No more CDs?

[sesameguy]

The article also said that certain music stores have closed because of the lack of cd sales.

Best Buy has always had a pretty good selection, and these days it is probably a good "first place to look" for a particular CD. At least it's a step above Wal-Mart. But like Wal-Mart, Best Buy doesn't have to rely only on CD sales to make a profit. The stores that have probably been suffering the most are those that focus only or mostly on CD sales.

 

[Gonzo14]

What is Blu-Ray anyway? Whatever it is, Disney has seemed to take a liking to it.

Blu Ray is amazing, it is better than regular DVDs in every way

 

[Drtooth]

Blu Ray is amazing, it is better than regular DVDs in every way

So long as you have a rediculously expensive player, and a rediculously expensive TV to watch them on. On the bright side, my crappy analog TV I had for eight years's antenna broke off, and I can't afford a replacement.

 

[karamazov80]

Honestly, I think both CDs and DVDs are moving toward being completely digital. Why would companies spend the money and effort to manufacture and distribute plastic disks when they can make substantially higher profits producing digital files that you can download on demand and store on a flash drive? I personally like having the physical disks themselves, but in the future, when every single song, movie, and tv show will be available to download whenever you want, from wherever you are, in a higher quality/definition than the version that you have, for what will probably be a much lower price than what we are now paying, what's the point, really?

That's part of why I don't think the HD-DVD/Blu Ray debate is really that important. I think that, within 5 years or so, modern technology will make that stuff a thing of the past.

 

[D'Snowth]

Honestly, I think both CDs and DVDs are moving toward being completely digital.

Um, they ARE digital... heck, DVD stands for DIGITAL Video Disc.

 

[karamazov80]

Um, they ARE digital... heck, DVD stands for DIGITAL Video Disc.

You know what I mean, as in a completely electronic file made up of discrete data code, rather than a plastic container for storing and transmitting digitally-based information (the information's digital, the DVDs ain't). I obviously didn't put a lot of thought in what I wrote b/c I didn't realize the semantics police were on patrol tonight. . .arrest me, officer.

 

[Ilikemuppets]

Honestly, I think both CDs and DVDs are moving toward being completely digital. Why would companies spend the money and effort to manufacture and distribute plastic disks when they can make substantially higher profits producing digital files that you can download on demand and store on a flash drive? I personally like having the physical disks themselves, but in the future, when every single song, movie, and tv show will be available to download whenever you want, from wherever you are, in a higher quality/definition than the version that you have, for what will probably be a much lower price than what we are now paying, what's the point, really?

That's part of why I don't think the HD-DVD/Blu Ray debate is really that important. I think that, within 5 years or so, modern technology will make that stuff a thing of the past.

I've been saying the same thing and I agree that this is where we're heading in the future and that's it. I don't think there will be a new format after digital.

 

[Drtooth]

I've been saying the same thing and I agree that this is where we're heading in the future and that's it. I don't think there will be a new format after digital.

Spectoral, maybe. Or some sort of pure energy.

 

[stephenjlizard]

I think I can weigh in with some facts here. Firstly, I'm not sure I'd agree that we're looking at the end of physical media (actual CDs and DVDs) any time soon. Truth be told, CDs aren't that expensive to manufacture. It costs perhaps as much as $1 to manufacture the actual disc, music included. Of course, there are much, much greater costs associated with production and talent But the record companies aren't being bled dry by making physical CDs for us to buy.

Another argument you tend to hear in the discussion of physical vs downloaded media is one of quality. Let's think of the data it takes to make up one song on a CD. It's a huge amount of disk space, compared to an mp3 of the same song. To put real numbers on it, a 4-minute song might take as much as 400MB in pure wav format (sorry if I'm getting too tech-y, it's what I do, hehe), but that same song will only take up about 4MB as an mp3. Between the two formats, it's still the same song, the same length, but you lose some sound quality in converting that pure digital format down to an mp3. Some would argue that it's a huge loss, others would argue that it's not so bad. My view is, it depends.

Sorry to ramble here, but I hope that helps to spark some further discussion.

 

[sesameguy]

Between the two formats, it's still the same song, the same length, but you lose some sound quality in converting that pure digital format down to an mp3. Some would argue that it's a huge loss, others would argue that it's not so bad. My view is, it depends.

That's certainly an issue to keep in mind. I can imagine some people getting upset if they had to convert all their CDs to mp3 files. "But they don't sound as good!" they cry. Again, I would hope that we could retain as much of the original audio quality as possible. Maybe someday they'll create an mp3 that doesn't have any measurable quality loss from a wav or CD file. For "casual listening," the mp3 conversion is probably not a big deal, but for many who really enjoy the quality of their recordings, this can be an issue.