CD DVD Players
Two optical formats destined to visit Martha's Vineyard permanently
CD players have been around since the early 80s and have revolutionized the way we listen to music. Side technologies with years of experience manufacturing, producing and distributing CDs have given birth to new ideas and improvements. New methods of sampling and digitizing sound, new ways of working with plastics and encoding optical storage have all been created out of CD industry. Today the reign of the CD is coming to a conclusion, not necessarily because it's being replaced with superior technologies like DVD-Audio or SACD, the formats intended to replace the CD. CDs are most threatened by internet distribution of content sold on CD; we're approaching the end of an era of content sold on silvery discs.
Consider the technology involved in creating the humble CD. The disc itself has become the standard size of optical storage media that will extend into next generation HD DVD and Blu-Ray. The basic techniques of pulse code modulation to digitize analogue sound for digital storage is still used in the next generation high resolution audio format DVD-Audio.
The DVD is an obvious step forward in optical storage formats. For years the DVD was the higher capacity brother of the CD. Both formats resided in harmony fulfilling their respective consumer niche. But now the DVD itself stands to be replaced by the need for higher capacity storage to meet the demands of high definition video. The DVD has given birth to two bastard sons, DVD-Audio and SACD. Both have questionable futures and seem destined for niche markets only, until even they are replaced by internet distribution paradigms.
People aren't willing to buy more discs even if obvious advances in quality are there. The sound quality of both DVD-Audio and SACD is simply amazing and the effects of multi-channel music are stunning. But it's not enough to get consumers rushing to the store. However people are downloading comparatively low quality content from the internet and gleefully paying 99 cents per song.
The days of our most popular optical storage formats are numbered, what is not so clear is exactly what will become of their successors. The consumer electronics industry would have you believe that the future is in one of the new generation of optical storage, Blu-Ray or HD DVD. This would sit well with the entertainment industry. The industries have collaborated on a secure digital communications protocol called High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP). HDCP was devised to protect their intellectual property from being easily copied with digital devices like PCs. But the real threat to all optical storage mediums is in file form that consumers can digitally store and recall on their own terms. A direction most consumers have consistently agreed upon as their preferred method of distributing their entertainment.
The future of home entertainment does not belong to another format of silver disc massed upon shelves in the Home Theater room. The future of digital entertainment belongs to menu systems and on screen displays from which movies and digital music are selected by users while sitting on the couch.