CD RIP? – Should We Really Be Writing The Obituary for Optical Media?
CD RIP? – Should We Really Be Writing The Obituary for Optical Media?
Article by Jeremy Teal
Bill Gates is famously quoted as saying “The CD is dead”. Since that time millions of CDs have been replicated and untold CD duplication runs have been completed. He’s also is attributed with saying that 640k of memory was plenty for anyone (though to be fair he denies this!). As with all storage formats the next generation’s evangelists are very quick to pronounce the current incumbent dead, and in their haste to write the death certificate fail to recognise the benefits of a long established and cost effective format. It is true that the tired technology of yesterday loses its sheen in the face of the latest glossy offering, but it’s worth stepping back and looking objectively at the benefits of a format, regardless of how long it has been around and how sexy the next iteration is.
Optical discs transformed the music, film and data businesses with a digital delivery revolution that will probably never be repeated in scale or depth. Does anyone remember the audio cassette and its hissy fluttery sound? It’s true that this format did have some benefits; it’s compact, convenient and of acceptable quality (for some) but in comparison to a CD there is, well, no comparison. Similarly the clunky VHS; snow in vision, hissy sound, wobbly picture and colours that changed with the wind. The arrival of the DVD meant that at last you could build a collection of films that you would look the same whether you played them once or a hundred times. For a while it looked like the cinema industry had been dealt a death blow, though with the advent of digital projection (and more recently 3D), this particular cadaver is very much alive and kicking.Compact discs were a godsend to the computer industry too. The days of splitting large installation files across a number of increasingly unreliable floppy discs were over (this is from someone old enough to remember loading games off cassette). 650MB of cheap to produce and bit-perfect delivery helped transform the PC software market. Windows installer discs on their own account for enough CDs to circumvent the planet several times over.
Ever since the internet arrived as a mass market consumer service the experts have been predicting that packaged media, and specifically optical discs, would soon be consigned to the annals of history. We were told how even your parents would find it easier to download the latest movie or songs than to buy the disc in a box. About 10 years since I first heard this prediction we have a market where download is very important (in fact music downloads are predicted to overtake replicated CD sales by 2012) but is existing alongside physical media. There is no denying that download will at some point overtake all packaged media sales but there will be a significant overlap where the convenience cost of manufacturing and general inertia of the consumer will mean that sales continue in significant numbers.
The other major factor in the popularity of optical discs is the ease of which it is now possible to burn and distribute your own content on disc. As a virtually disposable format the CDR has attained ubiquitous popularity among marketing and promotional industries. Companies with a message or film to deliver to 100 or 1000 or a million people are likely to pick up the phone to a CD duplication company that can, for a very reasonable cost, create a professional looking CD copy that will work on pretty much any PC. Compare this with the option of digital delivery and it’s pitfalls (bandwidth, connectivity, plug-in incompatibility) and the higher cost of distribution of optical disc starts looking like good value. Coupled with the fact that most people prefer to have something in their hand (especially when some thought and design goes into the packaging), then the optical disc delivery option start looking very attractive.
We have arrived at a situation now (trying not to sound like Bill here) our current formats are good enough for most purposes. Sure there will be times that you need to distribute a small mount of data to a large amount of people and the web has its uses in this context. If you need to reliably distribute a few hundred MB of data to 1000 people cheaply then there is no competition for the humble CD. It’s virtually guaranteed to work in every computer and won’t suffer from bandwidth or connectivity problems. If you have HD content then a Blu-ray disc will be the only realistic option, with its 30mbps + data rate the internet can’t compete. CDR duplication sales have held up well in the face of massive reductions in replicated CDs. The convenience and cost of the CDR and DVDR is paramount to the success of these formats in the promotional and marketing industries.It is not guaranteed that all data and media formats will live on as niche products for ever. Although vinyl is still popular in its own small sector of the music industry there are plenty of casualties left behind, although most of these were closed proprietary systems (Iomega Jaz discs anyone?). Undoubtedly their popularity as consumer formats will be further eroded once the whole planet is plugged into 100mbps fibre optic cables but this in itself is still a distant reality. The CD and DVD have a few good years left in them and I predict that in 2012 we will still be talking about millions of units being consumed.
About the Author
Jeremy Teal is an expert on CD and DVD duplication.More information about CD duplication at 10th Planet Digital Media and promotional USB sitcks WeAreUSB.com.
