Which new format will replace the CD? [Archive] - Audio & Video Forums

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PPG
01-09-2004, 09:18 AM
What's it gonna be, in your opinion?

Ex Lion Tamer
01-09-2004, 09:21 AM
Music consumers prove time after time that convenience is more important than fidelity.

nobody
01-09-2004, 10:06 AM
Some sort of digital file, but I doubt that the current MP3s are the last word by a long shot. Computer technology evolves too fast to think we have the real deal now. I wouldn't be surprised to see a series of file types continue to be trotted out, each promising either more convienience or better quality than the last. I don't see digital files types lasting as long as more traditional media like CDs or Vinyl. Although, really, I have no idea. Maybe if everyone is happy with MP3, we'll just get stuck with 'm for a long, long time. Most younger people seem pretty OK with 'em.

Troy
01-09-2004, 10:11 AM
The iPod frenzy is real. iPods and copycats of them are the future of recorded music.

It's sad that no one seems to care about fidelity anymore, but there you go.

DarrenH
01-09-2004, 11:12 AM
My vote went towards Other/None of the above. I would have voted for the iPod/MP3 idea but that technology will be surpassed in the future, imo of course.

SACD and DVD-A are a niche market. Growing, but still catering to a small percentile of listeners. I don't see them replacing CD's. And besides, they use essentially the same media, just different formats. Whatever happened to HDCD btw? Is it a dead format?

If I had to guess it's gonna be some kind of downloadable music file that will be stored on some kind of computer storage media. Individual audio playback components will be a thing of the past. You'll buy an "all-in-one box", for lack of a better term, able to accept this computer storage media. This computer storage media can easily be transferred from automobile to portable player to the home.

This Computer Storage Media is what will replace the CD as we know it.

CD's may go away but I think they will be around for as long as I'll be alive. In a collectors/nostalgia market at least. After that, I could care less.

Darren

PPG
01-09-2004, 11:50 AM
...If I had to guess it's gonna be some kind of downloadable music file that will be stored on some kind of computer storage media. Individual audio playback components will be a thing of the past. You'll buy an "all-in-one box", for lack of a better term, able to accept this computer storage media. This computer storage media can easily be transferred from automobile to portable player to the home...


Darren

Something like a hard drive box that can download hi-rez/5.1 files? With built-in amplification to drive your surround speakers.

DarrenH
01-09-2004, 12:14 PM
Something like a hard drive box that can download hi-rez/5.1 files? With built-in amplification to drive your surround speakers.

Something like that I guess. Instead of having a separate audio format player and amplifier it would indeed be together in one unit.

The internal storage would be of a different technology of course. No hard drives. And the removable storage would be different as well i.e. no CDR's/DVD+-R's as we know them. Memory chips of some kind but on a totally different scale.

Eventually, CD/DVD burners will be a thing of the past. Is that too far fetched? I don't think so. It just may happen in our lifetimes.

Darren

Dusty Chalk
01-09-2004, 09:02 PM
See my post in the "album" thread (http://forums.audioreview.com/showthread.php?postid=9349#post9349), if you haven't already.

Finch Platte
01-10-2004, 05:21 AM
...MiniDiscs! The new, exciting format from Sony!

I'm buying a new MiniDiscMan today. I don't need one, I guess I'm collecting 'em. Got my gadget freak on.

fp

tentoze
01-10-2004, 06:21 AM
What's it gonna be, in your opinion?

I'm holding out for neural implants. N/T

Troy
01-10-2004, 11:06 AM
I am hereby requesting a bigger pic of Finch's avatar.

Finch Platte
01-10-2004, 06:14 PM
I am hereby requesting a bigger pic of Finch's avatar.

Know the toe, my brothers, know the toe.

fp

jack70
01-11-2004, 11:44 AM
The iPod frenzy is real. iPods and copycats of them are the future of recorded music.
It's sad that no one seems to care about fidelity anymore, but there you go.

Have they adressed that battery debacle yet? Saw a nasty story that made Jobs look like an inept crook on one of the national network news shows. Another possible reason it (i-pod) could end up as a fad is if they start raising prices (for the music). Remember that CDs were suppossed (promised!) to go down in price by 50% after they got the manufacturing infrastructure up and running... never happened. And how much did you get from the huge multi-million $ class action suit against the majors for just that last year? If they'd lowered the prices as promised 15 years ago, they wouldn't be facing the "problems" with file-sharing and CD-copying they have now (at least nowhere near the level). Think of the legal fees and lawyers fees they'd have saved. Idiots!

I really have no clue about the future. Technology tends to drive these things... how many of you could have imagined a "hard drive" back in the 70's or 80's? Maybe something like what Kubrick had in A Clockwork Orange... quarter sized solid digital media storage. They're still working on perfecting it now on multi layers of thin film. We'll see if it's cost-effective.



...Eventually, CD/DVD burners will be a thing of the past. Is that too far fetched? I don't think so. It just may happen in our lifetimes.

Understand that tubes were relegated to the hifi dustbin in the 60's, only to be brought back decades later as a superior technology (one I never abandoned). 78's were relegated to the hifi dustbin, then re-emerged in the 70's as a superior method to record albums (live to disc... w/o tape recording technique).

One of my pet peeves with technology is the crazy hodgepodge of competing technologies. The diversity of audio recording machines, technologies and software in the past decade alone makes my head spin. Take TV.... when color came in you had a simple choice of B&W or color (and a few choices of screen sizes). Today it's confusing for the average person to get a handle on the hundreds of different technologies, formats, reception methods, and variety of ways to subscribe & pay for em. It's one reason most people (like myself) haven't gotten HDTV or some of the newer technologies... it's a rats nest of compatibility issues.

Digital has effected audio the same way, with dozens of competing tools and hardware. 90% of it will be landfill in a decade.

It could very well happen that after we finally get the country fully wired for cable/optic (T1 type speeds), we'll eventually see the LP/CD/DVD/mini-disc etc disappear. The reason would be that those medias become more expensive than transmitting the (highest quality) files to one's hard drive. When (if?) you can get the same data onto your PC/music system in a few seconds, and do it for a buck, how/why would todays CD form be able to survive... except as a niche market?

So I agree with Darren that (for at least the near future) we'll start putting more and more music on some form of digital (hardrive) that's at the heart of the next generation's music systems. Beyond that, predicting the future is not something even experts have a good track record of.... certainly not me.

jack70
01-12-2004, 07:19 AM
Just came across this, this morning... totally by accident...

--------------------------

Memory tabs may render CDs obsolete in 5 years
Financial Post
Thursday, January 08, 2004

Compact discs could be obsolete in five years, experts say, superceded by a new generation of fingertip-sized memory tabs with no moving parts.

Each device could store more than a gigabyte of information in just one cubic centimetre of space.

Scientists have developed the technology by melding together organic and inorganic materials. They say it could be used to produce a single-use memory card that stores data and is faster and easier to operate than a CD.

Turning the invention into a commercially viable product might take as little as five years, they claim. The card would not involve any moving parts, such as the laser and motor drive required by compact discs.

Its secret is the discovery of a previously unknown property of a commonly used conductive plastic coating.

Scientists at Princeton University and computer giants Hewlett-Packard combined the polymer with very thin film electronics.

Princeton electrical engineering professor Stephen Forrest said the device would be like a standard CD-R disc but but it would also resemble a PC memory chip, because it would plug directly into an electronic circuit and have no moving parts. "The device could probably be made cheaply enough that one-time use would be the best way to go," Mr. Forrest said.

© Copyright 2004 National Post

Mr MidFi
01-13-2004, 02:36 PM
As cool as many of the new media technologies sound, I believe the future will be media-less. Streaming on-demand, hi-bandwidth, real-time signals is the coming hotness for all home entertainment. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow...but soon, and for the rest of your life.

As for mobile entertainment...some sort of evolutionary hybrid between an iPod and XM radio.