Physical media will be obsolete in another decade

Hi-Rez Highway

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In Reply to: Good post on the General asylum posted by navman on October 5, 2004 at 16:52:38:

Don't look at the media, Look at the data itself. In another few years, physical media will be anachronistic.
It is already almost pointless to buy a CD when you can download it across the internet. Yes, you can only download in MP3 format now, but assuming that internet connections become faster and faster, you should be able to buy a full redbook CD, download it, and burn it to CD. If it weren't for all the concerns with digital information copyrights, you would be able to do the same thing with SACD discs eventually.
Right now, even though it is on the "black market" and reduced quality (mp3) , any kid can download his choice of music to his computer and play it back on any device. He doesn't care what form it was when it was purchased... (though it almost always is CD)
All you need to care about is the actual quality of the recording and the encoding format. (mp3, pcm, dsd, wmv, etc). I can imagine a time when instead of having a CD or SACD player as you front end, you have a device that merely stores bits and feeds them to a DAC.
I can imagine audiophiles like us paying extra money for super high quality recordings in DSD format. Sure, the yokels can pay 99 cents for a song in mp3 format, but I would pay $20/album for full DSD digital downloads. At present day speeds, it would probably take a week to download them, preventing rampant illegal copying for at least a few years. Why copy it illegally when the MP3 (which is "good enough" for most people) is so easily available?

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Follow Ups Full Thread

Topic - Good post on the General asylum - navman 16:52:38 10/05/04 (5)

Physical media will be obsolete in another decade - junk2sa@yahoo.com 08:18:51 10/06/04 (2)

Anachronistic from an edge-of-the-art perspective, maybe... - Jim Treanor 16:05:23 10/06/04 (0)

Fine and dandy, but what about *now*? People also said books and mags would become obsolete too. - jdaniel@jps.net 08:33:51 10/06/04 (0)

Could this be a path back to analog? - Recordfan 06:56:25 10/06/04 (0)

Has relevance for Hi Rez I think. - navman 16:55:12 10/05/04 (0)

Follow Ups

Physical media will be obsolete in another decade - junk2sa@yahoo.com 08:18:51 10/06/04 (2)

Anachronistic from an edge-of-the-art perspective, maybe... - Jim Treanor 16:05:23 10/06/04 (0)

Fine and dandy, but what about *now*? People also said books and mags would become obsolete too. - jdaniel@jps.net 08:33:51 10/06/04 (0)

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