I am hearing everytime on this forum that CDs and DVDs are allready dead. How can this be possible? We all have a lot of CDs at home and DVDs too. How many people have only MP3s and BluRay discs at home? Or only hearing to th internet radio? I think they are still in minority and will be for a long time. I like my CDs turning on the BeoSound9000 and will listen to them also in the near future. I consider MP3s more like addition at home, but as a primary media for my car radio or when using BeoSound 2. But when I like to listen to a quality music then I still buy CDs and also DVDs as my BeoVision 7 32'' has no built in BluRay player (also not the MK IV version). So I think for the near years to come CDs and DVDs will still live and are not dead as many here are persuading.

I dont think CDs are dead, especially DVDs! Who's got a Blu ray player in their car, or on their PCs/macs.

Also, its not like Digital media has even arrived properly at B&O... sure the BS5 is nice but it hasn't matured yet to the point that B&O is about to drop support for CDs. 

The car is the only place I use CDs anymore.. Of course, I don't actually handle them much. Just touch the buttons 1-6 on the dash to play a custom CD burned from iTunes. The amount of hi def audio (96/24) from HDtracks.com is just now starting to get good. They just got HD conversions from Sun Records ( Johnny cash, Roy Orbison etc.). Does BS5 do FLAC?

Yep. Dead. Buried. Even had the wake where a toast was made to good ol' 'Lossy' :(

I expect this'll end up an inverse of the "what's the point of mp3 ...." thread!

Puncher:

I expect this'll end up an inverse of the "what's the point of mp3 ...." thread!

So the contributors will progressively become more and more polite and more accommodating of the views of others?

Graham

 

There's probably a difference between what is stated and what is heard ...

A few realities. CD sales are nosediving - truly headed for the ground. So are DVD-sales. That's a useful indicator.

Why? Because these discs are containers for the content - they're not the content. If you want to use a record player, you need a record for your stylus; if you want to listen to the music that used to be stored as a digital file on a CD, you have lots of options - in exactly the same quality, or even better.

If you want, you can become a customer of HD-Tracks, and download your favorite music in higher resolution than on the CD, with access to all the info that was on the CD-cover.

The quality a CD offers is not dead, it is still around, just with greater options for anyone wishing to access that quality, where we once only had the CD as a medium for the file. (And this also goes for DVDs, of course.)
And, miraculously, we can get even better quality than CD, if we think that's important - and using the internet as a means of accessing music, we can get hold of recordings that are no longer available in any bricks&mortar store ...

Just as I am still playing LPs on my Beogram 4000, I'm also free to keep playing my CDs as much as I want. I personally prefer to keep them as a physical back-up of the music I've bought and transferred in lossless format to a harddisk. There, it is conveniently available to me through a large variety of playback options - and should something ever happen to the harddisk, or to a particular file, then I just take the CD out of the box where it is in safe storage, and transfer the music file from it to the harddisk, one more time.

Very practical, and safe. And there's nothing "world-ending" about it, but it has not been a good thing for the value of cd-players, that has to be admitted. They've plummeted in value ... even B&O, when launching their BeoSound 5, decided they wouldn't equip it with a cd-player, which should tell us something. (I personally feel they made a mistake - they should have given it a CD-slot, and automated the ripping of music from it to the harddrive ...)

Streaming of digital content, together with the possibility of purchasing such content through the net for storage on local media, is taking over.

vikinger:

Puncher:

I expect this'll end up an inverse of the "what's the point of mp3 ...." thread!

So the contributors will progressively become more and more polite and more accommodating of the views of others?

Graham

 

 

Yes, this will be the Bizarro-version of that thread.

One interesting thing - we're seeing a resurgence for vinyl, and the second-hand market for vinyl is taking off in a wild way, both for statement vintage turntables and for the records themselves. People are paying fantasy prices now for vinyl records with the proper heritage, collecting them as you would collect wines. That's because the content and the medium are inseparable, when you use the medium for playback on a turntable - and because trendsetters have made vinyl fashionable again (House, Mad Men, etc.)
That's not going to happen for CDs ... they'll just keep becoming more and more irrelevant as a medium for the files they once were alone in conveying.

 

Puncher:

I expect this'll end up an inverse of the "what's the point of mp3 ...." thread!

I used to have an old series landy... whenever I tried to turn the engine off...

1.) Come to a complete stop

2.) Neutral, hand brake on

3.) Jump out, run to the front, pop the bon and pull the coil lead out of the distributor

I am sure that DVDs and CDs will stick around for some more years, 5 at least.

But digital media will play an increasing role and thats why a proper video and music strategy is important.

The BS5 to me is a start. I don't think it is selling much though, maybe they can re-ignite with a 2 way remote. Even though for me apple lossless and gapless playing is what I am waiting for, I know if they fix that it won't do much for sales.

In principle BS5 is what I expect them to deliver, for video I don't think though it is possible to define what will be required.

Netflix, Amazon and Apple streaming service may will probably be game changer.

 

I do not use CDs anymore. Even in my car I have been using an Ipod as music source. Connected via the digital interface, the music quality is very good. At home all my music coms from mac/apple TV.

The maintenance of a music collection is much easier on PC than in big CD suitcases

I only use DVD blueray for watching a video every now and then

 

Hello All

Much the Same as Marc's post above:

I have a Beocenter 9300 more for Radio and looks and accessing Apple TV, than the CD Drive.

I have all my music on Apple TV purchased from Amazon normally where its cheaper than Itunes.

All my music is digital, i have an Ipod that is fully intergrated into a bluetooth car headunit.

Ipod sits in a draw and all functions access from the headunit.

I refuse to rentout DVD's from the local blockbusters as i prefer the better quality of Bluray.

If ever we listen to music throughout the house its via beolink vmem (apple TV).

The only thing people need to do is Backup, Backup & Backup

 

Those guys that use an Apple Mac to store their music and have a time capsule do not have to bother about backups :-)

 

Yeah very true.

Clever device that time capsule.

 

jk1002:

I am sure that DVDs and CDs will stick around for some more years, 5 at least.

But digital media will play an increasing role and thats why a proper video and music strategy is important.

The BS5 to me is a start. 

Agree with the 2 first sentences. Predicting the future is hard, but my guess is that in 5 years, the BS5 is too old and will not be supported anymore...

My strategy is a start with a good NAS in raid1 to store my music and video, CAT6/7 to every room where you want to listen or watch TV, and go from there.

DoubleU:

 

My strategy is a start with a good NAS in raid1 to store my music and video,

 

Already converted my complete cd collection to wma lossless and starting (again) to rip my DVD collection with the help of DVD Fab.

Also recently build (stripped) an old p4 pc (45W idle) and installing FreeNAS on it. This way I haven't to invest in a (expensive) NAS, like Synology, QNAP etc. But with FreeNAS you're free to add drives as far as your pc-housing can have. Easily to use and free of costs.

 

One reason to stick with CDs for the time being.  Everything is unpredictable!

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/08/17/pink_floyd_albums_removed_from_itunes_after_record_contract_expires.html

Marc:

 

Those guys that use an Apple Mac to store their music and have a time capsule do not have to bother about backups :-)

 

That is a dangerous assumption.

Now if you said TWO time capsules I would be able to sleep at night.

But even a time capsules drive can fail some day .....

Hello All

I'm a little frustrated by this thread, if for no other reason that I dont know where you all get your digital music from?!!!!!!!!!! I can never find the tracks I want at a reasonable bit rate, particularly if its a remix version of a track i really love- often its a 256 or lower bit rate. Even 320bit  tracks at times sound very disappointing! (Mind you some CD's Id say likewise, the recording engineers should be shot! Would never have happened in ABBA's studio!)

For me the CD is absolutely not dead, the sound is generally far superior, even compared to lossless mp3's (at least to my ear).

Then there's vinyl, which in my opinion is even better again, a much fuller sound with more detail- at least using my beogram 7000 and SMMC1 Stylus!

I love the convenience of digital, but the sound is often disappointing.. I've had friends actually say, oh those speakers arent as good as i would have thought, simply because mp3's sound rubbish.

My bind is, I cant find the tracks I want on CD and often have to download a low bit rate track or spend weeks searching download sights for what i want.

Bring on the ability to download lossless tracks and then I might commit to putting away my CD's.

Thats my ten pence worth!

David

I did Purchase all of my music from Itunes but found the same album on Amazon mp3 dept was half the price.

I have always been able to find the music i want and not had a problem.

I must admit that some tracks are less perfect than others since i have had my lab 9's.

I have never looked into buying lossless Mp3/MP4

Although I tend to agree with the rest of your post, this has me puzzled:

david coyne:

lossless mp3's

MP3s are per definition lossy. It's a lossy format, an algorhithm which throws out information. Lossless formats (ALAC, FLAC, WMA Lossless etc.) does not throw any information as the "lossless" monicker would imply.

 

hmmm, perhaps i didnt explain myself well..... when i can get digital music at a similar bit rate as a CD, generally around 1000bit rate I'll be more interested in digital music. A 256 bit rate mp3 from itunes sounds rubbbish!

 

David

I see.

Well, a CD (16bit, 44.1kHz, stereo) in an uncompressed form (i.e. straight from the cd) is 1411kbps*.

A lossless format such as ALAC, FLAC or WMA Lossless, results in about 60 percent of that, depending on how complex the music is, how much information is in the actual PCM data.

When playing any of those lossless formats, the resulting PCM (i.e. the audio) is the exact same, bit-for-bit as that of the uncompressed cd.

A lossy format such as MP3, MP4/AAC, MP2 and others are lossy no matter if it was possible to use a setting called, say, 1000kbps. A "lossy" format is just that: Lossy. It throws out x percentages of the pcm data, of the actual audio information by following a "set of rules" which dictate which parts to throw out: A logarhithm. As such, a 128kbps MP3, MP4/AAC, Mp2 tosses out 10/11ths of the original uncompressed pcm data.

The reason I object is that calling digital files "mp3s" is wrong, unless it actually is in that specific format. Hence you cannot have "lossless MP3s" as that format can't be lossless.

 

 

*see my post below

 

 

 

 

 

This post is very interresting !

I have a BS5/BM5 and continue to rip my CDs in WMA Lossless.

I didn't try to rip in MP3 (for ex : in 320 Kbps) and see if i could hear a difference.

I really want to keep the original quality of the CDs so i think the lossless format is best.

The trouble is that in France, there are no webstores like hd-tracks (i didn't even know it) where you can legally buy lossless music.

All the stores have max. 320Kbps

Same for Blu-Ray, is there any store where you can buy, not rent, blu-ray in HD ?

Anyway, i'm very happy with my BS5...

Sorry, make that 1411kbps (1440 is the horisontal pixel count on many computer screens)

(16 (bit) x 44.100 (Hz) x 2 (channels) = 1411200bps=1411kbps)