Compact Disc celebrates 25th anniversary

Associated Press ^ | 08/16/2007 | Toby Sterling

[abt87]

EINDHOVEN, Netherlands - It was Aug. 17, 1982, and row upon row of palm-sized plates with a rainbow sheen began rolling off an assembly line near Hanover, Germany. ADVERTISEMENT

An engineering marvel at the time, today they are instantly recognizable as Compact Discs, a product that turns 25 years old on Friday — and whose future is increasingly in doubt in an age of iPods and digital downloads.

The recording industry thrived in the 1990s as music fans replaced their aging cassettes and vinyl LPs with compact discs, eventually making CDs the most popular album format.

The CD still accounts for the majority of the music industry's recording revenues, but its sales have been in a freefall since peaking early this decade, in part due to the rise of online file-sharing, but also as consumers spend more of their leisure dollars on other entertainment purchases, such as DVDs and video games.

[jdm]

Actually, they already have “iTunes Plus” which offers DRM-free AAC tracks encoded at 256k.

It's still lossy, though. Compressed to hell. Certainly better than a measly 128, but I don't think the 256 is variable bit rate either, which would have been smarter than the constant bit rate they offer.

[dangerdoc]

Have you ever noticed that CD’s look like pancakes. I like pancakes. Especially with syrup. Have you ever tried those flavored syrups? I’ve thought about flavored syrups but then I couldn’t use real syrup and I like real syrup. Is Aunt Jamima real syrup, my wife says it’s not but I alway thought it was. I know that corn syrup isn’t real syrup. IHOP has flavored syrups but they don’t have Aunt Jamima.

[abt87]

ROFLMAO!

[abt87]

And back in 2000, Sony tried selling music for $3.50 per DRM-encoded song and failed miserably. I’ll pay $1.29 per track, but only if it is worth it. If Apple starts selling lossless music on iTunes, then they could charge $1.29 ($7 per album) and $.99 for high bit-rate AAC’s or MP3’s ($5 for the album). Another good solution would be a “Voluntary Collective Licensing” program, as described by the EFF:

http://www.eff.org/share/collective_lic_wp.php

[Spruce]

EVERY CD player should come from the factory with a copy of Dark side of the Moon.

[Gondring]

And twenty years later, consumers have discovered downloading, and I realize that they don’t need to re-buy the same music over and over again.

Uh, not so... Billy-Boy Clinton got us into those treaties and his good ol' DMCA has us in the current situation, where you have to purchase a second copy if you want to use something on a different device.

For example, the lawyers are already going after those who don't buy a second copy of a DVD they already bought, if they want to have an iPod version.

[TrueKnightGalahad]

Vinyl, along with other analogue sources such as RTR tape, still sounds better to me 99% of the time. Thankfully CD recording and playback has improved pretty drastically over the last quarter century. ‘80s digital would drive me out of a room in seconds with a screaming headache; now I can listen to decent CDs without pain (though the bad ones are still horrendous), but with no real pleasure or musical involvement.

[Larry Lucido]

You think YOU feel old.....

[Larry Lucido]

[abt87]

True, but that only applies to media with DRM on it. Most CD’s (except for a select few sold between 2002-2005, when the Sony scandal ended their distribution) are sold without DRM, so this matter is moot. Also, the chances of the MPAA busting down your door because you ripped a DVD (the act of ripping it is NOT illegal in an of itself, but the act of removing the DRM is).

[Fishtalk]

Well I guess you’re mocking me and your humor is clever.

But I got to ask myself, why would someone bother with such petty meanness? A few nice folks responded because folks, especially in this nice forum, present company excluded, often LIKE to show off their knowledge.

Even had a few freepmails in response.

Just so you know where you fit in the forum you’re on.

Although let me assure you I’m aware that there may be others who thought like you but evidently they have lives and moved on.

You get the prize for useless nastiness.

Heh.

[tarheelswamprat]

but surely you could tell the difference between 2 speakers and surround sound? That’s what I want: to hear classical music in surround sound

Just play your CDs through an A/V (audio/video) receiver with Dolby Pro-Logic II decoding capability. It should have different settings for multi-channel output, e.g. a "simulated-surround" setting. Experiment till you find the sound settings you like.

[-YYZ-]

I occasionally download some old tune that I have a hankering to hear again, but some of my favourite songs are ones that I never would have heard if I didn’t buy the whole album. Of course, I could always illegally download the whole album, but I don’t believe in doing that.

And while CDs may have their shortcomings, they’re good enough for my ears and certainly a heck of lot better quality than a lot of the poorly-encoded MP3s out there.

[tarheelswamprat]

You think YOU feel old.....

Could I interest you in a genuine wire-recorder WITH a 78RPM cutting stylus and turntable?

[Florida native]

I realized today I was 10 when Elvis died...feeling super old right about now. YOU feel old?.......I was in college, right out of the USMC!.......

And I was 20 - heard that he died while listening to the radio, driving home in my mom's car. I think it was just after 5pm EDT when it was announced.

[Florida native]

Never should’ve sold by vinyl collection. Vinyl recorded onto reel-to-reel or a high quality cassette deck sounds (to my ears) far superior to digital. Can listen for hours on end. Digital, otoh, get irksome after less than an hour of listening. Don’t know exactly why.

I still have my vinyl collection - about 200 albums in all - some date from 50's to around 1990. There is nothing like the sound of vinyl...and recording on reel to reel boosts the sounds so well that you can hear every single instrument in detail.

I agree that digital doesn't come close to high fidelity stereo or quad-sound that we used to get on vinyl or reel to reel.

[Florida native]

And I was 20 - heard that he died while listening to the radio

Let me rephrase that one...should read - heard he died while I was listening to the radio

But then you never know...maybe he WAS listening to the radio when he died.

[abt87]

THis article from this past Monday gives an interesting overview:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/327319_mp3sound13.html

Personally, I think that the next big transition in audio formats will be from mp3 (and AAC if you count iTunes) over to FLAC and Apple Lossless (and hopefully future iPod models will support FLAC in addition to AL). While more people have faster internet connections in the form of broadband, bandwidth scarcity will make a large-scale lossless downloading service difficult for the time being.

[dangerdoc]

That’s funny.

Your post was so off topic and ended with the Heh, I thought you were intentionally trying to be obtuse and hijack the thread.

I thought I was just playing along with an inside joke.

Sorry I hurt your feelings.

[Malsua]

The thing I don’t get...

I was in my teens and buying music in 1982. My vehicle had a Tape player. It was leet(it had auto reverse). There was simply no way that I’d pay nearly double for a CD that I couldn’t play in my car. While all that caught on a few years later...CDS were NOT a big influence until the 90s. Tapes ruled till probably 1990.