The Future of the CD 394
Murdock037 writes "Nice read at the New York Times (free reg. req.) on the CD, and how it's getting crowded out of the marketplace by gaming and DVDs-- the basic conclusion is that music executives aren't rewarded for rocking the boat, and they wouldn't know how to do it if they were. (And included is a flabbergasting claim from RIAA head Hillary Rosen that only 3 percent of consumers polled are buying less music because prices are too high-- of course, you can come up with a statistic for anything, as 72.5% of all people know.)"
Reminds me of the old saying... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Reminds me of the old saying... (Score:5, Funny)
My favorite quote on statistics (Score:5, Funny)
Re:My favorite quote on statistics (Score:5, Funny)
- Aaron Levenstein
Re:My favorite quote on statistics (Score:2, Funny)
If you (Score:3, Insightful)
I wonder how many times the RIAA did that to get the answers they wanted.
Another old saying... (Score:5, Informative)
There are even books [amazon.com] on the topic "How to lie with statistics". (Uses as course literature for to-be journalists).
200% of Nothing (Score:5, Informative)
There is an interesting book called 200% of Nothing: An Eye-Opening Tour Through the Twists and Turns of Math Abuse and Innumeracy.
I believe it is out of print, but it is available from Alibris [alibris.com].
(The parallelism between 'illiteracy' and 'innumeracy' is interesting.)
Re:200% of Nothing (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Another old saying... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Reminds me of the old saying... (Score:2)
Eh? 3%? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Eh? 3%? (Score:2, Insightful)
What complete nonsense. (Score:5, Interesting)
So, what? The other 97% also think prices are too high, but continue to buy CDs? The other 97% think prices are OK, but only patronize the used CD store? The other 97% think CDs are too low? Such a trite, convenient little statistic... what was the N?
100% of people surveyed (12 music industury executives in a quick boardroom poll), thought CDs were the bomb!
bah.
Re:What complete nonsense. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What complete nonsense. (Score:5, Interesting)
only 3% have stopped buying CDs because prices are too high...
So, what? The other 97% also think prices are too high, but continue to buy CDs?
The other 97% buy fewer CDs due to high prices. When CDs were the new thing and cost $15-20 each I was buying 10-20 a year. Now that the prices have fallen as the technology matures...no...wait...the price never fell! Oh, that's right, my CD buying has fallen, not the prices. I now buy less than 5 CDs a year. I owe this to a maturing taste in music. I used to think Johnny Gill, Bell Bill Devo(divo?), and Mc Hammer were great artists...really I was just buying what my friends were buying, stupid teenager. Now I buy CDs AFTER I have heard the contets of the CD (Thankyou Listening Bars and Alt.Binaries.MP3.) Yeah, you heard me right, I download MP3s, and I buy CDs still. Sure I buy fewer CDs, but somewhere I had heard that music becomes less important to us as we age...maybe it's true, or more likely we learn to tell the diffrence between noise music. The CDs I no longer buy are the ones filled with noise. I would personaly answer "NO" if asked if I stoped buying CDs due to price. I would say "YES" if asked if price has caused me to buy fewer CDs (hell, if they were free I might "buy" more, just because I can sample/taste new music without having to be tethered to the computer like I am with downloading MP3s.) Based on my personal experience with music, I wounder how many just buy FEWER due to price, and how many never bought CDs before anyway, and how many buy fewer due to maturing taste. I'm SURE the RIAA never bothered to ask anyone about those options.
Re:What complete nonsense. (Score:4, Insightful)
You given Rosen too much credit. *Your statistic might potentially be true*.
According to the submission, 3% buy *fewer* CDs because prices are too high.
That's absolutely ridiculous. Let's take this to the point of absurdity. If I start *giving* away CDs for free, how many people are going to take them? Granted, there might be a few who value CDs negatively (they're afraid of them or something), and a few people who have every CD that they have the remotest interest in). But most people are going to take at least *one* more CD.
If prices go down, sales will go up, and I assure you, more than 3% of the population will get at least one CD more.
Re:What complete nonsense. (Score:2)
Would Slashdot (or somebody - leave a link) set up a poll for this?
Personally, I don't purchase more because: prices are too high, most of the stuff on albums sucks, and singles are too expensive if you just want one good song.
The situation has been like the above for years. The public has been bilked for decades. So maybe the industry is now reaping what it sowed?
Re:Eh? 3%? (Score:5, Funny)
I love Metalica. I have all their MP3s.
The RIAA has sucessfully made their own customers hate them, similar to Microsoft. When your customers think you are a schmuck, they don't feel too bad stealing from you. Of course, half the rappers ARE convicts. Don't be shocked if people break the law getting a copy of their latest songs. Its almost poetic justice.
Re:Should I steal from you? (Score:2)
I think you are taking me entirely too literal on this point. I probably have an old Metalica CD or two around, and I dont download music except for oldies for my band to learn, which are impossible to buy anyway. I have thousands of CDs, literally. Several thousand that I have purchased new and used.
Basically, your argument boils down to: if someone is stupid or has been convicted of a crime, that person does not deserve equal protection under the law (i.e. with regard to copyright law.)
Wasn't implied at all. The point was the irony. Its just swimming in it. Its the proverbial "pot, meet kettle. Kettle, meet pot". Its kinda like this: You see a guy beat his wife, her brother finds out and two days later, beats the husband senseless with a bat. Do you feel sorry for the husband? Not very.
It is stealing, it is wrong, however, I am not going to cry for the music industry (keep in mind, I am a performing musician) as long as it has such a negative opinion of their own customers. Its not justification, I'm just saying you can't be shocked that people are ripping them off after how shitty they treat their customers.
Personally, I only steal what I can't find TO buy, and yes, I feel perfectly justified in that. You can't paint everyone that downloads music with the same brush.
Re:Should I steal from you? (Score:3, Interesting)
On the other hand though I'm 37 years old and I've bought music since I was probably around ten years old. I bought and paid for albums, 8-tracks, cassettes, and then CD's. Of all them I probably have fewer than a hundred and those are all CD's. Now the way I see it I paid for the right to download my ass off.
Take for instance "Hotel California". I paid for it three times. I bought the LP and wore it out. I bought two cassettes before CD's came along and those lasted less time combined than the original vinyl copy I bought. So when CD's came out I wasn't real thrilled with the idea of buying yet another copy of this record. Add to that the fact that the price of the CD was (almost) more than I'd paid for the previous three copies. I just decided that I wasn't going to buy it again and that's where it sat until file sharing matured quite nicely. I went and downloaded myself a "replacement copy" from which I can now make as many CD's as I can scratch, lose, or microwave if I'm bored. I got FILES now.
I limit myself to two kinds of stealing from the record companies. I replace things I've paid for in the past and want to listen to again OR I download things that I am curious about before springing for a CD. To me there's not a thing wrong with this. I couldn't give a rats ass if the RIAA thinks it's wrong.
Re:Eh? 3%? (Score:2, Funny)
You know what they say... (Score:5, Funny)
I guess that the RIAA has aquired all three.
Re:You know what they say... (Score:5, Interesting)
I guess that the RIAA has aquired all three.
The irony is that they don't see the writing on the wall. They are like the Wizard who keeps saying "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!". No matter how much they lie, downloading the 2 songs on an album of 10 is more convenient. Once downloaded, they are already compressed for your computer and MP3 devices and you can burn to cd for your car.
EVEN IF THEY WERE GIVING AWAY CDs at the music store, it still requires more effort to go there, wait in line, take it home, bust it down to MP3 so its small enough to stay parked on your computer and MP3 devices, and then just use that CD in your car. Its about convenience.
Its also about choice. Its frustrating to go to buy a CD, especially if you are like me and you are old and you want to buy a CD that came out 15 years ago, and you can't find it. Why would I go to the store to look for a CD that I KNOW isn't there, when I can do a quick search and find a reasonably decent copy in 5 to 30 minutes.
Another problem is all the security they are trying to use. Lets say I legally purchase a downloadable song (it could happen). I have several computers I use daily (office, home office, laptop in the only room the wife lets me smoke in) plus a portable MP3 player. Its a hassle to get PERMISSION for all these devices, to play a song I have legally purchased. Then I replace one of my computers (rinse, repeat) Plus, I front a band of old farts that play old rock, country and blues. They can't play the song on a CD I burn for our "learn music" either. The purpose of the CD is to learn the music, not enjoy it, so we can play at clubs that pay BMI and ASCAP royalties.
Screw it, I would just get a non protected version of the song so I didn't have to hassle with it, even if I had already purchased it. The problem isn't what I will pay, its the hoops I will jump through to use what I own.
Re:You know what they say... (Score:2, Insightful)
It definitely seems that over the last 10 or 15 years, the total selection that you run into in most stores has gone way down. Unless you live in a big city and have accessed to specialized stores, you just keep running into the same junk albums, with rarely anything more than a couple of years old. And if you do have access to a specialized music store, odds are that half of the interesting stuff is used...
It seems to me that the music store chains (esp. those in malls!) have really hurt the market. It's true: to find a lot of stuff, you actually have to go on-line.
Re:Diverse inventory (Score:4, Insightful)
Even tho the audiophile are gonna scream when I say this...
They could compete using the kiosk model, with several hard drives with very high quality mp3s, 256k or better, and an internet connection to their main office. If you want to HEAR a sample not in the current local library, it streams a 64k mp3 for listening. If you choose to burn that song, it downloads the 256k version to be converted to Red Book on your custom disk. It should cache songs, so if someone else wants that song in the next few days, there will be a copy in the cache. If you can actually fill up a cd with 74 minutes of music (instead of the typical 30 to 40 minutes) and choose the songs, then it would be worth a premium. I can EASILY see people paying 20 bucks for that, maybe more. They can still sell regular CD's like they do now, side by side with this new technology. Some will want the full CD with fancy jacket and information about that artist. Some wont.
The problem is: This model is not as profitable as the current business model USED TO BE. Thus, they are not likely to embrace it, insisting on staying with the current business model, which is losing them money ($132 million last year for Sony alone).
This is going down with the ship instead of jumping in a lifeboat, just because the ship is bigger.
Re:You know what they say... (Score:5, Insightful)
They're missing a huge opportunity, because they're so afraid this would make it too easy to pirate songs. Like it's hard now??!
Re:You know what they say... (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree. For some unknown reason, this reminds me of the joke virus that was running around years ago that said "This virus is being sent to you on the honor system. Please forward copies to everyone in your address book and then delete your hard drive. Thank you." Honor alone isn't going to stop piracy, its a better business model. We used to buy meat at the butcher, veggies at the market, bread at the baker and precooked food only at sit down restaurants. Then someone found a better way to distribute all these goods, saving everyone money.
Its a minor pain in the ass to find songs now, but only minor. A good service that charged a reasonable fee (maybe based upon quality of mp3) would clean up if it had a good interface and library. If nothing else, for older stuff not in print anymore. I would sign up. $9.99 a month for 40 songs and a fee per song after that. I wouldn't even bitch about the pop up ads.
A good system like this would reduce piracy somewhat because it would take away much of the incentive.
Re:You know what they say... (Score:5, Insightful)
An old example: the DOOM community. Between the shareware version, the encouraged extensibility of the game, and the fact that idSoftware didn't get their shorts in a knot about the roughly 4-to-1 "shared with friends" ratio, they created a huge pool of goodwill. So while folks would share their copy of DOOM with their immediate friends, if anyone asked for a "free" copy in the newsgroups, NO ONE would provide it. Fair treatment by the seller led to customers sticking to fair use of their own free will (as best you can expect, anyway).
I think they'd find it's much the same with music. "It's only a dime or a quarter, hardly worth my time to burn you a CD. Just pay the few cents and go download it yourself."
That's not all... (Score:3, Interesting)
Music stores should have had burning kiosks with 80+GB drives running by now, with software that allowed you to pick and choose what went on your CD.
Think about it: you'd have both near-infinite variety and infinite resellability. No 2 customer-selected CDs would be the same, and I bet you many customers would end up buying some songs 2, 3, 4, or more times to put on various mix albums.
It would be dirt cheap to burn CDs. You wouldn't have to pay for shelf space for each CD. Packaging would be cheaper, as you'd only have to pay for blank jewel cases and paper to print on.
Had the RIAA jumped on the mp3 bandwagon and truly utilized the format for the good of consumers, I'd probably still be paying for music. Had the RIAA immediately embraced online sales of high-quality mp3s, I'd gladly have subscribed to the service.
Instead, they shun the idea of these kiosks, chastize anyone who chooses to keep their music in mp3 format, and proclaims every customer a theif. By all rights, this industry should be dead by now.
No business should be able to survive the criminalization of its customer base.
CDs will continue to sell (Score:5, Insightful)
The extra quality benefit of DVD-A and SACD will not (unfortunately) be enough to lure people to immediately rush out and buy new equipment. Personally, I would love to have better sound audio, but I'm not prepared to pay the (currently) huge premium to have it.
If you think sound quality is important for most people, look at all the portable MP3 players that have recently come out and how well they are selling. Can anyone say iPod?
The restrictive SACD format will not be a lure to the majority of people. DVD-A on the other hand may get a foothold because of its association with DVD-Video.
People want convenience. And until the companies spearheading these formats realise that, their proposed new super-mega-hyper-ultra-quality formats will be dead before day one.
Re:Cassette decks s will continue to sell (Score:3, Insightful)
As long as people have a portable cassette deck, a cassette deck at home, and one in the car, tapes will keep selling.
The extra quality benefit of the CD will not (unfortunately) be enough to lure people to immediately rush out and buy new equipment. Personally, I would love to have better sound audio, but I'm not prepared to pay the (currently) huge premium to have it.
If you think sound quality is important for most people, look at all the portable tape players that have recently come out and how well they are selling. Can anyone say Sony Walkman?
People want convenience. And until the companies spearheading these formats realise that, their proposed new super-mega-hyper-ultra-quality formats will be dead before day one.
Yes, I see what you mean
Re:Cassette decks s will continue to sell (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, in 5 years, when everyone's done spending to get their 1000" HDTV plasma set with 15.3 dolby surround to watch DVDs perfectly, then a switch to a new music format may not be a big deal. But timing any forced media switch right now, with DVDs still fresh in most people's minds, is not the way to go.
Remember that the CD had convenience benefits. (Score:5, Insightful)
Cassette track locators... (Score:3, Informative)
Personally I'm glad to be rid of my cassette tapes - I had over 300 at one point, and shudder to think of actually having to use one again (like the odd time I'm in an older model car). I'm darn close to that same feeling with CDs - just imagine only having 10 songs to choose form before changing the actual media! What kind of stone age is this?
Can't tell on cheap equipment. (Score:2)
CDs and DVD-video offered an immediately obvious improvement of sound quality on the equipment people either already had or could easily afford. If SACD can't do that, it's not going to take off quickly.
Re:Cassette decks s will continue to sell (Score:2)
Clever, but the difference between CDs and tapes was a fairly huge leap. The difference between DVD-A/SACD and CD in most consumer minds is fairly negligible.
I don't think DVD-A or SACD will change the marketplace. I think DVD-Video albums may though. If you already have a DVD player, then the chance to buy an album with all the videos, an interview, and some basic interactive features will be more compelling than the chance to buy a version that sounds better if you can afford the Hi-Fi gear to be able to tell the difference.
Re:Cassette decks s will continue to sell (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, back in the 1980's there were a LOT of people looking forward to getting Compact Discs. You have to remember compared to LP turntables, CD's offered the following advantages:
1. It didn't require lots of finicky setup to get it working correctly.
2. Cared for properly, CD's way, way, outlasted LP discs.
3. CD's didn't suffer from wow and flutter, background hiss and low frequency turntable rumble.
4. The storage requirements for CD's was much smaller than LP's.
Sure, the early CD's did sound a bit harsh in the treble frequencies but careful mastering by recording engineers more or less overcame that issue.
It is that convenient size factor that has allowed DVD's to take off in popularity; the MCA/Philips Laserdisc and RCA Selectavision disc formats didn't become widely popular due to fairly stiff storage requirements, while in contrast DVD's same size factor as CD's made them very popular even though most DVD packaging is about 25% larger than CD's.
Re:Cassette decks s will continue to sell (Score:2)
Ah, but the *reason* the packaging is 25% larger is so that your DVDs can be stored on the same height/depth shelf as you VHS casette tapes. This is what happens when technology meets currently existing furniture: a kludge is introduced. :-)
Re:Cassette decks s will continue to sell (Score:2)
Probably the number one problem that most people had with LPs is that they didn't clean them. I'm not talking about the stupid brush with the stupid "fluid" because all that does is take off the really big chunks of dust and paper bits from the album cover.
Real cleaners [sotaturntables.com] actually dip the LP in a cleanser that removes the oil, dirt and all other manner of gunk that gets down in the nooks 'n crannies. Of course, the price is going to kill some people: $500-easily $3k for a good cleaner. It doesn't make sense if you are Joe Sixpack, but if you are going to be doing some serious listening (i.e., you're a audio snob :) ), then you'll want this kind of equipment. It makes a difference.
Re:Cassette decks s will continue to sell (Score:4, Interesting)
The difference between a cassette player and a CD is not only a (significant) improvement in sound quality, but also a leap in convenience: track skipping vs winding tape, a forgiving medium when it comes to handling vs scratched, wrinkled and broken tape, a maintenance-free laser vs tape heads that need cleaning and degaussing. The same leap in performance and ease of use is what convinced the public to switch from video tape to DVD despite lack of a means to even record your own.
From tape and VHS to CD and DVD was a huge leap in performance and ease of use. Now that we have CD and DVD, what improvement can we expect in future media? 100-channel sound? It'll be hard to improve on convenience and ease of use, the only thing I can think of is reducing the size. A new format that offers easy and affordable recording capability might be interesting. But the last 5% of possible improvement in sound and picture quality will be lost upon most people. People see the difference between VHS and DVD, and hear the difference between a good tape recording and a CD. But there's no way people will want higher picture resolution or better sound, especially considering the dinky equipment they play it on.
Re:CDs offer more than quality (Score:4, Funny)
a seekable audio medium you don't have to turn over to finish listening to.
"""
I believe those cunning Japanese are working on an auto-reverse tape player as we speak!
YAW.
Re:CDs offer more than quality (Score:2)
DVD-A and SACD aren't much better anyway (Score:5, Insightful)
And the things they're "better" at aren't really necessary. CDs already have ~44 KHz sample rates, enough to accurately reproduce frequencies up to ~22 KHz. Since most humans drop off hearing around 18-20 KHz, with 21-22 KHz being the absolute max, going to 96 KHz sample rate is certainly not needed (and the added frequency resolution isn't noticeable to anyone either). And as for bits per sample, 16-bit audio already provides enough dynamic range to in good quality represent far more than the vast majority of equipment can reproduce.
Re:DVD-A and SACD aren't much better anyway (Score:5, Informative)
Listen to a recording of a regular symphonic orchestra on a normal Compact Disc and then listen to a recording of a symphonic orchestra with SACD or DVD Audio disc; the CD recording sounds quite harsh because at treble frequencies as CD's doesn't sample the higher frequencies smoothly. Because SACD and DVD Audio can sample treble frequencies far more cleanly, the result is that the harshness of the violin, woodwind instruments and cymbals are missing, resulting in a more natural sound; that's why some people have noted that SACD and DVD Audio discs have a warmer sound due to the lack of treble frequency harshness.
Re:DVD-A and SACD aren't much better anyway (Score:2)
Listen to a recording of a regular symphonic orchestra on a normal Compact Disc and then listen to a recording of a symphonic orchestra with SACD or DVD Audio disc;
Yeah but on the other hand the "vast majority of people" aren't listening to symphonic orchestras! How different does pop culture music sound?
I think the best music still sounds good when played over a crappy tiny radio speaker.
Re:DVD-A and SACD aren't much better anyway (Score:2)
If you're talking a standard rock band, music on SACD or DVD Audio will still sound better because a lot of today's rock music has a lot of treble frequency energy, and having clearer treble sampling results in much clearer sound.
Oh, I should add that trumpet and coronet brass instruments also benefit from the clear treble sound of the new formats, too.
CD's aren't harsh - mastering might be different (Score:2, Interesting)
You're doing the tests wrong, by the way; they're not fair, they're biased by expectations. Don't listen to one then the other, because you're subconsciously expecting one to sound better.
Make sure they're of the same recording, at the same volume level - preferably mastered the same (very important, engineers working on both are told to deliberately make the CD sound subtly worse, which is often only a tweak of the EQ or master volume away - yes, quieter things almost always sound "worse"), and get someone else to play them to you in this order:
A: Either SACD or CD-DA
B: The one that wasn't A
X: SACD-DA
See if you can tell whether X is A or B. Repeat it several times. See how many you get right versus how many you would have by just guessing. It's called an ABX test. Try it with DVD-A vs. CD too, and with SACD vs. CD. Make sure you don't know which ones A or B are, and use the one you consider, objectively, will have the highest fidelity as the "original" (X). That will tell you if you can distinguish between the formats - if not, then they obviously sound just as good as each other.
If you can distinguish between them, you may be surprised by which ones sound worse. DVD-A in particular can sound worse than CD-DA because the watermarking (yes, they created a high quality audio format then screwed it up with watermarking that was already cracked before a single DVD-A disc was minted, or even the standard agreed on) is distinctly audible, at least to those with practice in checking for mp3 artefacts.
Because of the watermarking, CD-DA has greater fidelity than DVD-A, that's for sure. These formats could have had better - your ears might be able to hear 20-bits versus the 16 bits of CD, in compositions with a very high dynamic range that has not been compressed (i.e., definitely not anything from the charts, or even worse, a radio mix, which will have had quieter parts brought down or removed, been EQ-tweaked for a while, maybe with an exciter or two on some tracks, multiband compressed, limited, and possibly even slightly clipped depending on the style, thoroughly running it through the mangler just so it's LOUD and gets heard over an FM radio).
Now go and shock yourself - try the same thing versus Ogg Vorbis 1.0 - start with quality 5 (160kbps nominal bitrate), or quality 6 (192kbps nominal bitrate) and if you're feeling daring, quality 6 (224) or even 7 (256). Use any sound you feel like. Good luck.
Oh, and to check your sound equipment isn't too shit to do these tests at all, try it with CD vs. a 128kbps CBR mp3 encoding by Xing. If you can't hear the difference, forget it, you're wasting all the quality of SACD, DVD-A and even CD-DA on your soundsystem and/or ears.
One last thing - if it's a really warm sound, other than a closer, more true to the original sound that you're looking for, go with a good vinyl deck. It's fidelity sucks, but the artificial colouring it produces sounds very, very natural to the ear, warmer than the original in most cases.
Re:DVD-A and SACD aren't much better anyway (Score:3, Insightful)
Realize though, that the MASS MARKET is willing to listen to music on stereo systems that have cheap paper-cone "full range" speakers and shiny metal discs and plastic baffles for aesthetics instead of actual frequency range enhancement. Until more people have systems that exceed the capabilities of the current format (CDs), the difference between higher quality formats will literally go unheard.
It is quite possible that most people have a limit to the amount of realism they want out of their audio. Sure it's nice to have a system with the frequency response to produce bass that can vibrate the walls to high frequencies that make the dog yelp. A system that is able to produce the dynamic range from a nearly inaudible whisper to a roaring jet engine.
What's the downside? Most people find large volume fluctuations to be annoying. For every person that raves about the amazing dynamic range of DVD audio, there's another that wishes he could hear the dialog better without making the explosions and gunfire scare his neighbors. Great bass can be enjoyable, but most of the time you don't want to watch the water in your glass recreate the scene from Jurassic Park. And for your dog's sake, you don't want the treble turned up to her threshold of pain.
If you live alone and don't have neighbors, you probably can't understand why that would be a problem. If you live in a family, an apartment, or any other situation where you'd be disturbing someone else, you can understand where too much dynamic range and bass can be a problem.
To get to the point, most people realize that a uber-stereo is overkill.
Sure it's anecdotal, but at my home the vast majority of the time the 5.1 surround sound system is turned off and the audio is provided by the TV. Better bass and treble plus more dynamic range, not to mention more speakers really just equals more sound to carry throughout the house and disturb everyone who ISN'T watching TV.
Re:DVD-A and SACD aren't much better anyway (Score:2)
Reread Niquist and Shannon. Sampling higher than twice the cut off frequency of the lowest lowpass filter in the chain (the ears) will only get you components that will get filterered by said LP. The rest is only bullshit they sell you with your 10.000 $ stereo to make you feel good about being such an idiot.
Same for the people claiming vinyl/lamp amps and other medieval technologies are "warmer" (yet another bullshit buzzword). A very long time ago an engineer simulated the shitty sound of lamp amps on an all-digital system with a very cheep DSP. The double blind tests revealed none was better than the other. The system didn't sell. He added dummy lamps. The system sold very well for a very high price IIRC
Re:CDs will continue to sell (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:CDs will continue to sell (Score:2, Interesting)
One market I see as being a natural place for DVD Audio is in automobiles. Think about it: in a typical car, you already have 4 speakers, one in each corner; how hard would it be to add a center channel and subwoofer (already in some cars)? The speakers are in nearly perfect positions.
They're killing CD convenience. (Score:2)
Re:CDs will continue to sell (Score:3, Insightful)
The reason why QUALITY is no longer as highly valued, is - the COST of decent quality sound equipment.
Case in point:
Cost of an MP3 player= $100 (or basically free, if you've got a computer - unless you bought your computer JUST to listen to MP3s, in which case, you're a moron).
Cost of audio equipment capable of detecting the difference between an MP3 and CD, in case you're also one of the gifted 10% of people who can detect the difference= $5000
I know, I know, you can play them side by side on fairly average equipment and tell the difference, but no played side by side, it's fairly cheap to fool yourself and enjoy "good enough" music quality. And the convenience helps too.
And nobody ever accidentally scratched a PRAM chip or hard disk while trying to switch to a different album while they were driving.
Somebody hit Rosen with a cluestick... (Score:5, Insightful)
Compassion for the RIAA? Never had it, never Will (Score:5, Interesting)
As for Sony "losing" $132 Million last year, they didnt lose anything, they just didnt make what they promised the board of directors. They probably only pulled in $1.5 Billion and "lost" their 9% of that to people feeling like they finally have a way to get back at the bastards who runied rock-and-roll with boy-bands and Mariah Carrey (no offense to whomever loves Mariah, but you understand my point).
Re:Compassion for the RIAA? Never had it, never Wi (Score:2)
If you haven't already read it, Courtney Love does the math is about the most reasoned and articulate piece of journalism I have ever read. Check it out:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UT
Percentages never lie! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Percentages never lie! (Score:2)
Immorality (Score:3, Interesting)
In other countries there were the "bards", that would play music for free to anyone and they were respected, paid and fed by people who had wealth.
So, this immorality of our age that only rich people can buy art should make us outrageous, not making us people feeling shame and guilt of not paying them!
They should feel ashamed of putting artists, good artists into this system for the sake of making themeselves more money.
People, wake up, we don't need to pay more the ones that are already rich.
Art patronage (Score:4, Interesting)
Heh (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you know how much it costs to replace something? Getting rid of something to replace it with something else just isn't within human nature, no matter how much it would help in the long run! What would happen anyway if they did get rid of CDs? They would just put the same amount of songs on a DVD and sell them at a higher price
We're probably better off with them - or is that my human nature talking?
An interesting quote from the article (Score:5, Funny)
When did this happen? Industry executives actually acknowledging the obvious? Now where'd those pigs go...
cds are of limited usefulness (Score:5, Insightful)
For software distribution, dvd just makes more sense. More and more software requires more than one cd. A dvd is similar in price to a cd, but can hold more information. Why not switch? It's happening all the time.
For music the case is less clear. The cd is still the "best" way to distribute it. The problem is that the heaviest music consumers, the teens and college students, know all about mp3s. Among the artsy college crowd that I hang out with, there are two camps. One says that mp3s are just as good as cds, and easier to get, so they use them. The other camp says that mp3s have low quality sound (either all mp3s, or to some people just the low bitrate ones they can usually find on the internet) so they buy cds instead. Interesting this cross cuts the whole other spectrums: into music or not, rich or poor, death metal or country&western, big names or indy artists, etc..
In fact, more people among the intellectual elite download mp3s then burn them to cd to listen to than buy cds. That's a bit surprising since most mp3s stay on hard disks and flash memory. As I said, cds are dead.
The only place I see cd use increasing is for personal data storage. They are the new floppy disk, and they are back with a vengeance. Comparatively this works also. Back in 1987 my xt had a twenty meg hard disk and floppies one sixtieth that size. Now many people have a forty gig hard disk and use cds one sixtieth that size. For casual storage and backup and archives for people who are too poor to get industrial quality solutions, the cd will stick around in a while in its writeable form.
Will there be CDs in the future? (Score:3, Interesting)
And then when you find an interesting CD in the store, there is always the suspicion that is it a CD after all. Last week I was at a store, found an interesting title (well the new best of Led Zeppelin or something). I tried to find any indication of any copy protection method used on the CD and did not find any. But I also could not find any indication that it is NOT copy protected. And the shopgirls were too busy handling other customes, so I wasn't going to stand in queue for five minutes just to ask "I this CD?"
That day the music industry did not get that CD sold just because the potential customer was so suspicious about their product. I hope that in the future the customer can rely on getting a quality product, but it is up to the music industry to stop this madness.
Re:Will there be CDs in the future? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Will there be CDs in the future? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Will there be CDs in the future? (Score:4, Insightful)
The record industry does not seem to grasp this. If bottled water was harder to use -- say, if you had to have a licenesed opener that would only open certain bottles in certain places and times, they would have a hard time selling the product. Likewise, if consumers didn't think that the water was better (percieved value) than the stuff they got out of their tap, they would have a hard time convincing people to buy it. If they actually put poison in one out of every 100 bottles, they wouldn't be able to sell it at all.
The record companies are poisoning their product, making it harder to use, and the perceived value isn't much higher than mp3s and lower than comparably priced DVDs -- and they wonder why sales are declining. Please tell me these guys somehow missed Marketing 101 in college.
The real statistics. . . (Score:5, Interesting)
8 percent are not buying less music.
2 percent are buying less music because they would rather just steal it.
87 percent are buying less music because they already bought everything they want, and all the new stuff is garbage.
Seriously, I would guess the numbers to be about 50,5,10, and 35, respectively. Keep in mind that those citing high prices are doing so in a worsening economy (thanks Clinton!).
And I RAAAN (Score:5, Interesting)
Compact Disc value not worth it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's face it: consumers will balk at shelling out US$18 per album-length audio CD; at these prices there is just too much economic incentive to pirate music, to say the least. Even at US$20 per disc, DVD's are usually a better deal because not only do you get a full-length movie, but often you get lots of background material on the production of the movie, deleted scenes, commentary tracks by the director/actors, and so on.
Take for example the four-disc Extended Edition DVD set of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, which you can get for around US$30 at most discount retailers. You not only get superior picture quality, but two different top-quality audio tracks (Dolby Digital EX and DTS-ES), FOUR audio commentary tracks, and two Supplementary discs with so much information it would take days to view them all even quickly. This is something no audio CD can hope to match, that's to be sure.
Now, if album-length CD's were priced at US$11 per disc, then the incentive for consumers for buy the disc goes way up and the incentive to pirate music goes way down.
Re:Compact Disc value not worth it. (Score:3, Interesting)
A friend of mine bought the soundtrack and DVD for a movie he really liked.
The DVD was cheaper, not just bang for the buck, but in absolute terms too.
Pricing has nothing to do with it, eh? (Score:2, Interesting)
Consumers of what were polled...oh, don't get me started on polls...
I live in England these days and new CDs are roughly 13 pounds, which translates very roughly to about CDN$30 or US$18. But when I went home to Canada at Christmas I was astonished at the prices (i.e. cheap compared to Britain!)
Take the new U2 Greatest Hits as a comparison. The CD here is 14 pounds, the DVD 24 pounds (approx.) When I was shopping in Canada at Christmas I saw the CD on sale for the equivalent of 9 pounds and the DVD for the equilvalent of 14 pounds. i.e. I could have bought the DVD in Canada for the price of the CD in the UK!
Last week I bought my first three CDs in absolute ages because Virgin Megastore was dumping stock for 5 & 6 quid a disc...that's ~CDN$13/US$9 or thereabouts. And they were still all CDs to replace old LPs (believe it or not).
The price fixing the entertainment industries are engaging in is just costing them customers. I've just dumped the Sky Movies package 'cause it's just the same old crap over and over again...they claim to show new movies, but they come in, show a couple of dozen times and it's back to the same old filler every night. Booooooooring!!!
I kept Film Four though...gotta support the independent distributors.
Re:Pricing has nothing to do with it, eh? (Score:2)
You bought the cds cheaper than they determined ? PIRATE !
YATPE (Yet Another Three Percent Explanation) (Score:2)
The other 97% are buying no music because the prices are too high!
QED baby, Q E D.
There are some good artists out there. (Score:4, Interesting)
Matthew Good makes his videos and singles available as a free non-DRM download from his website. Since free is good, you can take a look at his website [matthewgood.net].
Canadian artists really need more exposure in the states. Artists who embrace the internet also need our support. I suggest you check Kazaa for Matthew Good Band and check out the Beautiful Midnight album. You won't be disappointed, I promise.
Re:There are some good artists out there. (Score:3, Insightful)
Compact Discs Obsolete & Universally Standard (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple's R&D often notes that the optical drive is the number one bottleneck in data storage speed, reliability, and size reduction. (Not just for laptops, but desktops too) DVD burners, as Apple now includes in most every model of its computers, produce a lot of heat and add about $250 to the consumer cost of the computer.
I wish manufacturers could just agree on another new standard, such as some sort of Flash based storage. With the quality of Mp4 video and audio you could have relatively small capacity "compact flash cards" - the slot should be a combo drive as already seen in the majority of industry with DVD/CDRW combo drives. Be a flash memory reader and a videoFlash reader.
Now as for cost, if manufacturers would do this, Flash RAM (or SRAM) would start to plummet. These manufacturers would make money based on volume. I could see 128MB cards $1 + 512MB $5 1 GB $9 - these may be unrealistic at first, but WOULD come. It would reduce memory of all types for all the different uses there are.
It would also reduce R&D and reduce heat and weight concerns many Video Player/Laptop/music player manufacturers have at this moment. The XD picture card is promising 3 gigs by the end of this year. If they can put that amount of memory in the size of a postage stamp; imagine what they could do with a compact flash card size?
Of course, reasons are clear why music CDs are expensive right now - RIAA litigation costs MONEY - lots of it. Litigation expenses were nearly 33 million dollars last year. The music industry was caught for overcharging. Third, they don't understand that the cost of online distribution at a reasonable price would dramitically reduce print/ink/plastic/distribution (truck/air) costs.
My question is, are blank CD media pressing companies really making a lot of money?
Re:Compact Discs Obsolete & Universally Standa (Score:5, Insightful)
And you think Flash storage will improve data storange speed? Give me a break. Space usage might decrease slightly, but not much. A couple PCMCIA slots will use up almost as much space as a CD drive, and those cards put off plenty of heat when in heavy use.
Uhhh, you mean CompactFlash?
With the complex electronics required for Flash memory, there is no way they could ever get near the price of CDs/DVDs.
I was hoping I could replace my MiniDiscs with CompactFlash cards and Ogg. With "-q0" 64kbps VBR Ogg files (which sound good, but 128kbps would sound perfect, so would be preferable) I could stick an album on 32MB. So, I looked around and didn't find 32MB cards (let alone 64MB cards) for less than $15, compared to $1 MiniDiscs which would hold more, are editable, can be recorded onto in realtime, and have FAR better sound quality, less power usage, have caddies so they are more durable than CompactFlsah cards, and can be erased and re-recorded more times than CompactFlash... The point is that a small piece of electronics cannot out-price a hunk of plastic and tin.
The bare material costs alone wouldn't allow the prices to go that low. Meanwhile, 700MB CDs (which can hold MP3s, or whatever your preference is) are now only $0.25, and will no doubt cost even less by the time your plan could near fruition.
It would NOT reduce the heat output by too much, and CD drives don't weigh very much anyhow. Besides, the R&D cost would not be gone or reduced, they would be shifted to CompactFlash developers, which means the on-going costs would be high, rather than the one-time machine costs being slightly higher, and media costs being lower.
Don't get me wrong, CompactFlash is a very good media for a great many things, and I'd like to see desktops available with PCMCIA slots so that CF can finally replace floppies (CDs still aren't natively BIOS writable, so they're no good for holding an OS, or ANYTHING that needs to change frequently, which is why USB hard drives are popular). However, for bulk, hi-capacity storage such as movies, music, and system backups, nothing can beat optical discs for the price and capacity.
CD Prices (Score:4, Insightful)
You can buy an old movie on DVD for under $10 dollars at WallyWorld, which blows away their cost argument. Which is cheaper to produce, a CD or a DVD? Then again theres the price fixing settlement that the major record labels are paying out on now. Their greed will be thier undoing. They should price CD's at $5 a pop, then they become impulse buys. It really galls me that if I go out and buy a CD that's been out for years or a compilation disk they charge through the eyes. As for piracy, only %20 percent of homes have high speed connections, so are the rest of us dial up users spending the hours to download some older stuff? I think not. Janis Ian pointed out that her sales went up over %300 after she posted some stuff and made it available for free!
I still buy audio CDs (Score:5, Insightful)
I recently asked a non-geek (yes, they do exist!) if he would pay 10p for an audio track and legally own it if he could, rather than getting it from p2p networks. He thought for a while, then said no. This same individual regularly spends £40 or more on concert tickets. When the music industry realises that recorded music is marketing tool, not a product then they will start having a sustainable buisness model. How many people pay to listen to the radio? None. Many people simply view Kazaa and friends as radio-on-demand.
Re:I still buy audio CDs (Score:2)
here's a few statistics for you (Score:2)
10% will bitch about providing a link that doesn't require registration.
30% will post a comment even without reading it.
1% will be about first posts
1 % will be "In Russia" posts
2% will be about BSD or some celebrity dying
5 % will be about piracy
35% will be about bashing the RIAA
and...
30% will mod this as funny
30% will mod this as a troll
and 100% will go on with their lives even if CDs disappear off the planet.
The other 97%.. (Score:2, Funny)
Overall a good article (Score:5, Interesting)
Case in point is the outcry over the survey that indicated that only 3% of consumers thinks the price is too high. First, if a survey is reported and technical details of the survey is not, then the survey is mostly a marketing ploy and must be taken with a grain of salt. We all know this. The interesting thing is that the number, in some sense, is probably not unreasonable. As the article mentions the value of music recorded on a CD is some small number approaching zero. Additionally the article states that some people will buy a CD, make copies, and sell the copies to their friends. I totally believe this. When I was in school, people would do this with computer software. There are clearly many people who still buy CDs, but we can assume that most of these are older people who traditionally have bought music, or younger people who will recoup the investment through piracy. From this we can postulate three groups of people: those that currently buy CDs, those that buy copy music, and those that do without because they cannot afford it. The last group is very small as the vast majority of people will copy or buy music they want. The second group is irreverent because to them the value of music on CD is near zero, and the labels would have to give music away. So, we are only left with people in the first group. Furthermore, we probably are only left with people in the first group that buy at full retail rather than value shop. This is conceivable quite a small percentage.
The article brings up several other good points. Consumers want to procure music online. It is not known if consumers will pay for music online, but the labels have done very little to effectively deal with this demand. The article states that the labels have dropped the ball on this, retailers are trying to figure out how to meet demand, but without label support it is difficult. In general, one would expect manufacturers that ignore entire areas of demand to fail.
There are other good points. Consumers are also disenchanted with hidden copy protection schemes that cause CDs to fail on standard consumer equipment. Labels are doing nothing to enhance the product to make it more appealing and increase the value to consumers. When they do increase the value of the product to consumers, they jack up the price far beyond what an average consumer can pay, and then complain that no one is buying the new technology.
Probably the only big issue the article missed was that most download services, even if they had the music, are too complicated, the download formats too confusing. Furthermore, they tend to target people who currently get music for free rather than cosumers who pay for music.
Again, the article clearly lays the decline of CD sales on the labels front door, The article is balanced in the sense that it acknowledges that music executives have limited ability to make sweeping changes to business plan and product models. For instance, it would make a lot of sense to ship music on DVDs with additional content, but how can one justify the capital expenditure in a declining market?
No-registration link in Taipei Times (Score:3, Informative)
Taipei Times shortened version of the article.
The idiots way to fight piracy (Score:5, Insightful)
CD's used to qualify to two of these, their allot better quality than mp3's, it's as useful as mp3's in the meaning that you could play it in any CD player, on your computer, or on portable mp3 player.
Now what does the music industry do to make people pay for music. They release copy protected CD's that wont play in all CD players, wont play on a computer, can't be ripped to a portable mp3 player. What a great idea.
I believe people are willing to pay for music, but not a useless piece of plastic that they can't do what they want with.
Bootlegs (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course it doesn't make sense for folks like Dr Dre and Eminem to get into a twist about it (since they would be bootlegging their own material). Still, conspiracies like this run rampant in the industry.
Students think CDs are expensive? No surprise. (Score:4, Insightful)
I've also been seeing the argument that MP3s are easier to obtain and manage than CDs. That's only true if you have high bandwidth internet access and lots of free time.
Re:Students think CDs are expensive? No surprise. (Score:3, Insightful)
Onto the second point: Besides the above, the secondary reason why most games cost as much as they do, is that unlike a month of bubblegum pop production paid at scale, software companies have up to 100 people or more working on any given title. As anyone with experience in the field can attest, a LOT more talent goes into a good game design than a Backstreet Boys album. In fact, most games out there take upwards of 3 years to produce, while top ten bands churn out music more times in a year than Gene Hackman stars in movies.
Additionally, as games continue their lifespans, their prices drop. As operating systems add new features and make others obsolete, the games are nearly unplayable, and join the "2 for $9.95" bargain bin. CDs on the other hand, are playable indefinately (well, except for that little nasty deal with Palladium), so there's not only a good chance you can find an album released on CD 10 years ago, but you can rest assured that it'll probably still cost $14.95-$19.95.
Now on the other hand, lets look at some numbers, 10 years prior:
Video game prices for CD based games (ROM based cartridges don't quite count, as chip prices contributed the most to the overall retail price) usually ran $59-$79. Production time usually ran 1-2 years for games.
CD prices usually ran $14.95-$19.95. Production time usually ran 1-2 years.
And now:
Video game prices for CD based games usually run $29-$49. Production time runs 2-4 years.
CD prices still run $14.95-$19.95. Production time usually runs 6 months to 1 year.
Note the discrepencies in price cuts VS. production costs, the music industry is ripping us off, while game manufacturers are technically working for sweatshop pay.
The Superbowl Problem (Score:5, Interesting)
If anything, P2P is an excellent promotional tool for the sales of albums, or at least you would think it would be. On the other hand, it can be used to reveal turkey albums that are mostly filler, while allowing you to get the hit songs that you just wanted. In a way, what the recording industry is discovering is that their cream of the crop songs that they pick for promotional use are what are most sought-after on P2P networks. It's a lot like having a sporting event that people just want to watch for the commercials. Except in this case, the sporting event is what the recording industry is trying to get you to buy.
The recording industry has no one to blame but their own short-sightedness for their lack of sales. If they had realized that their most valuable product is actually their distillation of songs from various artists, they'd allow you to build your own compilation CDs from a comprehensive catalog of artists for a per-track fee, rather than trying to milk an outdated distribution method for all it's worth.
3%? more like 100%... (Score:3, Funny)
And to think, the marketing department is always trying to cut the economics requirements from their major..
I am the market - an open letter to the RIAA (Score:5, Interesting)
Back in the old days, when I had my first CD player, I went out and replicated my sizable record collection at $12-$13 a pop (note that I lived in Berkeley, which is blessed with two awesome non-chain retailers - Rasputins and Ameoba) - this took all of my struggling-student-with-no-loans spare cash. Over the course of a year, I bought 80+ CDs. It sucked hard, but I hated records and tapes (no nastalgia for me). Back then, the rumor was that the price of CDs was inflated to cover the cost of retooling manufacturing and would come down below record prices because they were cheaper to make.
Five years later, the prices didn't go down and my 200+ CD collection was stolen from my ghetto appartment. I was literally in tears. That was more than $2500 and I was still pretty poor due to the early 90s resession. The upside was that stolen CDs were valuable because there was a budding used CD market in the Bay Area. Once Rasputins & Ameoba started selling used CDs in quantity, I stopped buying new CDs altogether. This is early 90's and I already dropped out of the label's direct market. Here I was, a 20-something kid that was so in love with music that I would spend the better part of my expendable cash on CDs and I dropped right off their books because I could buy "Nevermind" for $9 if I waited a month after it came out.
Funny thing is that I started making serious money. I still wouldn't buy new CDs. I was used to paying $6-9 and there was no way I could go back. I probably missed out on a lot of music, because I was limited to what college kids would buy and return.
Then came burners - I spent many hours burning all of my friends CD collections. Shortly thereafter came MP3s. I was already pirating software on the FTP scene (another economic lesson to be learned for the SW companies, but I'm not gonna stray there), so suddenly, I'm not even buying used CDs anymore.
So where does this leave us? Well, I'm in my mid 30s, make 6figs, and I like a huge variety of musical genres. I could spend $250 a month on music and not bat an eye, but I don't. The labels have alienated me. I virulently despise them, but I am a music addicted consumer. If they offered me something that had value to me, I would embrace the bastards with loving arms.
So, what can they do for me that would convince me to give them my money again? Simple:
1. Save me time - downloading stuff on Kazaa is work: sifting through the crappy files, figuring out which songs I am missing from a given CD, and organizing the 40+gigs of it all - this stuff takes time and my time is worth money to me. Figure out ways to save me time and I will pay a price for it.
2. Selection - I am limited to what the masses are trading. I like obscure shit and am willing to experiment, but not at $15-17 (notice how this trended higher?) a pop - no fricking way!
3. Ease my concious - I admit it, I feel bad for screwing the artists by downloading mp3s. The problem is, they are already getting so screwed by the labels. It's kinda like buying Nikes - hard to say whether it helping the poor little Indonesian kid or not. Besides, the less that people give the labels, they less they have to offer the artists who should really all jump ship anyway. I buy Timberland clothes 'cause they make a big deal about how their sweatshops are less satanic than others. Treat the artists well so I don't feel bad about promoting your exploitation of them. Tax the superstars a bit to feed the starving artists - music should be a middle class profession.
So, how can the labels meet these needs? Again, simple:
Give me FTP access to a full catalog (all labels in one place)of high quality, verified, DRM-free and properly tagged MP3s. How much would I be willing to pay for this? Figure 2-4 bucks for 10 songs. That's $.20 -
This would keep me off Kazaa - I promise. I might give some of this to my friends for free, but that is usually stuff that they wouldn't have bought anyway.
For physical media, I would pay 5-7 bucks for a CD if it came with a bandwidth rebate, and an access code to a spiffy band website with news, lyrics, tablature, special monthly download songs and a $10/year subscription to have access to every live show.
And labels, before you complain that your promotion budgets wouldn't be covered at these rates, you should know that I don't listen to ClearChannel, I don't watch MTV, I don't hang out in record stores and that wallpapering of downtown areas with posters just pisses me off.
So, in conclusion, my case is a clear illustration that the RIAA statistic is correct - I don't spend less on CDs - I couldn't buy less than none. Win me back - it's not that hard and it's not too late. I am the consumer and you are supposed to be serving me - make me a happy, full, fed and fat sheep and I'll open up my wallet for you, but treat me like your enemy, and I will be a wolf poaching your chickens with impunity - the choice is yours.
How to make successful online distribution (Score:3, Insightful)
What I won't pay is a new format that can only be played in one particular program, can't be copied or burned to CD etc etc etc. If I pay for a song, I want to listen to it in iTunes, burn it to a CD, or download it to an iPod. Period.
If the music companies did this, would some people then immediiately upload that song to Kazaa? Sure, but they will anyway. At least this way, the companies would make some money from the initial download. That's a risk they need to take.
Frivolous Sales? (Score:3, Insightful)
The 10x Rule (Score:3, Insightful)
There's many precedents, most notably CDs. CDs are 10x 'better' than vinyl (sound quality, production cost, resistance to scratching, size, etc) and easily replaced vinyl once the price of recorders came down. DVDs are 10 times better than pre-recorded video cassettes (production costs, quality, access time, size, etc).
Personally, I think Minidiscs are 10x better than tape (which they were intended to replace), but they haven't taken off so well.
However, are DVD-A/SACD 10 times 'better' than CDs? Audiophiles might think so, but I doubt regular joes will consider it worth the investment. Does it sound significantly better than CD? Does it offer many new features over CD? Then regular people won't buy SACD/DVD-A players.
What will happen is that the cost of add SACD/DVD-A to a regular CD player will come down, and it won't be such a big deal to buy a SACD/DVD-A equipped CD player. It may take a long time, but eventually CD will be phased out, and it'll be there in backwards compatibility mode only.
Re:$CDs == "Dirt Cheap"; (Score:2)
As for burners, they are available for $250... Compare that to the $50+ for CD burners, and the price difference isn't a big deal.
Standards? Hell, the "DVD+" formats are dead in the water. You might as well say that CDs are not standarized because SACD and DVD are out there. That's totally ridiculous.
Re:but you do have a point (Score:2)
Re:The Truth. (Score:5, Interesting)
Downloading an entire CD worth of music takes time. While it's quite easy finding the hits, it's a little harder to get the less known songs.
You also have to find quality versions of each song. I'm generally forced to download about three versions of each song in order to find one really good copy. You have to mess with them to make sure they're the same volume and don't have too much space at the end. And if you're lucky enough to get the complete CD in one MP3 file, you have to spend time converting it and slicing it up.
Plus you have to create and print a label for them. Once again, that takes time.
I'd MUCH MUCH MUCH rather spend ten dollars (US) to get a CD. A local Harmony House went out of business in my town about 6 months ago. They were selling CDs for less than 10 bucks on average. I bought about 300 dollars worth!!! In the 7 years before that day, I probably bought a total of 9 CDs.
I could get water from my sink for free (as we have a well). But I still only drink bottle water because it's of better quality. I could drink RC or Fago soda because it's much cheaper. But I pay more for Coke because it taste better.
Cost is NOT the only criteria. My time is VERY valuable and I'd rather pay than waste it. Furthermore, quality is important to me too, and is worth paying for at the right price.
Re:The Compact Disc Will Turn 20 This Spring (Score:3)
2) I would damn well hope that the CD format lasted 20 years! The last thing this world needs is an ever-changing format war that keeps forcing new standards on the public with no hope for some sort of stability.