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Comment by drewzero1 | Hacker News Reader

Does anybody have a recommendation for a slightly newer laptop (obviously not Apple) with an integrated DVD drive? My SO uses her 2012 MBP13 daily and a big advantage of that computer is that it's compact and can comfortably watch DVDs anywhere while she's working on her computer. We do have an external drive which works fine on a table but it's really cumbersome when trying to hold the computer on your lap, on a chair, on the couch, etc... you know, normal places where one might try to use a portable computer.

I've been contemplating a Thinkpad T440p but I do realize that's only two years newer (though almost infinitely more upgradable). Is there anything else with a 13-14” screen, DVD drive, and decent build quality? Or are we the only people who ever watch DVDs any more?

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Why not just rip the DVDs to files and watch them whenever from wherever. DVDs are cumbersome and dated.

Have you contemplated ripping the DVDs and/or using a streaming service?

I wouldn't limit my options to just having a DVD if that means compromising everything else, especially if the computer is for work.

I've considered ripping which is fine for my own discs, but I'm not going to do that every time we go to Redbox or the public library. (Yes I'm aware Redbox also does streaming, but last I checked some things were only on DVD and they were cheaper anyway.)

We use a streaming service but things seem to be spread out across five or more of them. (And as soon as I find something I like on there, it goes away!)

I agree with the issue of compromising everything else, which is why we've stuck with a 12-year-old computer. Obviously we'd have to settle a little, I was just wondering if anyone had ideas to avoid having to change our workflow too much.

Depending on your setup, you might could stream the DVDs over your network. Surely you could somehow share the drive.

I appreciate the suggestion. I tried that a few years ago, but Mac OS' built-in DVD sharing only works on discs without copy protection. Then I spent a few nights trying to get VLC to stream a disc from my PC but couldn't get that working either.

If anybody's got experience along this line of thought I'm interested; it could be a viable way forward as I have several desktops (Win/Lin/Mac) with optical drives.

My guess is that sharing from Linux would give you more options in terms of how to work around the copy protection.

I don't know if you use Docker, but a seriously weird sharing workaround could be to use a Samba share to mount in Finder, pointed to your drive on Linux... I made a Docker repo that could probably be modified to fit this use case: https://github.com/jzombie/sshfs-mac-docker

Another solution, that would most definitely work, would be using something like NoMachine or Parsec to just stream the desktop to your other computer. Parsec would probably give you really good quality as well.

Seems that Thinkpad e570 has a drive in it: https://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-ThinkPad-Performance-Business-...

and it has some upgrade possibilities: https://www.ifixit.com/Device/Lenovo_ThinkPad_E570

Thanks! I was starting to look at those too. The *70 Thinkpads seem to be the last ones with optical drives, but that's at least fairly recent compared to this MBP.

> "watch DVDs anywhere while she's working on her computer"

Wait, what?

I'm typing this reply on this

https://junocomputers.com/product/nyx-17-v3/

which I use for DVD watching every day.

Thanks for the suggestion! I'll check it out. It's been a while since I've tried a 17 inch laptop but it sure does look nice.

Newer laptops have far, far better displays, so DVD Video (which is 480p/576p) looks jarring compared to the rest of the UI.

I tried it with an external drive and it's really not a great visual experience.

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