Re: goodbye to 2002

["Aaron [Bishop] Read" <aread@speakeasy.net>]

At 10:34 AM 1/2/2003, Sven Franklyn Weil wrote:
>After all, I only bought a CD player (a Teac desktop single cd component
>unit to add on to my radio) about 3 years ago...now that I'm firmly
>convinced they won't go obsolete any time soon (like 8-tracks).  :)
>--
>Sven (I'll wait another 20 years for Mini-Disk)

(Aaron blows the dust off his cloudy crystal ball)

Bzzzt.  CD's are already on their way out.  It's very subtle, but I've 
noticed that already at many chain stores the CD player selection is 
getting smaller and smaller.  Why?  Because DVD players can play CD's, 
too...and are cheaper (to the consumer) than most CD players....why should 
a manufacturer pay to maintain two separate product lines?

I was chatting with the guys at the Sony service center in Westwood, MA a 
few months ago...they told me Sony plans to replace the CD entirely in 
favor of DVD's by 2010.   Granted, that's hearsay, but from a source that 
probably has a halfway decent idea what he's talking about.   Given that 
timeline, I would expect to see DVD discs in the audio CD section in force 
by 2005 or 2006.   The main wrench in the works that I can see is the 
introduction of the blue-laser DVD, which could tip off another VHS vs. 
Beta war unless Hollywood steps in and tells the manufacturers to knock it 
off (I expect they will and by the end of 2003).

Super-Audio-CD's will likely never get off the ground...SACD offers 
absolutely nothing in the way of audio fidelity that makes average Joes 
stand up and take notice.  (although to audiophiles like us, I'll say the 
demo I heard did sound really good)  Plus both the hardware and the media 
infrastructure isn't there and likely never will be as the world migrates 
to DVD's.

BTW - Minidisc is already dying in the US.  Virtually no major electronics 
chain carries MD players/recorders anymore.  Even the blanks are getting 
hard to find. Sony/Panasonic waited too long to introduce MD in force to 
the US - by the time they did, it was already too easy for your average Joe 
to burn his own CD's.    I expect we'll see MD on the overseas scene for a 
while, though...it was VERY popular in Asia and Europe in the early and mid 
1990's.


____________________________________________
Aaron "Bishop" Read     aread@speakeasy.net
FriedBagels Technical Consulting / Boston, MA
www.friedbagels.com   AOL-IM: ReadAaron