Saaw something in S&V mag that was quite startling, really.
Alpines new car stereo, a 450$ item, that was amazing not for what it had, but what it lacked.
Like most electronics these days it was "ipod" ready, with a screen for showing metadata,
a port, etc, but there was something it didnt have.
A CD PLAYER!
Yeah, ever since I first saw hobbyists playing Mp3s in their car off of their laptops I knew this was gonna happen.
Sure we've all been buying DVRS that dont use disc media at all, "music servers"
and "video servers " that store all of our stuff on hard drives, but this really brings it home,
when was the last time you saw a car player without a CD player?
They shoulda gotten some inkling from the way SACD and dvd audio crashed and burned,
quickly becoming niche formats, but they said "video is DIFFERENT"
People will FLOCK to HDDVD!!
Yeah right.
Lets face it between stuff not worth watching and stuff worth watching but not buying there's precious little left thats really collectible, and not that many collectors
If one of the new dvd formats surrvive its' conquest will be only the label of "the new laserdisc", a niche format for movie lovers and collectors, and rich with too much money.
In ten years if not five most media you get will be by wire, and you'll watch it offa a hard drive or memory chip.
With five gigs of memory selling for as much or less than lasedisc used to (after inflation)
which is enough for a dvd quality movie, how long before little silver discs join the el-cassette, 8 track tape and the turntable on the dustheap of history?