is more then lite-on's 52x24x52 drive is new... true you don't save much time, but since the tattoing also takes "a while", you're sacrificing even more speed. If I absolutely have to label a cd for others to read (remember, this is on the data side, so if you're giving it to a non tech person, and you do support be ready to support why the cd doesn't work if you don't make sure they understand that the label is on the bottom :) ), I'd label the top of a cd with a cheap cd label :) But for the most part, I just use a sharpe, and try to read my handwriting :) (I keep one sharpe connected to my burning computer since I keep losing my sharpes ;-) ) Some say it doesn't decrease the total writable area of the cdr (if you don't overburn), but since I haven't actually spent the $ to try this technology I can't confirm or deny that it will let you stuff a cd full of music/data and label it too, to quote the article: "On a tattooed CD-R, there will be a zone with data encoded by the EFM process and another corresponding to the blank data-free spaces, where graphics and text will be visible. " if your cd is 75% full it'll let you tattoo it, but at 100% or 101 I wonder if it still will, anyone have one of these and want to chime in? To me it's useless, and I'm a gadget guy, I guess I just am more of a speed freak then a gadget guy (or maybe I'm just price concious...) I'm guessing this "tattooing" drive didn't give Yamaha the boost they wanted.

        • Re:Makes sense: (Score:2, Informative)

          by mattyohe ( 517995 )
          People don't know what/who to believe in on slashdot anymore.. So here is a link to CNet:

          http://hwreviews.netscape.com/hardware/0-1095-405- 20192504-2.html?tag=rating [netscape.com]

          By far, the Yamaha's most interesting feature is its DiscT@2 (or Disc Tattoo) Laser Labeling System, which lets you burn graphics and text, such as signatures, logos, or pictures, directly onto the unused portion of CD-Rs. For example, you could burn the words 2001 Holiday Season all the way around the edge of a CD-R containing family photos. You can use any CD-R media with DiscT@2, regardless of brand name or speed, but we found the text to be more visible on CD-Rs with a dark-blue dye. On the downside, the DiscT@2 software can be difficult to master, and the included manual provides little instruction.

  • DVD-RW's ? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by $$$$$exyGal ( 638164 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @05:28PM (#5297301) Homepage Journal
    They'll probably just focus more on DVD-RW's.

    --sex [slashdot.org]

    • That will only be a focus if the standard sticks. What about DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD+RW, et al.? The market is wide open, but the industry cannot come up with a standardization for the alphabet soup of formats. I think the cost benefits for focusing on the DVD writeable formats won't be realized until the standard is well...standard.
      • Still, what better way to make one standard win over the others than by making it more affordable? not to resume the volatile Beta/VHS arguement, but wide availability and affordability make it possible to get that standard. Perhaps Yamaha wants this.
    • Sony decided to leave the small CRT market to focus on flat screens, why should Yamaha not do the same with their CDR to DVDRs? granted the article doesn't say that is the objective, but producing less variety of models but mass producing the ones you do make does have the effect of making each unit cheaper, provided the public actually buys them at the lower rate (hopefully) charged due to the savings on production and development costs of a few products rather than a dozen similar ones.

    • dash-RW or plus-RW?

      They need to decide.
      • Or do like Sony did and support both... Their latest DVD burner is a CD-R CD-RW DVD-R DVD-RW DVD+R DVD+RW recorder. Though I'll only use +R or +RW for someone else that has only a + drive. -R and -RW are far more consumer device (DVD player) compatible...
  • Whether this is out of respect for DVD burners or our of fear of competition, it is simply in reaction to an ever evolving tech market. CRT's are going away...floppies are dead...finally.

    List of things that won't be around much longer:
    • modems
    • wired keyboards/mice
    • 700~800mb CDs
    • analog displays
    • [shaking head]... I'm so glad there is somebody willing to be on the cutting edge of tech products. They make regular, reliable products so much cheaper for the rest of us.

    • Re:beat goes on (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Mr. Sketch ( 111112 )
      The only I must disagree with is the wired keyboards/mice. I will probably always prefer a corded mice/keyboard to a non-corded version primary for latency/security/lan party issues. Until the wireless versions become as secure as the corded version, I think they'll stay around for a while.

    • Re:beat goes on (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Zathrus ( 232140 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @05:42PM (#5297427) Homepage
      modems

      Except for the majority of the world who can't get any form of high speed access. But cell phones and landlines work just fine for low speed modems.

      wired keyboards/mice

      Except for the vast number of users who don't like replacing batteries in their keyboard/mouse, don't like the interference problems, and don't like the additional latency.

      700~800mb CDs

      Ok... I'll agree these are doomed to obscurity, but not for another 5 years or so. Maybe more. The DVD rewriteable market is still busy screwing itself due to a lack of standards. Until one clear standard comes about (or the various standards become irrelevant due to writer and reader interoperability) CD-R/RW is going to keep a huge chunk of the market.

      analog displays

      Except that CRT tubes still give far better blacks than any digital display, and do better than any current production method for color range, color accuracy, refresh, and half a dozen other things... yeah, I want my HDTV to be DLP/LCD/LCOS/D-ILA, but it has a lot less strenuous requirements than a monitor.
      • Except for the majority of the world who can't get any form of high speed access. But cell phones and landlines work just fine for low speed modems. Right now, yes. But, it is a matter of maybe ten years before wireless broadband makes regular modems useless in the first world.
    • Modems - There's still far from a guarantee that you'll find a high speed connection everywhere you go, with your laptop. Modems are going to be around for quite awhile still.

      Wired I/O devices - Hmmm. First of all, managing a compact office area, with lots of users in it, would be a nightmare if everyone was wireless. They work ok, if everyone's spread out. But in a very dense working environment, logistically, they would totally suck. And further more, while a wireless mouse *may* almost be worth the trouble. I don't see the point of a wireless keyboard, at all. It just doesn't move that much on a given day. And even if you did want to move around, how far can you get from the screen before you can't see what you're doing anyhow.
    • Floppies are commodity items. Yeah, you can buy them for free (AR). Monitors are cheaper than LCD.

      If you do any system administration at all, then you are still using floppies. With a proper boot floppy, you can make OTHER boot floppies. I still don't see and CD boot disks in circulation that can do this quickly and easily.

      CRTs, dead? Whatever. I don't see everyone throwing them out in a rush for LCDs. A few businesses are buying them for cramped quarters (such as front desks), but other than that I don't see them anywhere. None of my gamer friends use them, they don't look as good. Schools can't afford to just drop their investment in CRTs to replace them with the newest thing. Ask any graphic designer with a monitor 21"+ if they want to trade one in for a more expensive, smaller, lower quality LCD.

      Methinks you are a tool of the bleeding edge. Just because new tech comes out, doesn't make the old stuff irrelevant or any less usefull.

      And someone else already covered this, but modems are not going anywhere. Ask anyone with a laptop if they use that modem. Not everyone has access to a network port wherever they go. Wireless may become the standard, but as it's popularity grows, it's available bandwidth per person will shrink.

      I think this is Yamaha's reaction to a commodity market. I have always seen Yamaha's products as overpriced and not necessarily better. Good riddance. Yeah, the image writing drive looked cool, but I try to fill my discs to capacity as a rule. I usually get to within 100 megs of capacity, which doesn't leave much room for images.
      • I have four computers....two of them are laptops. Only one doesn't have a modem. I travel internationally and I have not fired up a modem in over two years. 802.11b or 10/100 wired everywhere I go.

        I work for one of the largest display manufs. in the world. I know where CRT's are headed, and when. Graphic designers are all over us for our 19 ~ 20" LCDs.
        I use Mac, Linux and NT....every day. I have not touched a floppy in over a year. USB keychain or Compact Flash or CD-R.

        100 megs free? I have over 300gb online...and that's just at home. I burn DVD backups when needed and use mobile trays for my small (10~20gb drives).

  • Well, I work for a small OEM... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Akardam ( 186995 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @05:28PM (#5297308)
    ... and it's been my experience that there are cheaper and more reliable alternatives out there now. Samsung in particular is what we use most of the time. They're inexpensive and reliable, and we've had maybe 1 bad unit in 500. I don't remember exact numbers, but we used to have a pretty high DOA or >6mo failure on the Yamaha IDE burners (their SCSI burners were always great, but then again they were expensive, too).

    On a broader view, I see that burners are becoming commodized (sp?). Anyone can make a burner these days. Perhaps they'll stay in the semi-cutting edge markets like DVD burning?
    • Their SCSI drives were good until they started releasing those IDE drives with SCSI connector converters. Those converters were the cause of much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

      Their email tech support also sucked/sucks eggs. If you managed to get a response, it was always to the effect of PEBKAC. Funnily enough in my case, the problem was alsways resolved by replacing the often-flawed Yamaha hardware.

  • This was known for while (Score:5, Informative)

    by Escher0 ( 525081 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @05:31PM (#5297329)
    I remember reading a review of the burner that makes images on the cd and vaugely rememeber reading that this was going to be their last drive.

    Found the link, its here: http://www6.tomshardware.com/storage/20020927/inde x.html

    and the quote:
    "Since the CRW 3200, Yamaha had been sitting on the sidelines of the speed race with no offer of a 32 or 40X recorder, as opposed to the rest of the providers in the market, though they were by no means resting on their laurels. They were actually developing what was to become their last CD-RW recorder before going on to the DVD+RW."

  • They will be missed. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jstockdale ( 258118 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @05:31PM (#5297330) Homepage Journal
    I don't know how many other people out there were dedicated fans of Yamaha's drives, but I can tell you as a user who owns both their old 6x4x16 and 24x10x40 model of internal SCSI burners that they are really unparalleled. For the upper end market demanding the performance of SCSI (which most other drive makers have abandoned, but alas I won't go off on my SCSI rant today :) these were the best drives, and were reliable (almost all the failed burns were a result of third party software or other software problems that resulted from my own mistakes). I recall many times when I would be burning a cd, while either doing on graphics work, gaming, or watching a movie, and these things kept on burning.

    Its a sad day to see one of the pioneers of burning technology leave the arena. They will be missed.
    • Well, the 6x4x16 that I had failed (laser stopped working, not a software problem) just after the warranty expired and they were singularly useless about getting it replaced or fixed. Basically, they offered me $50 off a new one, but it still would have cost more than other brands.

      I went and got a Teac SCSI burner and it's been fine (except for a buggy firmware release that broke cdrecord). Of course, its warranty hasn't expired yet...

    • I had a couple of Yamaha drives, and I found they were really, really picky about SCSI termination. In fact, I always suspected they caused termination problems. When I removed their drive from my system, I had many fewer SCSI problems. Of course, I'm mostly IDE these days (have an IDE DVD+RW that works fine, and am lusting after the forthcoming Plextor DVD+RW drive).
    • they are paralleled; in fact exceeded. by plextor.

  • DVDs the future (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Valiss ( 463641 )
    Hey, with new technology that allows DVD media to burn and hold 27GB of data [com.com] per side, I'm not surprised they are pulling out of CD-R/RW. Maybe they'll jump into the DVD business.

  • Overrated images... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 13, 2003 @05:33PM (#5297349)
    Those images were overrated anyways. If you look closely, you could only burn images on areas WITHOUT data. Which means a pretty picture with 15 min of music? No thanks.

    The only use I could see is if you had your portfolio / resume on there with maybe 100 megs filled, and the rest filled with the image. Still, no thanks.

  • Who cares... (Score:4, Funny)

    by jonr ( 1130 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @05:37PM (#5297384) Homepage Journal
    I only use Trogdor Burninator CD-RW drives...
  • I had a very bad experience with my Yamaha CD Burner. Basically, it never worked. I would get "Calibration Area Full" errors. I tried everything their paltry support pages recommended. Nothing worked. I even sent it back to them, but they sent it back after doing some routine maintenance and said it was working. Nope. Still didn't work. Their customer support was not helpful at all in resolving my problems. I didn't start trying to burn CDs until about 6 months after I bought the drive, so the 1 year warranty quickly ran out before I was able to get the thing fixed. I kept getting the runaround about sending it back in, or trying something else. Good riddance!
    • Was it an IDE drive? I'm not sure about those, but I've almost never heard of a problem with their SCSI drives. I have a old CRW4416S (a 4x4x16x SCSI drive) and it has taken any abuse that it gets. I've never had a single problem with it, despite things like my little sister not understanding that you need to take out the CD in the drive when you put a new one it. She asked me to fix the computer one day when one of her games wouldn't play, and I found 3 or 4 CDs in the drive. It survived just fine. I've now owned 2 drives, a IDE and a SCSI and both have been dreams to own. When they come out with a good DVD burning drive and I have use to upgrade, I'll buy Yamaha again.

      On the other hand the 2 or 3 HP drives I've tried were not worthy of paperweights.

  • but then I don't want to unintentionally purjer myself.

  • CD-R(W)s are Dead (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MBCook ( 132727 ) <foobarsoft@foobarsoft.com> on Thursday February 13, 2003 @05:51PM (#5297499) Homepage
    Let's face it, there isn't a future in CD-R(W)s. They are no longer the huge storage they used to be, and they cost so little that it's hard to make money on them. We've reached the maximum speed that we can without putting 12 lasers in each drive, etc. which wouldn't be cost effective.

    The future in in DVD[-+]R(W)s. This is where they will be able to make money, and I hope that they do enter this arena as they are, IMHO, one of the best (if not the best) makers of drives on the market. I also hope that someone brings something like their disc tatoo tech to DVD drives. While this seems like bad news, it's not all that suprising. Time goes on, new technology overtakes the old. It's digital evolution.

    Look at me, I sound like a philosopher. He he he.

  • I had a 4416 (16x write, 4x rewrite I think). It NEVER burned reliably at anything over 4x. I usually burned discs at 2x because they often failed at 4x as well.

    I actually "downgraded" to a 12x Plextor, which has been solid for a year and a half now. I won't miss Yamaha's CD-Rs.

    - A.P.
  • #@$&^@#...

    somehow I made the dumbass mistake of getting a Yamaha CD-RW that *wasn't* compatible with Mac OS X. Now my dear Blue G3 seems unable to boot from the latest OSX CDs. crud.

    fortunately, it wasn't *that* big a waste of cash, and I can probably swap it with a buddy for a good drive. [grumbling none the less]

  • Yes! Sanyo burns image. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 13, 2003 @06:11PM (#5297603)

    http://www.sunpowerusa.com/sanhelkittoa.html

  • This does not surprise me (Score:5, Interesting)

    by cdn-programmer ( 468978 ) <terr@nOspAm.terralogic.net> on Thursday February 13, 2003 @06:49PM (#5297849)
    There is no money in it. Other companies like Fujitsu also pulled out of part of the industry - IE. IDE hard drives.

    If you look at the HP line of laser printers I think you'll see they cheapened and cheapened them from the Laserjet III to the present models.

    Then look at your consumer PC's and we see the same thing... cheaper and cheaper - but a few years ago they had 5 or more PCI slots - now we see 3 slots - but in a mini tower. haha.

    Power supplies also are compromised.

    How about warrenties on hard drives? The drives we bought 10 years ago would run for 150,000 hours MTBF = 17 years. I have hard drives that have been in use for 17 years. Seriously! I got a pair of maxtor 350 MB ESDI drives that started out in a VAX. They are still running.

    Does anyone think that the drive they buy next year with a 1 year warrenty is going to still be functioning past 2015?

    How about 2010?

    If people want cheap I guess they get cheap. If they want quality I don't know where they need to go. Personally I'd rather pay more and get better quality.
    • When a company as diverse as Yamaha, that sells everything from motorcycles to saxophones, is looking at profit margins. I am sure the rest of their meeting and other meetings are centered around what their core business is and trying to find products/services that both make profit and are still within what Yamaha wants to provide its customers and its shareholders.

      As you say there is no money in hardware. Yamaha has so many other products that offer much better margins, I am sure they are trying to get the most money out of their current businesses as possible. Or, as we just saw they cut them in order to be safe from the looming shareholders. Either way it is truly sad especially when it is a good product but it happens.

      By the way, the quality started going down after the Laserjet 4, not III.

  • Just another player in a saturated market (Score:3, Interesting)

    by default luser ( 529332 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @09:19PM (#5298911) Journal
    Yamaha stepped into the market when Plextor was king, promising to lead the unwashed masses to Partial CAV heaven.

    But Yamaha never really delivered, from a quality standpoint, and once everyone jumped on the Z-CLV bandwagon there was no chance. Today, Lite-On rules the market with cheap reliable CD burners. Anyone who can't beat them has to either move on the DVD recorders, or get out of the market altogether.

    Even Plextor will succumb, soon enough. When you can buy reliable 48x CD writers for $50, even Plextor's cherished name cannot sell their overpriced burners.

    Good riddance. I don't care who makes my floppy drive, I have a feeling in a few years I won't be caring who makes my CD-RW either.

  • ode to my Yamaha 4416 (Score:3, Informative)

    by Lxy ( 80823 ) on Thursday February 13, 2003 @09:41PM (#5299035) Journal
    Can you believe that my 4x SCSI Yamaha is worth more on Ebay than the cost of a 48X ATAPI burner? Yamaha did something right :-)

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