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Will CD be obsolete in 5 years?

asked Jul 06 '11 at 06:58

Arthur's gravatar image

Arthur
31113


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CDs are the only discs ever made specifically for audio storage so I doubt they will become obsolete in 20 years, let alone 5. They will surely lose popularity though. Online data storage is quickly gaining popularity unlike any format before it and will probably dominate sales in 5 years.

answered Jul 06 '11 at 07:19

zman's gravatar image

zman
3.5k152682

1

I also think they will stick around in the video game world. Otherwise, used game stores would loose all of its customers.

(Jul 07 '11 at 12:49) KylePolansky KylePolansky's gravatar image

they already are. you can easily download flac audio

with a cd, a small scratch means lost data (don't believe me, get a song that has a long stretch of silence in it such as Ultrahymn by Neurotic Fish

if your cd has small scratches, you will see that if you open the track using a audio editor, you will see small distortions due to the scratches.

the encoding on a cd where the music takes up a large amount of space (700MB for 80 minutes) allows it to be more scratch resistant since a tiny scratch may only damage a 1ms of audio or so but it is still degrading the quality.

download the audio that was never a CD, you will get a better quality song

also how many people still have portable CD players and still use them?

why buy a cd just to rip it to a mp3 player and risk having damaged audio due to dust or anything else on the cd when you can get a copy that was released by the record company or the artist them self that is a flac copy?

answered Jul 06 '11 at 09:02

Razor512's gravatar image

Razor512
15.8k3581247

Almost true. Now people like to use flash drives, but movies and songs will still come on CDs. CDs are really hard to manage and burn.

answered Jul 06 '11 at 07:09

Aditya%20Chanana's gravatar image

Aditya Chanana
12

Heres the thing that nobody else is considering: A CD has much better audio quality than an MP3. Thing is, noone cares, and they continue to use compressed MP3s as their primary source of music.

answered Jul 06 '11 at 09:19

iGeek3's gravatar image

iGeek3
1.6k394972

1

download flac, better quality than a cd

(Jul 06 '11 at 10:14) Razor512 Razor512's gravatar image

@Razor512 don't you then have to convert the flac track to something else (say mp3) to listen to it on an mp3 player etc? As far as I know none of the mp3 players or phones I've owned have supported flac...and even if they do, the files are much larger so you can fit less on the player.

and what happens if you want to listen to the music in a room where you don't have a computer? you then have to burn to a CD or load on to a portable player anyway :s

(Jul 06 '11 at 15:12) osiris osiris's gravatar image
  1. Don't you have to rip CD's to put them on mp3 players? They take the same amount of time, if not longer to proide you with a usable mp3. My phone supports flac, and the cowen iAudio X5 I had supported flac, and I primarily kept my music on it in flac. I don't settle for under 320kbps personally but 320 does me alright anyway, since I'm not to impressed with my phone's output, but just too convenient not to be my primary player.

  2. It's a nonissue really, who doesn't have a phono to minijack plugged into their stereo these days?

(Jul 06 '11 at 15:42) dcalleja dcalleja's gravatar image
2

most modern mp3 players should support it and if not then check if you can install rockbox on your mp3 player

the rockbox firmware is great when it comes to format support and unlike most stock firmwares, it was designed around fast load times, (boot times are generally under 1 second (from a cold boot)

http://www.rockbox.org/

(Jul 06 '11 at 16:22) Razor512 Razor512's gravatar image

My phone cannot play flac either, however my MP3 player can.

(Jul 06 '11 at 16:33) Xiro Xiro's gravatar image

@dcalleja how is it a non issue? Like gary below my car stereo has no audio in so I have a choice CDs, radio or nothing. I'm not doubting the quality of flac as it is better, but there are still situations where a CD is an easier or better alternative. And I don't know about you, but if I tried telling my grandparent's they were better off downloading flacs, loading them on to an mp3 player and then connecting that to their stereo using a phono to minijack adaptor, I'm pretty sure they'd just go and get the CD!

@Razor512 that's pretty cool (and will be better if they increase their supported range) - my old mp3 player is supported but my new 1 isn't. Anyways I wasn't trying to start an argument, just continue the discussion, thanks for keeping it friendly :)

(Jul 06 '11 at 16:46) osiris osiris's gravatar image
showing 5 of 6 show all

I use MP3 CD's in my car because my car doesn't support audio jack or have the cassette thing for ipod. I don't wanna get a FM transmitter because they suck

answered Jul 06 '11 at 11:51

Gary's gravatar image

Gary
1.2k253551

The only reason I do not buy many cds anymore is I rarely want an entire album, when I do I will just buy the tangible copy because it is likely the same cost or cheaper than a digital download. A song or two, a download will do fine as long as it as a much higher bit rate than 128. I then move it to my computer and portable players.

Regarding CDs, DVD etc... scratching, is it just me or I have never had an issue with this, I have cds look new a decade later.

answered Jul 06 '11 at 15:32

Xiro's gravatar image

Xiro
4.4k3754103

edited Jul 06 '11 at 16:21

Well theres a good point about the internet being used instead but, i think people who dont have the internet available 24/7 will want a hard copy. Also another point is that cd's scratch like crazy. I think we'l be seeing cds for 10 more years and then it will be obsolete. or people could use a type of flash drive or cheap mini sd card to dell music on.

answered Jul 06 '11 at 16:12

Hugh%20Nixon's gravatar image

Hugh Nixon
81161823

Since not everyone can buy things online, I don't see CDs going away any time soon.

answered Jul 06 '11 at 19:40

HerpDerp's gravatar image

HerpDerp
2.1k152148

CDs will never be obsolete as a throwing object.

answered Jul 07 '11 at 11:24

Billy%20Aoki's gravatar image

Billy Aoki
3.7k273778

The chances are probably half in half. Maybe they wont be around as often? Who knows.

answered Jul 07 '11 at 11:30

BlockABlowUp's gravatar image

BlockABlowUp
11

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Asked: Jul 06 '11 at 06:58

Seen: 5,607 times

Last updated: Jul 07 '11 at 19:57