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Same price as CD. Maybe a few dollars more max. More for multiple CDs on one DVD, which is what I'm hoping for. Not what the DTS CDs are going for---$25 or so.
Recent announcements indicate that DVD-Audio may soon emerge as a set of standards. Assuming that a DVD-Audio disc is not backward-compatible with CD players, but will play on the new DVD player (with DVD-Audio update) you just bought, how much would you spend for the special discs?
As each new format is released, the large music companies use the opportunity to concurrently introduce an increase in price. This has set the current price of a CD so high that it has limited the size of the market itself---a frustrating trend for both the consumer and music industry. I would like to see pricing level off or drop when the next generation is introduced. I know I am dreaming, but some relief is needed. How about the separation of the cost of the royalty license and the format? The Music chains should allow a trade-in for an old cassette or CD on which the royalty has already been paid, charging the consumer only for the physical DVD. Sound far-fetched? Some of us consumers listen to the music industry lobby at great length to protect itself from reproduction or piracy, and at the same time this industry charges us for another royalty every time we buy into a new format. Where is the protection for the consumer?
Not a penny unless the thing is backward-compatible with existing CD players! Anyone who reads the audio press knows that it is possible to engineer a DVD carrier that can also contain an alternate 44.1kHz/16-bit stereo track for the existing millions (billions?) of playback decks. If hardware and software manufacturers are short-sighted and/or greedy enough to foist a new music carrier onto the marketplace without making this option available to the consumer, they're simply asking for failure. Do you think the stereophonic LP would have been able to gain a foothold back in the late 1950s if they couldn't be safely played back on existing monophonic equipment? There was a built-in incentive to eventually upgrade your sound system to take advantage of the emerging technology while still enjoying the investment of the recordings on existing playback gear. I find this to be analogous to the evolution currently taking place as CDs yield to a dedicated DVD music carrier. The transition from analog LP to digital CD was a tough one to take. I simply can't imagine that consumers will sit by without protest if the powers that be decide that we all have to buy our record collections over again every 10 or 15 years. I'm all for the best possible sound that can be obtained in my home, but I refuse to gut everything I have to do it. It's just too soon.
This may sound naive, but I am still hoping the price of software will come down sometime in the future. I went to Blockbusters Music for the first time in a couple of years and I was (unpleasantly) surprised to find that they had no CD's for less than 17-18 dollars. And this is for the non-audiophile quality stuff. I mean, really... how much does it really cost to produce, manufacture and distribute a CD? How do you justify a 25%-30% increase over such a short period of time? Crazy!
I would be willing to pay somewhat more for truly superior recordings. Format alone won't guarantee that, due to sloppy studio techniques. Also, there is plenty of music where it won't really matter. Blaring white noise is pretty much the same no matter how many bits you've got.
Are DVDs substantially more expensive to manufacture than CDs? If so, then I could understand a slightly higher price until mass production brought those costs down. Otherwise, I can see no reason to spend one dime more for a DVD-Audio disc than for a CD disc if both contain the same music.
I seriously doubt anyone except the most hard-core audiophile will pay even a small amount above the current price of regular CDs. Making the standard so it is not backward-compatible would be bad enough; should those discs also cost more, the format will die rather quickly.
My vote at 22-25 clams is a guess at what I would expect to pay. Obviously there is music out there that, if I found it on a superior format, I wouldn't care how much I spent. The huge advantage to this is the cost of the actual players. Michel Fremer's comments in his review of the Bow CD player show that we may not have far to reach.
What's this, a marketing survey for manufacturers and record companies? I embraced CDs only reluctantly anyway . . . Will I now be expected to pay more because the industry screwed up the first time around and FORCED me to go CD by eliminating options?? Don't give these marketing morons any ideas. I'm not willing to pay a dime more than I'm paying now, and if I'm forced to, you can bet I'll be listening to radio more. Is this what they call ranting? I guess you should do me a favor and send me a reprint of the review on the Sequerra antenna. Thanks.
The sound quality would have to exceed the sound quality of records. I own two CD players, and my family still spends most of the time listening to records for sound and selection. And more of the music we are interested to hear is being offered on records, so my next investment will be the upgrade of my Linn LP12. If the past is a predictor of the future, that will be 20 years more of enjoyment. Make no mistake: I am not opposed to new technology.
It has astonished me how quickly DVD has gained acceptance in the marketplace. One of many reasons is certainly the low cost of purchasing the DVDs themselves. If most DVD players that have been bought, and all players that will be bought, are 24-bit-compatible, it is reasonable to expect DVD-Audio to be a major music medium. But if software providers do not price their product at a reasonable price vs. other music formats, it will never get out of the gate.