Limping_Pylon
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Music Format Futures - How is clear your crystal ball?
Monty
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Your question is somewhat similar to the ones being asked 10 years ago. I'm not optimistic about an improved format anytime soon...especially given the popularity of the ipod and downloads.

lemonizer
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CD won the format war years ago. It provides more than enough 'quality' to keep everyone happy.

Ok maybe not everyone but everyone in the sense of 99.999% of humans on planet earth. (I could probably insert a few more 9's there too)

I just wish people would compress their recordings less and leave at least some dynamic range. The world is being converted to dull lifeless monovolume recordings, rather like the world is now 99.99% 4/4 time.

Adjust that compressor all those bits don't have to be used!

Buddha
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Excellent point, Lemonizer!

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As to the futures market, well, we gotta look to the past to predict the future.

My example for this question is: VHS was worse than Beta, qualitywise, but won the war.

I think this war is already over, and MP3 won.

The future will (hopefully) see people evolving toward higher quality MP3's or other data algorhtythms, but will not be SACD, DVD-A, or whatever the next two competing disc formats will be.

I think the future for the mass market is server based "subscription" music collections and less and less ownership of actual playback "hardwear" like CD's.

Music companies seem to fear high quality playback media, so I can see them being very happy with stuff that's so bad, no one would want to pirate it. I honestly think the companies are that stupid and malevolent.

In the future, a music CD may be regarded with awe and reverence as having been "perfect sound now, and forever."

Ain't that a shitter?

LM2940
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Quote:
I think the future for the mass market is server based "subscription" music collections and less and less ownership of actual playback "hardwear" like CD's.

That line right there explains why I have been buying CDs and LPs like mad lately. I think that CDs/LPs could become very expensive on the used market down the line as people realize that they don't actually "own" the music that they've downloaded.

I think the future is grim at best.

1. I fear a world where DRM rules and you can't just move the data around from device to device without expense and hassle.

2. Also, the mass market is moving toward *lower fidelity* in the form of compressed files.

3. Add to the above the fact that I just like the look and feel of physical media and you have the trifecta of panic buying!

As far as SACD/DVD-Audio: They will stick around as a niche market and the prices will rise accordingly. As far as the Hi-Rez formats in the mass markets, the party is over[never began].
I'm more worried about finding a SACD/DVD-Audio player in the future for the disks I already own.

Windzilla
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Man am I the only one who thinks the future is promising?

come on people this is a gravy train with biscuit wheels, your all welcome aboard.

I figure price, convenience and accessibility rule the roost in this market, followed by quality.

as prices of storage continues to plummet (look how little a humongous hard drive costs, think about 10 years from now) and the download speeds increase drastically, that last nagging bit on my list will inevitably drive the market. therefore people will chose better quality when all else is equal, new and better technologies will arrive and we will move forward.

already the codecs of today are (generally) of higher quality than the codecs of 97 when I borrowed* my first MP3** off my college network.

the rippers or the hardware or something in that process was awful then, with all kinds of spurious artifacts and sharp snapping hisses.

sure it still sounds flat and lifeless, but there are better codex out there, and not because nobody wants them, but because there is a market for quality.

cheers

*read "illegally downloaded"
**dueling banjos

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