Are CD's Doomed Before Their Time???

[roddyama]

I kind of feel like Graham posting this thread.

Are CD's on their way our before the manufacturers have a chance to get their collective act together?

Here's an interesting article.
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm...atestheadlines

[Steve Eddy]

Originally posted by roddyama
I kind of feel like Graham posting this thread.

Are CD's on their way our before the manufacturers have a chance to get their collective act together?

Here's an interesting article.
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm...atestheadlines

What act needs to be got together? The mechanical/optical portion of CD is just the storage means and a rather inelegant (though technically impressive) one at that.

Ultimately what we're talking about is digital audio, and where the rubber really meets the road is in the conversion from digital to analogue. The storage medium is largely irrelevant beyond issues of compatability, reliability, convenience, etc.

So I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say here.

se

[grimberg]

Steve has a good point. Besides, I am seeing a lot of WOULD and COULD in the text. If their claim that “a commercially viable product might take as little as five years” is true, it means that at least in the first couple of years after release prices will still be quite high. That puts it seven years from now until the beginning of widespread adoption, being optimistic of course. And I am sure SONY will come up with an incompatible format of their own , which will cause another standards war. I don’t see any reason for concern.

[purplepeople]

I am less interested in the storage medium than the performance of the codecs. It's the reason everyone went redbook so quickly and why DVD-A and SACD are not so popular (most cannot discern the extra quality).

As long as I have a way to transfer my old digital media (CDs) to the new (PEDOT), then my music continues to live. The real question is: how does copyright law see the transfer of the software from one storage medium to another? IOW, if the new standard becomes this PEDOT, and I transfer all my "old" CDs to PEDOT chips, then burn the old CDs, will I still be legal since I only own one licence of said software. And this doesn't include the fact that in Canada, I can make one backup of software purely for archiving purposes. If I convert them all to some new type of encoding format (DSD to 24/96), but only retain one copy is that seen in the same way? I don't know. And one thing seems to be certain, not even the RIAA knows.

:)ensen.

[wintermute]

I think something as ubiquitous as the cd will be here for quite a while even once something bigger better faster comes along.

Hey you can still get vinyl records can't you? and cassette tapes haven't completely given up the ghost yet either.

No I think the CD will take about 20 years at least to die out once some new format tries to take over (unless the music industry deliberately kills it off).

Regards,

Tony.

[cowanrg]

interesting technology...

i can just imagine the first high end player for it. a 80 pound monster with 8 power supplies, and you have a platinum pair of tweezers to put the chip on a granite tray

[jewilson]

We are all hearing that the Music Business is doing badly well no kidding. Normal CD’s cost less to much less to make than records what a huge profit the recording industry feels they deserve. I get AOL CD’s free all the time how much can they cost make.

SACD, I know people that have purchased players but only have there or 4 CD. At 25 bucks, a pop they got to be kidding. In addition, much of the stuff on SACD is stuff I don't want to here. So there killing there own mediums. So how can a music CD cost more than a movie DVD.

Here in Dallas most of the High-end Stereo shop has gone under. The ones that are still with us are now pushing Home Theater that where the money is. Some people just do not get it. What they do not get is we just have too many toys to pick from these days and better thing to do. So the record industry is getting there share but the pie is much bigger that it was even 10 years ago. Of course, many of us are still worried about, job, or have lost them.

[mbroker]

Originally posted by jewilson So how can a music CD cost more than a movie DVD.

Multi-mega-buck mixers, processors, and effects that use only Burr-Brown OPA627s, run by golden-eared engineers who "deserve" $1000/hr for their golden ears to produce a mediocre CD that the advertising and marketing departments can launch million dollar marketing campaigns to pad the wallets of the execs and stockholders of the music corporations.....

Movies also make a lot of money on the sales of tickets at the box office - theaters make their money by selling $8.00 large popcorns.

Cynnically yours,

Mark

[Steve Eddy]

Originally posted by jewilson
We are all hearing that the Music Business is doing badly well no kidding. Normal CD’s cost less to much less to make than records what a huge profit the recording industry feels they deserve. I get AOL CD’s free all the time how much can they cost make.

Bit of a difference there. AOL's CDs aren't the product that they're selling. The product AOL's selling is their service. So the CDs they send out are more like business cards than anything. With music CDs, the CD itself is the product.

And the price of a product minus its raw cost to produce is a much too simple way of looking at "profit."

How much does it cost to make the recording in the first place? How much does the company's personnel cost? How much does it cost in ancillary personnel costs such as health insurance, etc? How much are electricity costs? How much are insurance costs? How much does it cost to promote the CD? And on and on. All of these costs have to be factored into the price of the CD. And that's BEFORE any profit is tacked on.

That's not to say that the record companies couldn't remain profitable by reducing the price of CDs. Only to say that the raw material costs of a CD don't reflect its actual cost.

se

[mrfeedback]

"How much does it cost to make the recording in the first place? How much does the company's personnel cost? How much does it cost in ancillary personnel costs such as health insurance, etc? How much are electricity costs? How much are insurance costs? How much does it cost to promote the CD? And on and on. All of these costs have to be factored into the price of the CD. And that's BEFORE any profit is tacked on.

That's not to say that the record companies couldn't remain profitable by reducing the price of CDs. Only to say that the raw material costs of a CD don't reflect its actual cost."

Record companies are not philanthropists - these costs are borne by the artists, and the record company then takes a (large) percentage of what is left over, and a dribble gets to the artists.
The record companies (or their subsidiary companies) charge hugely expensive studio time, hugely expensive advertising and distribution costs, and every other expense that they can think of.
Band tour and accomodation costs are further borne by the artists.
I have heard of top 40 bands who ended up owing the record companies despite chart successes.

Eric.