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I sure would like to see it grow up into a real CD and DVD jukebox.
 technofile
Al Fasoldt's reviews and commentaries, continuously available online since 1983

T e c h n o f i l e
Imation's new jukebox-wannabe stores your CDs and DVDs, but it can't read or play them


Sept. 11, 2005


By Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2005, Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2005, The Post-Standard

   Quick: Where's the installation CD for your copy of Microsoft Office? Where's the DVD the Whole Earth Atlas came on? If you're like me, you probably have no idea. Finding those disks would take either of us a half hour of searching.
   And that's why Imation invented the Disc Stakka. It's a microwave-size box with a slot in front that holds up to 100 CDs and DVDs. The basic idea is easy to grasp: You feed your disks into the Disc Stakka slot and let it catalog them. When you need a disk, you locate it in a list on your computer screen and click "Eject." After you're through, you slip the disk back into the slot and it goes back on the "available" list.
   In actual use, the Disc Stakka is more sophisticated than my simple explanation suggests. It's expandable, for example. You can stack Disc Stakkas five high, without the need for intervening cables, for a 500-disk tower> You can even hook up as many as 100 towers to a single computer. That would give you instant access to 50,000 CDs or DVDs.
   But all is not what it seems. Unfortunately, the Disc Stakka qualifies for my annual "Close But No Cigar" award in one big way. I'll explain why shortly.
   I really do like the idea behind the Stakka, which sells for a reasonable $150. (Go to www.imation.com/products/disc_stakka/index.html for more information.) We all need a way of organizing our CDs and DVDs. What better way than having a smart storage box? Connect the Stakka to your computer with a USB cable, slip the disk in for storage, locate any files on it through easy-to-use software, then eject it when you need it.
   But that's the problem. The "better way than having a smart storage box" is having one that's got a built-in drive to read all your CDs and DVDs. The Disc Stakka doesn't do that. It just catalogs your disks; you do the rest. Your computer's CD or DVD drive handles all the real work. The Stakka, as it turns out, is not much smarter than your average hound. It can't play your audio CDs, can't show your video DVDs and can't feed you the files off all those backup CDs you made over the years.
   So near and yet so far. But there are two ways of dealing with the disappointment over what the Stakka can do.
   First, you can appreciate it for what it does instead of wishing that it could wash the dishes, feed the dog and play your disks. It's a great storage system, period.
   Second, you can get a little encouragement from some of the comments I found in the Stakka's documentation. The word "yet" appears prominently, as in "the Stakka can't play your disks yet," that kind of thing. Obviously, Imation's engineers have bigger hopes for their invention. I sure would like to see a Stakka II that handled cataloging AND disk playback.
   So the Stakka isn't -- yet -- what the admin types call a "jukebox." (For all the non-admin folks out there, let me explain. A "jukebox" isn't a thing that plays music. It's a thing that has a CD or DVD drive built into a device that stores disks. It can feed the right disk to the drive at any time. Kind of like a Stakka that can ... well, you know what I mean.)
   What the Stakka DOES do is cool, to be sure. After you plug it in and install the software on your Apple OS X Macintosh or Windows PC, the Stakka monitors your computer's CD or DVD drive. At the first sign of activity, the Stakka checks to see if it's already got the disk listed in its database. If it doesn't, it catalogs the contents and adds the disk. If it does have the disk listed, it marks the disk as having been returned to the stacks. (If this sounds like the town library, you've got the idea.)
   The search function is nicely done. Type a filename, word or phrase, and the Stakka lists the disk that has that item. If you double click on a file in the Stakka database -- on that photo of Uncle Mervin, maybe -- Stakka ejects the disk and waits for you to slip it into your computer's CD or DVD drive. It then displays the image using your computer's photo viewer. That's neat.
   Stakka has a few other nice touches. It doesn't care which way you insert the disk -- there's no such thing as the wrong direction -- and, if you have two or more Stakkas, you can return a disk into a different Stakka than the one that contained it before; the Stakkas don't care. And the Stakka software comes with an easy-to-use backup system and a simple way of checking if all your disks are accounted for.
   It's well thought out. But I sure would like to see it grow up into a real CD and DVD jukebox. Imation, are you listening?