There have been a number of articles recently discussing the death of the
CD, and wondering what might replace it commercially. Some of the
possibilities discussed are flash memory, downloading a la iPod, or even
sending info directly to the brain. Let's ignore this latter, since it's
not presently possible, and attempt to answer the question of what might
actually take the place of CDs. A successful replacement will have to have
all the features of a CD, but solve a few of the CD's drawbacks. Among
these are the following:

1. Not long enough playing time, as is evidenced by the large number of
multi-CD sets on the market.
2. Too large. A 12cm disc will not fit in the pocket conveniently.
Furthermore, the players are too large; they should be about the size of a
minidisc player.
3. Stereo only. A new standard should allow for multi-channel playback.

A replacement technology should solve all these problems, while preserving
the good features of the CD, notably:

1. Extremely high fidelity
2. Very low manufacturing cost
3. Easily adapted to home recording

How would you suggest solving the problems of the CD and preserving its
features? If you have a suggestion, please respond.

Norm Strong

[Richard Crowley]

normanstrong wrote ...
There have been a number of articles recently discussing the death of the
CD, and wondering what might replace it commercially. Some of the
possibilities discussed are flash memory, downloading a la iPod, or even
sending info directly to the brain. Let's ignore this latter, since it's
not presently possible, and attempt to answer the question of what might
actually take the place of CDs. A successful replacement will have to
have all the features of a CD, but solve a few of the CD's drawbacks.
Among these are the following:

1. Not long enough playing time, as is evidenced by the large number of
multi-CD sets on the market.
2. Too large. A 12cm disc will not fit in the pocket conveniently.
Furthermore, the players are too large; they should be about the size of a
minidisc player.
3. Stereo only. A new standard should allow for multi-channel playback.

You are looking at from the consumer POV.
If you were looking from the label POV, you would have included...

4. Unencrypted. Trivial to rip and re-purpose content beyond any
control of the owner of the intellectual property.
5. Unprotected. No way to control who/how/where content is used.
No way to protect unauthorized copying, transmission, etc.
6. Quality level beyond requirements. Wasted space with uncompressed
recording. Too easy to compress to MP3, etc. MP3 is now the "standard".
Anything beyond that only of interest to fringe (and unprofitable) audiphile
market.

And likely others I didn't think of at the moment.

Just playing devil's advocate here. Don't kill the messenger. :-)

[Kalman Rubinson]

On Thu, 13 Jul 2006 10:33:26 -0700, wrote:

1. Not long enough playing time, as is evidenced by the large number of
multi-CD sets on the market.
Disagree. MultiCD sets are in the minority compared to single CD
releases, so increased playing is not a big issue. In fact, it may be
a disadvantage as artists will be stressed to fill it up and pressured
by buyers who insist on it being filled. Besides, see (2)......

2. Too large. A 12cm disc will not fit in the pocket conveniently.
Furthermore, the players are too large; they should be about the size of a
minidisc player.
OK. Not a biggy for me but there's no downside to this. However, if
the data capacity is increased substantially, one might hope for equal
or more capacity here than for the current discs.

3. Stereo only. A new standard should allow for multi-channel playback.
New? Pick one and standardize it. The problem isn't a lack of
suitable multichannel formats but the confusion of having too many.
The average user just wants to know that "it will play in my VCR" or
equivalent.

A replacement technology should solve all these problems, while preserving
the good features of the CD, notably:
1. Extremely high fidelity
2. Very low manufacturing cost
3. Easily adapted to home recording
Agreed. Credit card-size optical discs with the option of being dual
sided. Of course, with the appropriate players, SD cards might be
even better.

Kal

[Sander deWaal]

"Jan Holm" said:


Cant remember where but I read an interview with Mr Gates
stating that Blue Ray / HD DVD will be the last physical format.
From then on youll be streaming from your own server or a central
server via cable or air.

I dont often agree with Gates but I'm in on this one !


How will you play your music in the car?
Not that I won't agree with your (or Billy's) conclusions, but there
has to be some concensus on the format and coding/decoding of portable
sources.
Or should we just connect a multi-format card reader to the USB
connector on our car radio (already possible and done, you will note).

--
"All amps sound alike, but some sound more alike than others".

"Richard Crowley" wrote in message
...
normanstrong wrote ...
There have been a number of articles recently discussing the death of the
CD, and wondering what might replace it commercially. Some of the
possibilities discussed are flash memory, downloading a la iPod, or even
sending info directly to the brain. Let's ignore this latter, since it's
not presently possible, and attempt to answer the question of what might
actually take the place of CDs. A successful replacement will have to
have all the features of a CD, but solve a few of the CD's drawbacks.
Among these are the following:

1. Not long enough playing time, as is evidenced by the large number of
multi-CD sets on the market.
2. Too large. A 12cm disc will not fit in the pocket conveniently.
Furthermore, the players are too large; they should be about the size of
a minidisc player.
3. Stereo only. A new standard should allow for multi-channel playback.

You are looking at from the consumer POV.
If you were looking from the label POV, you would have included...

4. Unencrypted. Trivial to rip and re-purpose content beyond any
control of the owner of the intellectual property.
5. Unprotected. No way to control who/how/where content is used.
No way to protect unauthorized copying, transmission, etc.
6. Quality level beyond requirements. Wasted space with uncompressed
recording. Too easy to compress to MP3, etc. MP3 is now the "standard".
Anything beyond that is only of interest to the fringe (and unprofitable)
audiophile
market.

And likely others I didn't think of at the moment.

Just playing devil's advocate here. Don't kill the messenger. :-)

Those are excellent points--all of them. My guess is that protection will
be overlaid on the other requirements of the new protocol, in the commercial
market at least.

Norm

[Walt]

wrote:

There have been a number of articles recently discussing the death of the
CD, and wondering what might replace it commercially. Some of the
possibilities discussed are flash memory, downloading a la iPod, or even
sending info directly to the brain. Let's ignore this latter, since it's
not presently possible, and attempt to answer the question of what might
actually take the place of CDs. A successful replacement will have to have
all the features of a CD, but solve a few of the CD's drawbacks. Among
these are the following:

1. Not long enough playing time, as is evidenced by the large number of
multi-CD sets on the market.
2. Too large. A 12cm disc will not fit in the pocket conveniently.
Furthermore, the players are too large; they should be about the size of a
minidisc player.
3. Stereo only. A new standard should allow for multi-channel playback.

A replacement technology should solve all these problems, while preserving
the good features of the CD, notably:

1. Extremely high fidelity
2. Very low manufacturing cost
3. Easily adapted to home recording

How would you suggest solving the problems of the CD and preserving its
features? If you have a suggestion, please respond.

The replacement is here already - a digital file that is stored on
whatever digital storage media happens to be lying around. Get rid of
the notion that a recording needs to be distributed as a physical object.

It overcomes your three objections to CD - the file can be as long as
you have disc space, it's virtual so it takes up no physical space, and
the format can be whatever you want it.*

It meets your three criteria - no limit on sampling rate or bit count,
zero manufacturing cost, and home computers come standard with
soundcards & software to record .wav files.

*format is somewhat problematic here - until some sort of standard for
multi-channel playback is settled upon, formats will be be a tower of
babel. This is what killed Quad in the 70's - we'll see if something
emerges this time.

//Walt

[AZ Nomad]

On Thu, 13 Jul 2006 20:06:06 +0200, Jan Holm wrote:


wrote
A replacement technology should solve all these problems, while preserving
the good features of the CD, notably:

Cant remember where but I read an interview with Mr Gates
stating that Blue Ray / HD DVD will be the last physical format.
From then on youll be streaming from your own server or a central
server via cable or air.

I dont often agree with Gates but I'm in on this one !

Gates and his ilk would like to see the end of owning copies and the end
of transfering ownership. His dream world is one in which you have to pay
every time you play and where you always pay full list price.

[Federico]

IMHO nothing will replace the CD.
What do we need CD for? I'm not using CDs or DVDs from more than 2 months.
The CD was primarly intended ad a delivery media, to be sold as vinyl
records or audio cassettes.
Now we have huge memory space and super fast speed for exchanging data
without using a physic media.

The real question could be: what format will replace 16bit Stereo 44.1KHz?
F.

[Richard Crowley]

"Federico" wrote ...
IMHO nothing will replace the CD.
What do we need CD for? I'm not using CDs or DVDs from more than 2 months.
The CD was primarly intended ad a delivery media, to be sold as vinyl
records or audio cassettes.
Now we have huge memory space and super fast speed for exchanging data
without using a physic media.

If it is "psychic", you don't need physical media,
or even wires or RF! :-)

The real question could be: what format will replace 16bit Stereo 44.1KHz?

240KBPS MP3 :-)
or the equivalent DRM-protected format(s)

[[email protected]]

In rec.audio.misc Jan Holm wrote:
wrote
A replacement technology should solve all these problems, while preserving
the good features of the CD, notably:

Cant remember where but I read an interview with Mr Gates
stating that Blue Ray / HD DVD will be the last physical format.
From then on youll be streaming from your own server or a central
server via cable or air.

640K is all anyone will ever need...

[[email protected]]

wrote:

In rec.audio.misc Jan Holm wrote:

wrote

A replacement technology should solve all these problems, while preserving
the good features of the CD, notably:


Cant remember where but I read an interview with Mr Gates
stating that Blue Ray / HD DVD will be the last physical format.
From then on youll be streaming from your own server or a central
server via cable or air.


640K is all anyone will ever need...




EXACTLY what I thought!!

"Kalman Rubinson" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 13 Jul 2006 10:33:26 -0700, wrote:

1. Not long enough playing time, as is evidenced by the large number of
multi-CD sets on the market.
Disagree. MultiCD sets are in the minority compared to single CD
releases, so increased playing is not a big issue. In fact, it may be
a disadvantage as artists will be stressed to fill it up and pressured
by buyers who insist on it being filled. Besides, see (2)......

Good points. I was looking it it from my point of view. I listen to
classical music, and much of what I listen to requires more than a single
CD. I just took a look at my collection and added up the number of
selections that require more than one CD, but fewer than 4. 28% of my
collection falls into that category. But you're right. For the general
public it's a non-issue, and there is definitely a downside due to the
customer's demands that the discs be filled.

The solution will eventually be a new pricing model, based on duration
rather than number of pieces of product

2. Too large. A 12cm disc will not fit in the pocket conveniently.
Furthermore, the players are too large; they should be about the size of a
minidisc player.
OK. Not a biggy for me but there's no downside to this. However, if
the data capacity is increased substantially, one might hope for equal
or more capacity here than for the current discs.

3. Stereo only. A new standard should allow for multi-channel playback.
New? Pick one and standardize it. The problem isn't a lack of
suitable multichannel formats but the confusion of having too many.
The average user just wants to know that "it will play in my VCR" or
equivalent.

It's a fact that there is no choice in the current CDs. You get stereo;
that's it.

A replacement technology should solve all these problems, while preserving
the good features of the CD, notably:
1. Extremely high fidelity
2. Very low manufacturing cost
3. Easily adapted to home recording
Agreed. Credit card-size optical discs with the option of being dual
sided. Of course, with the appropriate players, SD cards might be
even better.

Double-sided discs, credit card size, is an excellent suggestion. Flash
memory sounds good in theory, but the cost of manufacture is not going to be
even close to what's needed for the forseeable future. We need something
close to 10 cents--not 10 dollars!

The solution that appeals most to me is the 8cm DVD. It will hold twice as
much data as a CD, it's already a standard, and it costs practically nothing
to manufacture. Anyone with a DVD player can play one. I believe all
players must play 48k/16 bit PCM and 448kb/s Dolby Digital. The only
product development necessary would be portable players optimized for 8cm
discs.

Double sided and 2-layer discs are added possibilities.

Norm Strong

[Mark]

The replacement is here already - a digital file that is stored on
whatever digital storage media happens to be lying around. Get rid of
the notion that a recording needs to be distributed as a physical object.

snip

//Walt

BINGO! Agreed

Mark

[Randy Yates]

Sander deWaal wrote:
"Jan Holm" said:


Cant remember where but I read an interview with Mr Gates
stating that Blue Ray / HD DVD will be the last physical format.
From then on youll be streaming from your own server or a central
server via cable or air.

I dont often agree with Gates but I'm in on this one !


How will you play your music in the car?

Through your new 4G phone and Bluetooth. 4G data rates
are targeted at 20 Mb/s.

--RY

[Jeff Findley]

wrote in message
. ..
The solution that appeals most to me is the 8cm DVD. It will hold twice
as much data as a CD, it's already a standard, and it costs practically
nothing to manufacture. Anyone with a DVD player can play one. I believe
all players must play 48k/16 bit PCM and 448kb/s Dolby Digital. The only
product development necessary would be portable players optimized for 8cm
discs.

Double sided and 2-layer discs are added possibilities.

Wouldn't appeal to the record labels. Breaking the copy protection on DVD's
is as easy as downloading something like DVD Decrypter or DVD Shrink.

Record companies want new copy protection schemes that are far better than
DVD. Ideally, they want something that can never be circumvented.

Jeff
--
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a
little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor
safety"
- B. Franklin, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (1919)

[Jeff Findley]

"Randy Yates" wrote in message
ups.com...
wrote:
There have been a number of articles recently discussing the death of the
CD, and wondering what might replace it commercially.

If the CD dies, it's death won't be caused by consumers but
rather by media moguls who have nothing but $$ signs in
their eyes.

The CD is not dead. In fact, just the opposite is true -
DVD/Audio and SACD are dying.

True. The masses have decided that it's not worth spending the money on
anything with higher quality than DVD. There is, however, a growing market
for lower quality in the form of music downloads in lossy compressed
formats. As more people abandon hard media formats in favor of music
downloads, the demand for *any* hard media format will continue to drop.

Jeff
--
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a
little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor
safety"
- B. Franklin, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (1919)

[Federico]

The masses have decided that it's not worth spending the money on
anything with higher quality than CD.


I don't think that's true.
It is only a problem of space (memory) and speed (delivery).

Years ago speed was slow and memory was expensive, so MP3-128Kb/s was ok.
Now we have terabyte big HD and Cable (imagin what will it be in 5 years
from now). So we can start using .wav files-16 bit.
In 5 years we could be exchanging 24bits files 96KHz just like we do now
with MP3.
F.

[Howard Ferstler]

wrote:

There have been a number of articles recently discussing the death of the
CD, and wondering what might replace it commercially.

You can be sure that whatever comes along to replace it will
be designed, first and foremost, to make money.

My guess is that the CD is just too convenient, workable,
and cost effective (and well entrenched) to be removed from
the picture for some time. Unlike the LP record, which had
huge disadvantages that made it an unhappy medium for lots
of people, the CD remains an advanced way for people to
conveniently enjoy music on home-audio systems. It is not as
portable as some of the new stuff, but it works just fine
with in-place audio rigs.

Howard Ferstler

[Walt]

Richard Crowley wrote:

"Federico" wrote ...

The real question could be: what format will replace 16bit Stereo 44.1KHz?


240KBPS MP3 :-)
or the equivalent DRM-protected format(s)

Was Devo ahead of their time or what?

//Walt

[Walt]

Jan Holm wrote:
"Walt" wrote

The replacement is here already - a digital file that is stored on
whatever digital storage media happens to be lying around. Get rid of the
notion that a recording needs to be distributed as a physical object.

I want everything I own, everywhere I am, any time I want.
No digital media "lying arround" will handle this. No everyone
is going to have a media server at home. This will be connected
to the internet - at your fingertip constantly.

I think we're basically saying the same thing - the replacement "unit"
is a digital file which is not tied to any particular physical location.

The technology for moving those bits around so that you can have them
whereever you want is subject to some evolution, but the replacement for
the CD is here now.

//Walt
//
// unfortunately an infererior format is currently the most popular

[AZ Nomad]

On Thu, 13 Jul 2006 15:48:25 -0500, Babaganoosh wrote:


I don't download music (I either buy the CD or go without) for these
reasons:

- I am opposed, on principle, to DRM.

I'm not if only DRM is as flexible as real ownership. That must include:
permenant ownership not bound to a particular device
transfer of ownership with the price determined by owner, not copyright holder
use on any device the owner posesses

[Trevor Wilson]

wrote in message
. ..
There have been a number of articles recently discussing the death of the
CD, and wondering what might replace it commercially. Some of the
possibilities discussed are flash memory, downloading a la iPod, or even
sending info directly to the brain. Let's ignore this latter, since it's
not presently possible, and attempt to answer the question of what might
actually take the place of CDs. A successful replacement will have to
have all the features of a CD, but solve a few of the CD's drawbacks.
Among these are the following:

1. Not long enough playing time, as is evidenced by the large number of
multi-CD sets on the market.
2. Too large. A 12cm disc will not fit in the pocket conveniently.
Furthermore, the players are too large; they should be about the size of a
minidisc player.
3. Stereo only. A new standard should allow for multi-channel playback.

A replacement technology should solve all these problems, while preserving
the good features of the CD, notably:

1. Extremely high fidelity
2. Very low manufacturing cost
3. Easily adapted to home recording

How would you suggest solving the problems of the CD and preserving its
features? If you have a suggestion, please respond.

**It's already happening. Ipods and other MP3 style devices will kill off
DCs very quickly. I have one which is around half the size of a matchbox and
can store 20 CDs worth of music in solid state memory. It can record and has
an FM tuner too. All for 80 Bucks. In a few years solid state memory will be
cheap enough for producers to sell directly, though I suspect
pay-for-download seems to be the way of the future. Like it or not. The MP3
generation will decide which way it goes.


--
Trevor Wilson
www.rageaudio.com.au



--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

[DaveW]

Anyone here heard of the DVD? And the upcoming HD DVD?

--
DaveW

----------------
wrote in message
. ..
There have been a number of articles recently discussing the death of the
CD, and wondering what might replace it commercially. Some of the
possibilities discussed are flash memory, downloading a la iPod, or even
sending info directly to the brain. Let's ignore this latter, since it's
not presently possible, and attempt to answer the question of what might
actually take the place of CDs. A successful replacement will have to
have all the features of a CD, but solve a few of the CD's drawbacks.
Among these are the following:

1. Not long enough playing time, as is evidenced by the large number of
multi-CD sets on the market.
2. Too large. A 12cm disc will not fit in the pocket conveniently.
Furthermore, the players are too large; they should be about the size of a
minidisc player.
3. Stereo only. A new standard should allow for multi-channel playback.

A replacement technology should solve all these problems, while preserving
the good features of the CD, notably:

1. Extremely high fidelity
2. Very low manufacturing cost
3. Easily adapted to home recording

How would you suggest solving the problems of the CD and preserving its
features? If you have a suggestion, please respond.

Norm Strong

[Steve Urbach]

On Thu, 13 Jul 2006 23:36:44 +0100, Signal wrote:

" emitted :

There have been a number of articles recently discussing the death of the
CD, and wondering what might replace it commercially. Some of the
possibilities discussed are flash memory, downloading a la iPod, or even
sending info directly to the brain. Let's ignore this latter, since it's
not presently possible, and attempt to answer the question of what might
actually take the place of CDs. A successful replacement will have to have
all the features of a CD, but solve a few of the CD's drawbacks. Among
these are the following:

1. Not long enough playing time, as is evidenced by the large number of
multi-CD sets on the market.
2. Too large. A 12cm disc will not fit in the pocket conveniently.
Furthermore, the players are too large; they should be about the size of a
minidisc player.
3. Stereo only. A new standard should allow for multi-channel playback.

A replacement technology should solve all these problems, while preserving
the good features of the CD, notably:

1. Extremely high fidelity
2. Very low manufacturing cost
3. Easily adapted to home recording

How would you suggest solving the problems of the CD and preserving its
features? If you have a suggestion, please respond.

Norm Strong






Tape.
Got loads of pre-recorded OPEN REEL Quad tapes
Got Laser Disc *This is the only format with *any* form of copy guard
Got CD4 Quad Disc (and some SQ and QS matrix )
Got even more pre-recorded quarter track Stereo tapes
Got Mono LP's
Got Stereo LP's

Under DRM type rules, I can only play them in their native media
format (if I can continue to get the equipment to work in the future)

Other formats I have owned.
Muntz cartridge (automobile player)
8-track Car and desktop
Compact Cassette
Gee I missed buying Beta-tape, RCA's Video disk format (can't remember
its name)

Note every one of these media changes was by my choice (mostly) and in
every case except the Muntz, the company that released them is still
in business today.
As I understand the law,it does not matter which media format I choose
to play them with AS LONG AS I retain the original and do not use
another format at the same time.

Which seems a little extreme as I can play any over Multiple displays
and speakers located in various rooms within my house.

[Romeo Rondeau]

Yes, a DVD can hold about 60 hours of good quality MP3, a dual layer even
over 100 hours. Some players do play MP3 on DVD.

Here's a list of DVD players and their capabilities for anyone interested.

http://www.videohelp.com/dvdplayers.php?

[Albatross]

My guess is that the CD is just too convenient, workable,
and cost effective (and well entrenched) to be removed from the picture
for some time. Unlike the LP record, which had huge disadvantages that
made it an unhappy medium for lots of people, the CD remains an advanced
way for people to conveniently enjoy music on home-audio systems.

Vinyl records were massively entrenched and are still in the picture now,
unlike other technolgies which have come & gone, or are on their way out.
Can any other technology boast of being playable still in 100 years?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinyl_record#History

Cheers,
Ric

[Richard Crowley]

"Albatross" wrote ...
Vinyl records were massively entrenched and are still in the picture
now, unlike other technolgies which have come & gone, or are on their
way out. Can any other technology boast of being playable still in 100
years?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinyl_record#History

Writing/printing on paper?
Oil paintings?
Photography?
:-)

[Jenn]

In article ,
wrote:

There have been a number of articles recently discussing the death of the
CD, and wondering what might replace it commercially. Some of the
possibilities discussed are flash memory, downloading a la iPod, or even
sending info directly to the brain. Let's ignore this latter, since it's
not presently possible, and attempt to answer the question of what might
actually take the place of CDs. A successful replacement will have to have
all the features of a CD, but solve a few of the CD's drawbacks. Among
these are the following:

1. Not long enough playing time, as is evidenced by the large number of
multi-CD sets on the market.
2. Too large. A 12cm disc will not fit in the pocket conveniently.
Furthermore, the players are too large; they should be about the size of a
minidisc player.
3. Stereo only. A new standard should allow for multi-channel playback.

A replacement technology should solve all these problems, while preserving
the good features of the CD, notably:

1. Extremely high fidelity
2. Very low manufacturing cost
3. Easily adapted to home recording

How would you suggest solving the problems of the CD and preserving its
features? If you have a suggestion, please respond.

Norm Strong

I would be surprised of there is ANY newly produced physical music media
in about 5 years.

[Dr. Dolittle]

Jenn wrote:

I would be surprised of there is ANY newly produced physical music media
in about 5 years.

How about small music chips? Once they can get an album in high
resolution, perhaps DSD, on a small chip, this could be the best
solution. Players could abound, a watch perhaps? Sunglasses?

You could buy em, sell em, trade em, but you couldn't copy them. Kind of
like a record, but better.

[Lorin David Schultz]

Jan Holm wrote:

Btw 1.411 Mb/s = uncompressed stereo wave 44.1khz 16 bit
A 20 Mb/s would give you 28 channels !!!!



Yeah, but unfortunately the developers have decided to use up the
bandwidth with jerky postage-stamp videos of the band, interactive video
games with animated band members as the game characters, and an online
chat area. That leaves 128k for audio! g

--
"It CAN'T be too loud... some of the red lights aren't even on yet!"
- Lorin David Schultz
in the control room
making even bad news sound good

(Remove spamblock to reply)

[Lorin David Schultz]

Federico wrote:

Years ago speed was slow and memory was expensive, so MP3-128Kb/s
was ok. Now we have terabyte big HD and Cable (imagin what will it
be in 5 years from now).


I suspect you may be a young person. We had this exact conversation
here about six years ago. Very little has changed in that time in terms
of connection speed.

More people now use high-speed connections than then, but the speed of
the connection has not improved much.

--
"It CAN'T be too loud... some of the red lights aren't even on yet!"
- Lorin David Schultz
in the control room
making even bad news sound good

(Remove spamblock to reply)

[Romeo Rondeau]

"Lorin David Schultz" wrote in message
news:CuItg.135368$S61.44662@edtnps90...
Jan Holm wrote:

Btw 1.411 Mb/s = uncompressed stereo wave 44.1khz 16 bit
A 20 Mb/s would give you 28 channels !!!!



Yeah, but unfortunately the developers have decided to use up the
bandwidth with jerky postage-stamp videos of the band, interactive video
games with animated band members as the game characters, and an online
chat area. That leaves 128k for audio! g

So true...

*rant on* In the future people could go and actually see the performer
performing! No need to worry about playback devices and DRM and compression
and file formats. People would just go and see real human beings performing
the music :-) No need to wait hours downloading video, just go to the club
and BAM! They do the song right there. While you're there, you can meet
people who also like that kind of music, putting an end to chat rooms and
stupid forums and newsgroup trolls. Thirsty? Grab a beer! They got plenty...
they got games too, play some darts or some pool... strike up a conversation
with someone interesting, imagine the possibilities. Sometimes you can buy a
T-shirt, hat or a bumper sticker, avoiding the 2 weeks or more it takes to
order something online. And you can pay in cash (those little green coupons
some people still insist on using), avoiding your credit card number from
getting stolen while you're online. Instead of searching for someone's
myspace page to tell them how great they are, you can walk up to the stage
after the set and tell them right to their face, or if you are less subtle,
just scream "Whoooo!"... It's a radical idea, but it's just crazy enough to
work... *rant off*

[Romeo Rondeau]

More people now use high-speed connections than then, but the speed of the
connection has not improved much.

Cable modems have actually gone down in speed. When I first got mine back in
'98, it was wide open and 8-9Mbps was not unusual at all. There was no
upload cap. Files weren't nearly as big as they are now, either. Now, CD
burning programs are 125 megs and require ****loads of free drivespace.

[Joseph Ashwood]

wrote in message
. ..
Those are excellent points--all of them. My guess is that protection will
be overlaid on the other requirements of the new protocol, in the
commercial market at least.

Speaking as a cryptanalyst with 10 years of experience such effort would be
wasted and the result would be no better than CSS used in DVDs as far as
real protection goes. There is a reason the only "secure" systems that
survive in the wild have security built in from the beginning, for security
you overlay whatever you are working with on top of the security.
Joe

[Joseph Ashwood]

wrote in message
. ..

I think the first step is to realize the consumption style of music goes
through fads, they just tend to be longer than most people think of fads. I
believe the replacement to the CD will requi
1 Dynamic playtime (5 minutes to 3 hours should suffice)
2 Seperation of Sub-woofer track
3 Ability to contain video as well (in music we really are heading this
way, more music is sold because of the video on MTV than because of the
radio)
4 Easily copiable
5 Cheap

2-5 will be the selling points for the users, and 1 will be a convenience
point. As for the DRM, which will unfortunately be necessary to meet the
desires of the rights holders.
6 Transfer between devices, only 1 device can use it at a time
7 Extremely difficult to make a high-fidelity recording
8 CHEAP!!!!!!!!
9 Remote disable

Other useful features:
10 Ability to collect information about what is played back in which
situations
11 Profiling of users to enable finer grained marketing


Unfortunately, fidelity does not play into it, as long as the fidelity is
reasonably high users don't care. Most users won't tell the difference
between LP, CD and DVD-Audio, and MP3 has become the most popular format for
actual listening. Basically what is needed is something that blends the
benefits. This is where the ability for a location like a record store to
house a huge amount of disc storage, easily enough space for 1 Petabyte, and
almost certainly enough in most locations for 100 Petabytes. Combine this
with a reusable flash drive, and we have achieved 1, 4 and 5 (since it's
reusable the relatively small cost can be pushed onto the users with minimum
trouble, it can also double as the playback device). 2 and 3 are achievable
with a number of different already available formats (my personal preference
is Matroska, but there are others). The DRM covers the rest, and while 10
and 11 are currently difficult, 6,7 and 8 are achievable, 9 cannot be
achieved dependably regardless of the technology used.

I could discuss in great depth the facets of DRM and the methods of doing
it, but I don't think that discussion would be appropriate for any of the
included groups.
Joe

[Lorin David Schultz]

Romeo Rondeau wrote:

*rant on* In the future people could go and actually see the
performer performing! No need to worry about playback devices and
DRM and compression and file formats. People would just go and see
real human beings performing the music :-) No need to wait hours
downloading video, just go to the club and BAM! They do the song
right there. While you're there, you can meet people who also like
that kind of music, putting an end to chat rooms and stupid forums
and newsgroup trolls. Thirsty? Grab a beer! They got plenty... they
got games too, play some darts or some pool... strike up a
conversation with someone interesting, imagine the possibilities.
Sometimes you can buy a T-shirt, hat or a bumper sticker, avoiding
the 2 weeks or more it takes to order something online. And you can
pay in cash (those little green coupons some people still insist on
using), avoiding your credit card number from getting stolen while
you're online. Instead of searching for someone's myspace page to
tell them how great they are, you can walk up to the stage after
the set and tell them right to their face, or if you are less
subtle, just scream "Whoooo!"... It's a radical idea, but it's
just crazy enough to work... *rant off*



LOL! That was ****in' great. Keep that one!

Funny how the whole live thing works. Today I was on a live TV remote
as part of a news show. The location was a street party and there was a
band playing. Cheap instruments, crappy little portable PA, but they
sounded *good*.

All I had was the Senn MKH shotgun, but it sounded okay in the cans so I
suggested the control room take a shot of the band before going to
commercial.

After the show my wife complained that they sounded horrible. She said
the singer sounded like she was skreeching and the players sounded
amateurish. Obviously some of that can be attributed to the delivery
chain: shotgun mic, ENG mixer, wireless link to truck, crappy mixer and
integrater in truck, microwave link to tower, fibre transmission to
station, D-A/mixing/compression/A-D at the station, local cable company
destruction, TV set tuner, stereo system (hmm, y'know, now that I think
about it, it really is truly amazing that any of this ever works AT ALL!
g), but the bigger issue is the difference between standing there in
that environment rather than being detached from it. Who knows, maybe
the singer really was bad, but if she was, no one who was *there*
noticed.

Same thing happened with a gospel group I mixed for live air. I had a
hoot and loved them. Later, when I watched an air check I discovered
that they really sucked quite horribly. Good thing I was there when
they did it live or I'd never have known how great they are!

Funny how the dynamics of a live performance can overcome all kinds of
flaws.

--
"It CAN'T be too loud... some of the red lights aren't even on yet!"
- Lorin David Schultz
in the control room
making even bad news sound good

(Remove spamblock to reply)

[Joseph Ashwood]

"Richard Crowley" wrote in message
...
"Albatross" wrote ...
Vinyl records were massively entrenched and are still in the picture now,
unlike other technolgies which have come & gone, or are on their way out.
Can any other technology boast of being playable still in 100 years?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinyl_record#History

Writing/printing on paper?
Oil paintings?
Photography?

You're missing the more important one to this conversation: scores. I have
had a 400+ year old score in my hand, it was just as readable as ever.
Joe

[Arny Krueger]

"Romeo Rondeau" wrote in message
.com
More people now use high-speed connections than then,
but the speed of the connection has not improved much.

Cable modems have actually gone down in speed. When I
first got mine back in '98, it was wide open and 8-9Mbps
was not unusual at all. There was no upload cap. Files
weren't nearly as big as they are now, either. Now, CD
burning programs are 125 megs and require ****loads of
free drivespace.

Agreed. What changed is that high speed internet companies now *manage* the
bandwidth for consistent, economical performance.

[Arny Krueger]

"Jenn" wrote in message


I would be surprised of there is ANY newly produced
physical music media in about 5 years.

There is arguably more newly produced physical music (and video) media than
ever. What changed is who produces the in-use media - now the consumer
produces it from downloads and content he makes by himself or with friends.

What is arguably going away is specialized media for distributing audio and
video, and the business of loading of that media in central specialized
factories.

IOW, people now load their own flash cards and CDs. People now make their
own audio and video content.

Flash devices and CDs are generalized, user-managed media for handling just
about any kind of data, and are not specialized one-time-use media for just
music or video.

The other big change is that producing the video and audio content is
becoming far more decentralized.

[Albatross]

100 years from now? Or are you commenting that they have been in use 100
years? Technology just started hauling ass, things move too fast now. I
don't think you'll find a record player in 20 years, never mind 100.

Yes it's likely that no new Record Players will be made in 20 years time,
but I daresay that there will be plenty still around in peoples storage or
homes. Vinyl recording playback is so simple that it can be done without
electricity, and records made near 100 years ago can be played NOW.

Will that still be the case for CD's? I doubt it.. how many people still
have or use Cassettes? That technology has well & truly passed.
I guess it's similar to what has happened with the printed word. It's gone
from carved in stone to intangible emails, which will be lost when the PC is
turned off.. It seems the more advanced we are, the less history we leave
behind...

Don't get me wrong, I am all for progress & love the fact I can do things on
my PC that 10 years ago ( or 5 even!) were impossible to imagine.

Cheers,
Ric