Save the trees!
Posted on 12/01/2011 6:16:52 AM PST by Libloather
Compact Disc death foretold for 2012
Major record labels to kill format?
By Caleb Cox
7th November 2011 15:45 GMT
The major record labels are planning to kill off the CD format by the end of next year to make way for digital downloads only.
That's the claim made by music site Side-Line which says it heard whispers that the end of the CD is nigh from music industry insiders.
That said, it has failed to get any official confirmation from the labels, though that's not perhaps surprising.
The notion is that, by the end of 2012, the majors will focus entirely on downloads. The only CDs that will go on sale through 2013 and beyond will be special editions and albums from the biggest artists.
If true - we're not entirely convinced; we can't see the majors acting in such harmony - the news could spell even bigger profits for digital content suppliers Amazon and iTunes, while ruining bricks'n'mortar stores like HMV, which already struggles due to the rise in digital-download popularity.
(Excerpt) Read more at reghardware.com ...
My 40-year-oil virgin vinyl micro-grooves still do sound great.
Majority of fiction is now sold as e-books.
Colleges are switching away from physical textbooks.
Ya know, vinyl records are still around. They’re lovingly pressed in small batches for playing on high-price-tag (up to six digits!) late-model turntables.
Yes, books will be next. Most content will be produced & distributed via electronic/digital means; a small elite specialty industry will persist, focusing on “smell of paper & ink and feel of crisp pages” for content worthy of premium media.
CDs won’t go away entirely. The cheap mass-produced mass-sold forms will, but for “I’ve got to have my own physical copy of X” will be addressed with archive-quality, premium-printed, robust-boxed packages in small quantities.
Borders Bookstores went bankrupt earlier this year, and last year Amazon reported that for the first time, (for them) e-book sales equalled paper copies.
Optical-format movies (DVDs and Blu-Rays) are next in line. Overall sales of disc-based movies (counting both formats) are trending downwards.
Save the trees!
We still have a beta head cleaner and boxes of 3-1/2” floppies in sealed packages where I work.
“I understand the cloud, and digital formats, and digital only music. I reject it. If I can’t buy music on a physical media, I won’t buy music. I think there are more than a few like me.”
Agreed. I’m one of them. They can download their digital media where the sun doesn’t shine.
http://www.polaroid.com/en/stream
Polaroid instant digital.
“Sound quality of CDs and even vinyl blows away MP3s and other compressed formats.”
With the relentless expansion of cheap data storage, lossless is becoming more common. Apple just raised the bar with their iCloud / iTunes Match combination pushing all content to 256kbps, which while isn’t the lossless of CD or the pleasant “warmth” distortion of analog vinyl, it’s better than most listeners can discern under most conditions with most equipment.
In comparison: I’m annoyingly perceptive of digital artifacts in video, and while I can discern various limitations in (say) a standard-issue 42” 60Hz HDTV upsampling a streamed HD content, I’ll attest that the quality has improved over time from obnoxious to ignorable or even undiscernable. Ditto for audio: the artifacts may still be there for a discerning listener to deliberately observe on quality equipment playing nuanced content, but it’s becoming a vanishingly small issue.
I just got a Blu-ray player. Maybe I can get in on a close-out of Blu-ray discs.
My husband gave me a Nook Color which I use for the web for FR, FB, Ebay and Etsy. It has maybe 5 books on it and every time I go online to B&N to buy a new book for it, I end up at Amazon where I buy a bunch of used books.
I really don’t like the Nook or my friends’ Kindles. I want real books for the feel, the whole sensory experience.
When th packages arrive my hubbie just shales his head.
We are out of room for bookshelves and books which is why he bought me the Nook.
For me, nothing comes as close to capturing the original musical experience as does the Edison Wax Cylinder.
What do I do with all my 8” floppy disks?
A friend of mine that works at Best Buy said they are going to greatly reduce the number of CD’s and DVD’s they sell in their stores after Christmas(literally down to one rack). Seems they take up too much floor space given the way the inventory turns and the margins they make on them.
Retail franchises like CD WAREHOUSE will thrive while Best Buy et al reduce their in store display stock of CD’s and DVD’s. Great place to find previously owned discs as well.
Border Books did same; only they decided to not carry them at all. Was thinking; ok. ..at least we have Best Buys. Of course, handwriting on this wall, for some time. Can download, of course; but still love looking through racks; reading; seeing covers; and having a quick ‘bird-in-hand’./sigh But then, I am of one of the dinasaurs who misses Blockbuster/lol.
I still have my 8 track in use as the garage radio.....I finally dumped the old music however, and I had a ton of ‘em thanks to a buddy that was a VP at Warner Records.
Inventors may want to keep the number 8 out of the title. 8-track, 8" floppy, Super-8 - all seem to be failures as time goes on.
Sad. I remember when the compact disc was amazing new technology. Didn’t get a cd boombox until ‘89. I don’t like the “instant obsoleteness” we’ve gotten into.
I still buy cds, but if manufacturers are too stupid to realize that it’s the lack of quality and the price of the darn things...well, it just means a whole lot of music will become very, very affordable.
I’m really worried how this will affect our local “retro” record store. The guy sells new cds and lps in addition to vintage collectibles and he’s already in financial trouble.
We buy “new to me” movies on VHS for a quarter at the used bookstores. Hours of entertainment for my husband and I.
But the Chinese people think the number 8 is very, very lucky! LOL!
Why do you think the 787 Dreamliner has that 8 in there?
robert
Actually CD will probably stick around more for the small guys than the big guys. Touring bar bands make most of their money on the merch table, and item #1 on the merch table is CDs.
I’m surprised with greater memory capabilities, that there isn’t a digital format that can have the same sound quality as analog by now.
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