I was just reading an article about Bit Torrent's. It said even though the torrents are being used to distribute movies, Hollywood is actually kind of behind it because they realize in the future they could make money off of this.

Could the same go for CD's? I have friends who think soon music will be distributed on little chips that youll plug into your mp3 players or IPOD's. What do you guys think the future of CD's are? I'd hate for EVERYTHING to go digital like that

It's probably inevitable.
It's just a matter of when.........

It seems that in about 3-4 years, CDs will become like LPs, nostalgic memories. And we'll be complaining that the new format just doesn't sound as good as the old CDs used to. In that time-frame I suspect that the iPod as we know it now will seem like an oversized slab of plastic. And, say bye-bye to DVDs too.

I don't even burn or listen to regular audio CDs anymore. I burn the MP3 files as data; you can fit 700 MB on to one disc, which means you can fit about 7-8 albums onto one CD. They won't play in a regular CD player, but they will play on most DVD players (they just have to be MP3 compatible, which most are).

I have my DVD player hooked up to my sound system and play all my music that way, or else through my computer. I still have a large collection of vinyl and audio CDs that I am keeping for historical/sentimental reasons, but I ripped all the music to MP3 so I don't have to play the originals anymore.

The next step is for me to buy a huge hard drive I can fit all my music on and hook that up to my sound system. That way I will not be using any CDs at all, audio or data, it will be all digital. That's where the future of music is going.

Damn, I'm falling further and further behind current technology. Just cleaned out my 8-track player yesterday. Really, I'm not even sure what bit torrents are. Don't own an i-pod. I think Pong is a great video game!

It's almost like bands wont be the same if everything is digital though

LPs to 8 tracks (for a little while) back to LPs to cassettes to CDs to MP3s.

Why can't they just leave well enough alone ? Everything has to be made easier and easier and more convenient for the masses who don't appreciate good music anymore anyway. CDs are starting to become like LPs to me. I still collect LPs, I just hope I don't live to see the day when CDs are totally wiped out. What is this world coming to ? Not even cover art or liner notes will be relevant anymore. What for ? Something will probably come along that will replace the need to read. What a sad future for music. I really hope that this doesn't happen. It's all about selling more and more and more. Never mind the slow degradation of sound quality. Man, i just pissed myself of thinking about all this !

there will be giant servers with every song and movie ever made and you'll just access it when you want rather than lose vast amounts of space with discs and books too.

MP3's offer inferior sound which is easily noticable if you have a high quality system.Why would anyone want inferior sounding recordings?Most bootlegs are questionable enough as it is.They don't need to be made worse than they already are.I would at least go to WAV or WMA before MP3.I believe the real future is flash drives.I don't know if it has been mentioned here before but,I heard on the radio that A Bigger Bang is actually going to be the first album to be released on a flash drive - I think within the next few weeks.

I am asking for a record player for Christmas...I miss that unique sound of an LP.

Theif in the Night Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> MP3's offer inferior sound which is easily
> noticable if you have a high quality system.Why
> would anyone want inferior sounding
> recordings?

Well, that's what record companies thought when MP3 emerged around 1997 - they didn't invest in it and are now lobbying hard to tax bandwidth, CD recorders, CDRs, hard drives... The fact is that most people don't care. They used to listen to overcompressed fm radio on crappy but flashy systems anyway. Very few people own a McIntosh!

Hell most of my mates have just learnt how to play 78's...



ROCKMAN

This is why SACD's never caught on.In my opinion,consumers that couldn't be bothered and/or don't want to spend a little extra money.

Also the fact that most music nowadays is disposable music doesn't help. Why spend money on the current hit single that you will loop for two weeks and the forget about ? In the past, you'd have copied that single to a cassette from radio broadcast, listened to it for a while and then record over it.

The use people make of MP3 is very similar, except they keep the file even when the song bores them - because a few more megs won't hurt a 100s gigs hard drive or a 4gigs DVD. That doesn't mean they would have spent 5 euros to get that hit single.

I just don't buy record companies complaints that MP3 is killing them - what kills them in fact are DVDs and video games - a study in France showed that the entertainment average budget is still growing - it's just people buy video games and DVDs instead of CDs. For example, why buy the Stray Cats' live CD for €17 when the DVD is available for €20 or so ?

It makes me sick that every time I fill a hard drive with firewall logs or burn my own photo compilations or my own music, I am giving a few cents to Top 40 "artists" (because most money goes to bigger sellers).

Here's one thing I don't understand. Let's take the Concert for Bangladesh CD and DVD that just came out. Both were double discs. The DVD sold for $19.99 and the CD sold for $24.99. Why is the CD more than the DVD? Doesn't make sense to me....

Little chips will be too small for distributing music at an acceptable quality. Most online shops only offer downloads at 128k. That's not enough. Those ripping and downloading experts I know tell me they don't go below 256k. I like CDs since I like the full sound quality and I think the album (or even the EP a/k/a mini-album) is an art form in itself. This should be preserved. Some say that DualDisc is the future, since they have 2 sides and therefore cannot be ripped in their entirety. We'll see how the recording industry will react, when the 1st dualdisc burner will appear on the market. How long's the longeivity of DualDiscs anyway?

Size doesn't matter - memory cards get smaller and cheaper but store more! And once again 128kbps is enough for most people (even though I usually use 192 - or FLAC).

These days people who focus on artwork and interactive content (i.e. a bonus DVD) seem to sell better. Probably most people use their DVD player more than their CD player (if they still have one). Yet those DVD players don't play CDs properly - cheap mechanics, cheap multi-purpose laser, cheap converters.

Man, it was easy back in the days when we all got a record player and went into a record store, bought an album, went home, put the needle on the record, lying on the bed or sofa and while looking at the cover artwork and reading the liner notes we enjoyed the @#$%& music. It's all so technical nowadays.

Don't worry, Aucoin, the music always wins. Otherwise, we'd still be banging coconuts. The day one guy decided to put a goat's skin on a piece of wood, that's when it started to get technical. I mean, a record is very technical already. It just goes on.

Thank you Gwen. I think you're right. You gave me hope! )