The Wednesday before the official start of the CES is traditionally a day devoted to press conferences and room set up and today was no different. Many mainstream companies put on dog and pony shows announcing products they think will answer the mass market's thirst for more and better—but a few high-end companies make announcements as well.
In the age of iTunes and Amazon.com, do brick and mortar music retailers have a future? Perhaps—if they downsize a bit.
One of the drawbacks of the new DualDiscs released by the major labels to date is a lack of consistency when it comes to portability—the ability to easily transfer the music to any device the listener prefers, such as an iPod, media server, PC, or MP3 player, or to make a back-up CD for car use.
While a relative trickle of copy-restricted CDs have been released in the US, European labels have been more likely to experiment with lock-down technology. Russia is battling extreme piracy, as its culture and mass communications minister, Aleksandr Sokolov, reported to his government last week, asserting that pirated wares account for 80–90% of the overall audio and video sales in that country.
A local body shop owner explained to me recently how the center brake light that began showing up on the rear deck of cars a few years ago killed business for him and his pals. Seems that all of a sudden, folks weren't rear-ending each other as often.
Audiophiles have a mess on their hands. In a somewhat surreal press conference in May, a half dozen audio luminaries—representing Sony, Philips, and several titans of the high-end recording business—stood on a HI-FI '99 stage looking awkwardly at the audience.
There has always been something uniquely satisfying about holding a paper magazine in your hand and riffling through its pages. Images and textures are of higher resolution than any video screen, and the ease of use of the paper-page bundle can not easily be replaced. People are developing electronic substitutes for paper, but the interesting thing is that these researchers are endeavoring to imitate the look, feel, and functionality of paper—but with digital inks and charged surfaces. For now, plain old paper and ink are just too perfect a medium to toss when it comes to packing information into a compact, portable, high-quality package.
Audiophiles cringe at the idea of downloading blurry, compressed representations of once-detailed recordings (even CD seems high-rez these days). But that hasn't stopped average music fans from trying online music services.
We all know by now the perils of proclaiming a winner before all of the votes have been cast, but with the possible future of high-resolution audio and video data storage at stake, the temptation to call it early is great.
First, a prediction: some day we'll buy the nearly complete music library and the player will be free. Imagine getting a player pre-loaded with most songs in your favorite genre already installed, with room left over to add more and a subscription service for instant updates. Imagine even being able to buy the high-resolution library.