#Caddies are the future?
15 messages in this thread
A salesman told me when I complained about the nuisance of caddies on the
Sony CD-Rom system that, "Caddies are the future. If someone has one
without caddies they have an older unit. Phillips has licensed the standard
for multimedia CD-Rom and the standard they wrote has caddies as a
requirement. All the CD-Roms that are coming out equpped to handle the new
multimedia standard will have caddies." After he he explained about the
sensitivity of dropouts in data CD's as compared to the relatively
unsensitive "music" CD's we all love to mishandle, it did make sense to
have them in caddies, but I've sure seen a lot of them advertised without
them. Perhaps they were older models produced before the Phillips standards
were adopted by the majors. Does anyone have any facts on this?
There are 4 Replies.
Caddies are a pain….
Especially when you have to tip them.
(oops.. wrong subject….)
Even though the caddies are a PAIN…. maybe they will come out with a
special unit that acts as the holder (or storage unit) and can act as the
caddie also??? Nifty idea??!! eh??
(All of my ideas are copywrited… just in case……)
Steve Thomas 72730,1626
There is 1 Reply.
Take a look at Sony's Data Discman's "discs".
I'm no fan of caddies. I know of at least 3 CD systems that don't have
caddies (NEC, Fujitsu FM Towns, and Tandy).
What I do like is the approach used on the Sony Data Discman, create a 3.5"
like disc case. The trouble with traditional CD Caddies is they cost more
than the CD's.. I guess what I'm saying is that since Caddies cost more
than the discs, and also since it isn't a good idea to store discs in a
caddie (they bounce around), i'd rather not have a caddie. Fix these
problems and I'd be interested.
William Volk
There is 1 Reply.
I'm not sure caddies cost more than the discs! I paid $12 for the Sony
caddies I have and the data disks that go in them are in the $60-$200 range
each. I didn't buy the sony data outfit to hear Elton John sing.
There is 1 Reply.
I'm talking about costs to the publisher. CD's cost from $1.00 to $2.00
apiece.
William Volk
All newer CD-ROM models use caddies, however, they use the Sony standard,
not the Phillips standard. I may be wrong about that for multimedia, but
it's definitely Sony for CD-ROM — only Phillips uses Phillips caddies. The
only current drives that don't use caddies are protable ones, probably to
save on size and weight.
Actually, the new Radio Shack drive is rumored to use a tray and the
Pioneer changer uses it's own caddy.
I don't think caddies are a good way to store/transport CDs. The good side
of the disc is touching the bottom of the caddy where the
motion of shipping could become a problem not seen with the jewel boxes.
Well so far I haven't seen any documentation from anyone that using
"Caddys" is superior in handling Data CD's than the drawer type used in
audio CD's. If someone would prove otherwise, I would like to see their
test comparisons. In my opinion, caddys are a pain plus extra expense that
I can do without.
John – K7KB (via Whap!)
There is 1 Reply.
John,
Caddies may be a pain, but they definitely help extend the life of CD-ROM
disks. Without a caddy, you touch the disc more and it is more exposed to
dust. Dust and oils from your fingers can cause the little pits on the
disc to become clogged, and if that happens your CD-ROM drive may drop a
bit — hence you get a CDR-101 error, or something to that effect. It is
not as noticeble with a music cd because if you drop a bit in music, the
ear cannot hear it; if you drop a bit when you're
running a program, the program bombs. I head up the Tech Support at
Computer Library, and you would be surprised at how may calls we get from
people with dirt on disc — we have them clean the disc and then it works.
Frank
Well I think the handling of CD's is pretty much the same whether or not
you use a caddy vs drawer type CD drives. In fact, it is probably easier to
scratch a CD usig a caddy, unless you have a caddy for each CD. The
handling of any disc medium is important no matter what it is. I certainly
don't grab the CD between my fingers when I'm removing in from my CD
player, but on the edge's. Same as on my old collection of LP's. Most of
them are as good as the day I bought them some 20 years ago. So until
someone can come up with a sound technical reason why caddy CD players are
better than the drawer type, I'll stick to my reasoning that it was a
"standard" forced down the customers throat.
John – K7KB (via Whap!)
John,
You are entitled to your opinion, but coming from the point of view of
someone who runs a tech support shop for a pretty popular CD-ROM product,
and knowing how many calls we get from people who have dirt on their discs,
I can only image how many more calls we'd get if there were no caddies.
Besides, since the caddies are Sony caddies, I'm reasonably sure that other
drive manufactures have to pay royalties to Sony, or atleast buy them from
Sony. That increases their costs — if they felt \that they werre not
necessary, why would they use them?
Frank
There is 1 Reply.
Well their are some CDRom drive manufacturers that are not using caddies.
NEC and Radio Shack just from the top of my head. So I think that once the
drive manufacturers realize how much of a pain caddies are, they will
follow suit. Either that, or be left in the dust. If they wan't to sell CD
drives to the mass market, with CD-I, CDTV, or whatever, people will be
turned off by the caddy type drive. I think the majority of the people want
a drive that is as easy to use as their audio CD player. If there is proven
documentation that caddies are superior, then fine, at least they could do
is provide a caddy with every CD Rom sold, but I don't see many of them
doing that either.
John – K7KB (via Whap!)
There is 1 Reply.
John,
NEC uses caddies in all their high-end drives. Only the NEC CDR-36 does
not use a caddy, and that is becauseit is a portable and I think they
decided not to use a caddy to save on weight and size. As far as shipping
caddies with drives, as far as I know every drive that uses a caddy ships
one with the drive.
Frank
John, Children are reason enough for caddies! If you don't have them then
you probably don't need caddies! The defense rests!