Comments on: CDs and DVDs: Apples and Kumquats

By: Vampire Librarian

Vampire Librarian — Wed, 13 Apr 2005 06:28:13 +0000

The CD industry needs to be overhauled. It’s common knowledge that a music cassette tape is more expensive to make than a music CD, yet cassette tape prices went down while CD prices continue to increase.

And this may muddy the waters, but music clubs are able to sell CD’s for $6 or less. The muddying part is that they do not pay full royalties to the artists, but how is it they can sell CD’s for so little while I still have to pay $16 at any other commericial outlet? The music industry screamed that Napster and so on was stealing money from them, while you could say the industry is stealing money themselves.

By: Ted Morris

Ted Morris — Tue, 12 Apr 2005 19:25:51 +0000

Regarding Mark’s page that Lorcan mentions: I have yet to figure out how my kids have TIME enough to be ripping their CD music to MP3 or to be seeking out and downloading music from elsewhere–I have a collection of music on tape; for some of the “albums” I have subsequently bought CD versions, for others not; some of my collection I have acquired more recently directly on CD. I have neither the time to watch DVD performances of concerts (although I wish I did) nor time to transfer my reel-to-reel tapes (probably suffering horribly from print-through by now) or my cassettes (no 8-tracks, though!) to CD or other digitized format. I’m too busy with the other parts of my life to be constantly micromanaging my audio collection for the latest and greatest players.

I can’t dispute that MP3 players are dandy enough for what they’re intended for by most folks. I would also not dispute that there’s a great deal of value-added to DVD performance releases over their audio-only counterparts. But I–and I suspect many folks–don’t have need of those value-added features. So I can’t see “the demise of CDs” happening until at least a lot more of us middle-agers and middle-achievers have died off…

By: Sarah Houghton

Sarah Houghton — Tue, 12 Apr 2005 16:23:31 +0000

Absolutely right-on. Our home collection has close to 5,000 CDs, but only about 300 DVDs. Why? Not because we like music more than movies, but precisely because of the third point you mention–we will listen to the CDs over and over and over, while each DVD gets maybe 2 or 3 viewings.

And why would I buy the CD instead of just the MP3s? After all, I have a nice MP3 player with a speakered-docking station… Because CDs have more than just the music. The liner notes that Alan Wexelblat claims are so worthless are the very things that make me buy the CD. I want to get the whole package–artwork, tracks in the order the artist intended them, the lyrics, etc. CDs may turn into something else someday soon (media chips, for example, like those used for digital cameras), but I have to imagine that people will always want the extra bits that the liner notes offer.

By: Lorcan Dempsey

Lorcan Dempsey — Mon, 11 Apr 2005 17:56:11 +0000

Check out the post by Mark Cuban:

The countdown for the extinction of CDs is about to begin (http://www.blogmaverick.com/entry/1234000000038844/)