I agree with jafant. CD players will be around for a long time. Maybe like turntables these days. Irrelevant in bigger picture, but with enough of die-hard support to make them profitable in those low numbers. Something like 78s. Some turntables can still play them, but it is a very small group of people who may actually use it. And, when nobody is watching, I ask myself why would they use it anyway.
What will become of my beloved CDs?
I have nearly 2000 CDs (DVDA, SACD, etc) and am very fond of them, or at least the music that is on them. However, it seems that music distribution is going to someday soon be totally on-line through downloads (True? When?). So, when most all of the music on my CDs is available in higher-quality on-line downloads (with artwork, I'm sure), what will become of my CDs? Will they be the shiny-silver equivalent to 8-Track tapes? Or, will they become a novelty and collectable? Should I seel them ASAP?? Any economists here???
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Eventually the codec to 'decode' CDs will be lost to history. It might be near impossible for some future civilization to ever actually decode a CD contents without the knowledge of how it was created. Reverse engineering a CD contents with no idea how (or what is on the disc) may be impossible. The encoding is incredibly complicated, and not in any way conceivable straight forward. So in some future hundreds of thousands of years from now. all those archeological silver disc finds may be an utter mystery to those future beings. Oddly... an LP could easily be decoded.. |
@glupson why 78s? Because they’re still being pressed and issued 🤪 https://kittydaisyandlewis.officialstore.co.uk/Shop/PhysicalDetails?pid=KDL_PH_4 |
@elizabeth - Your scenario reminds me of the SETI organization and their search for extra terrestrial radio signals. If a civilization is a million years ahead of you, MAYBE they use a communication protocol you don’t understand (compare analog radio to digital - ever dial a fax machine by mistake? Does the sound it makes make any sense?). |
folkfreak, Wow, I stand corrected big time. I had no idea anyone would make 78s these days. It may be a niche market, but it seems that it is a market. The secret is that I actually always want a turntable with 78 although I own exactly zero records like that. At the same time, I have a probably very dumb question. Tell me that they are not made of shellac but something more durable. |
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