[mythtv-users] OEM vs. Retail Drives - Was: Dell dual-quad...

[Josh White]

All I'm interested in is the protection offered by an additional layer of
card board.  I don't care if that layer has an ASUS, Cheerios, or blank
label.  I could care less about anything else.  For example, I also bought a
miniPCI network card for an old laptop.  It came in a plain box, with some
bubble wrap, and an external antenna that I don't need.  That's fine with
me, because it doesn't appear that the guy at new egg just removed the card
from his old laptop because he just go himself a new one.

As long as my new drive works, I'm happy.  All I'm saying is that opening
the box to find a loose drive doesn't ADD to my confidence level that it
will work.

My main point was that I would expect packaging like that from a vendor in
eBay, not from Newegg.

On 10/25/07, Brian Wood <beww at beww.org> wrote:
>
> Yan Seiner wrote:
> > Josh White wrote:
> >> I'm not worried about the price point, I'm sure even at $36 I'm paying
> >> 10x the manufacturing cost.  What I am worried about was the fact that
> >> the outer layer of packaging was a cardboard box, then a layer of foam
> >> peanuts, then bubble wrap, then a plasitc bag, and then the drive
> >> itself.  No asus box, nothing.  No manual, wires, registration card,
> >> anything.  All I got was a box that they threw some basic packaging
> >> materials in and a drive.  Like it was just pulled out of a system they
> >> had lying around.  I guess that's probably better packaging than dell
> >> receives at their assembly plants, but still.  Not what I'm used to.
> >
> > OEM v. retail - the OEM stuff is bulk-packed, with little to no stuff -
> > maybe a CD.  Retail comes in a nice box with stuff.
> >
> > You pay more for retail packages.  Do you really need the package?  :-)
>
> One other difference between retail and OEM that is unique to DVD drives:
>
> The retail versions come with some sort of software to play commercial
> (ie: CSS protected) disks. That software is licensed to do this.
>
> Without such a license you are technically in questionable territory if
> you play a DVD, and even more so if it's CSS "protected".
>
> An OEM bare DVD drive is sold on the assumption that the system
> integrator will be providing licensed software to play protected DVDs,
> as well as (perhaps) a licensed MPEG2 decoder. The retail drive makes no
> such assumption.
>
> These issues are not usually of interest to Linux users, as there is no
> "legal" way to play a CSS disk under that OS that I'm aware of (in the
> USA that is). There have been one or two attempts to create licensed
> Linux DVD software, they all seem to fade away for some strange reason.
>
> I've been told that the combined license fees for a commercial
> standalone DVD player, including the rights to use the various logos
> (DVD, CD-ROM,"Digital Audio" MPEG, MP3 et al) come close to $20 these
> days. Even the stripped down versions of player software that ship with
> retail drives must cost something, though perhaps not as they are often
> used as marketing tools to try and sell the upgraded versions.
>
> But in any case, no matter how it's packaged, all I care about is:
>
> Does it work?
>
> If it doesn't, does the vendor back it up?
>
> I'll always pay a little more to buy from a vendor I know or who has a
> solid reputation.
>
> beww
>
>
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