Next tech for content?

[Flint]

Cylinders gave way to wire which gave way platters which gave way to LP which was joined by cassettes, reels, and 8-tracks. Then CD came along and nearly everything died-off except LP. Suddenly the music world was utterly dessimated by downloads from internet sharing services which was monetized by a few companies as download purchases of music where the industry stablized.

I am a hold-out who still purchases my music on a medium, usually CD but sometimes LP, BluRay, or SACD. There are a legions of us who still want to permamently own our content for our own use at all times.

However, the next phase for acquiring content is already here, cloud services.

Much like movie download services where you basically "rent" the movie for a single use or for a fixed period of time, your music collection exists in a cloud online where you access when you wish - the difference is you don't rent the song one time, you own access to it forever.

http://www.metrowize.com/music-moves-to-the-cloud-sxsw

Is this what you guys want?

What about the impact of utilizing megabytes of data every minute when you are playing your entire collection in decent resolution all day long every day? Sure the content is easy to access from any connected device, but what about when you are not connected or when you exceed the bandwidth ccap for your internet service?

 

[mzpro5]

Like you I want to own a physical copy.

If something goes wrong, a problem with your home network, a problem with your IP provider or many other scenarios you are sunk with "cloud" only media.

I'll take a physical copy and choose on my own to make a digital copy for my convenience.

 

[Towen7]

The biggest problem I have with cloud-only based media (especially music) is that it requires a connection. Mobile data plans are expensive.

 

[heeman]

I still like to buy a hard copy and rip to a hard drive and store the original.

Was hoping that CD's would have been below the $10 mark, but that is not going to happen.

Years ago 1986 or so we used to go into NYC to Tower Records and buy CD's for about $10, hoping that prices would drop, but they never did.

 

[Flint]

According to the inflation calculators what cost $10 in 1986 would could $19.31 in 2009 (it is higher today as inflation is speeding up right now).

So, in terms of the cost of all items we buy, CDs are cheaper today than they were in 1986 - the cost did go down.



I just pulled the last 25 new CDs (not reissues or remasters) I purchased on Amazon and the average price was $12.51.

$12.51 in 2009 dollars is the same as $6.48 in 1986.

 

[Huey]

While the concept sounds pretty cool, all this is going to do, is cause people to become even more isolated in their lives. With all of the texting and social networking online, and now being able to take your media content everywhere, we are quickly entering the matrix within our society.

As far as next gen goes, I would like to see downloadable lossless, no dynamic range compression music available from the record companies. I don't care about having a physical copy, although you could always burn the content to a cd. I just want the best sounding media out there.
Rob

 

[heeman]

According to the inflation calculators what cost $10 in 1986 would could $19.31 in 2009 (it is higher today as inflation is speeding up right now).

So, in terms of the cost of all items we buy, CDs are cheaper today than they were in 1986 - the cost did go down.



I just pulled the last 25 new CDs (not reissues or remasters) I purchased on Amazon and the average price was $12.51.

$12.51 in 2009 dollars is the same as $6.48 in 1986.

So let's assume that I have a mortgage payment of $1250/month and 15 years have past. You're economic analysis will tell me that........................

I say it is still $1250 and CD's at their current price is higher than $10. bscene-buttred:

 

[Botch]

I'd read in Home Theater a few months back about a program called Ultraviolet, being designed by the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Entertainment_Content_Ecosystem .
They are a consortium of studios, video providers, retailers, etc (I noticed Apple has not joined :text-protest: ). The idea is, once you "buy" digital content, be it a movie, album, game, etc, its yours forever, and you will be able to access it from any device: computer, HT, phone, iPad, etc. If the content is re-released in a new data format, you already have access to it in the new format (no more replacing your 8-track with an album with a CD with a SACD with a Bluray blablabla).
That would (should) prevent your buying something from Company A, they get bought out by Company B, and suddenly your access is no good anymore (the way gym memberships, phone services and mortgages are).
I wouldn't mind going that route, but my collection in h/w right now is so large I'd never buy it all again in this format; I'd just get new stuff that way.
EDIT: Hardware which supports this protocol should start hitting the shelves this year, according to the blurb, although I haven't heard anything about it since.

 

[Flint]

If a candy bar costs more today than in 1986, and a bag of chips, and a hamburger, and a soda... man I'm hungry.

Let's try this again... if a pair of shoes cost more, then why should we expect a CD to cost less? The majority of the cost of a disc isn't the material or the manufacturing. The majority of the cost goes to the artists involved, the producers, recording engineers, songwriters, studio time expenses, marketing, gear needed to record, etc. All of those expenses do not get cheaper over time, they get more expensive since wages and earnings are expected to always go up. You wouldn't expect a recording engineer to be earning the same amount today as was earned 25 years ago, would you? The amount of money the label makes isn't going up. It is typically flat, but often it has gone down since the 1980s.

So, expecting a CD to get cheaper is like expecting movie tickets to get cheaper. Artists don't make less and less every decade, they tend to make more. Tickets to any show is going up in price, so why should their work on a CD go down?

 

[heeman]

If a candy bar costs more today than in 1986, and a bag of chips, and a hamburger, and a soda... man I'm hungry.

Let's try this again... if a pair of shoes cost more, then why should we expect a CD to cost less? The majority of the cost of a disc isn't the material or the manufacturing. The majority of the cost goes to the artists involved, the producers, recording engineers, songwriters, studio time expenses, marketing, gear needed to record, etc. All of those expenses do not get cheaper over time, they get more expensive since wages and earnings are expected to always go up. You wouldn't expect a recording engineer to be earning the same amount today as was earned 25 years ago, would you? The amount of money the label makes isn't going up. It is typically flat, but often it has gone down since the 1980s.

So, expecting a CD to get cheaper is like expecting movie tickets to get cheaper. Artists don't make less and less every decade, they tend to make more. Tickets to any show is going up in price, so why should their work on a CD go down?

Flint - Relax, I'm just playing with you!!! :teasing-tease:

 

[Yesfan70]

I like the idea of "music everywhere" via the Cloud, but if I can not own a physical copy or archive the download the way I see fit (no DRM, etc.) then I'm just not interested. Oh, and I will always choose the CD (used or new) over a lossy download.


Personally, I'm very happy with the CD. I hope it sticks around for another 30 years.

 

[Flint]

We've talked about it before, then the Amazon thing hit (above), but now Apple is getting into the game - or at least they are rumored to be getting into it.

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=21447

So it doesn't make a ton of sense with Amazon does it, but will Apple make it so popular that the entire world will shift when they do it?

Apple has a very uncanny knack for taking really good ideas someone else came up with and marketing them in a way that the world loves the ideas and credits Apple for inventing them.

 

[Towen7]

Are you saying that Amazon's service doesn't make sense? Or that Apple and Google duplicating the service doesn't?

I like the idea of a service to allow 24/7 access to content you own... But if you're going to stream music, why own it? Why not use a service like Rhapsody or Pandora?

 

[Flint]

My point was that the Amazon idea was not met with much enthusiasm here or elsewhere. Other streaming services where you "own" or choose the content (unlike Pandora or Rhapsody where they choose it for you based on your preferences) have not been successful. If Apple enters the market with a service similar to Amazon (which didn't get much positive press) will it be the second coming of music downloads similar to how the iPod was deemed the holy grail for MP3 players and the iPhone the holy grail for smart phones and the iPad the holy grail for tablets?

 

[Zing]

...will it be the second coming of music downloads similar to how the iPod was deemed the holy grail for MP3 players and the iPhone the holy grail for smart phones and the iPad the holy grail for tablets?

I say very likely. The world, by and large, thinks Apple has the Midas touch and that anything Apple associates itself with will be hugely successful. Apple could bring back Betamax and it would probably surpass DVD. Like them (and/or their business model) or not, they are a force to be reckoned with.

 

[Towen7]

I could be wrong, but I think the reception to Amazon's cloud player was flat because nobody needs/wants a cloud player. Smartphones and portable players have enough storage for most people. Wireless carriers are imposing caps on bandwidth. Finally, the cloud player will only work once you take the time to upload your collection to it, and who has the time and patience to do that? Most people don't bother to back-up their critical files so it's unlikely they'll go through the effort to upload their music collections.

What excited me about the Amazon cloud service is that all purchases through Amazon would be available for me to download forever. So no worries if I my portable device gets lost or broken. No worries if my computer is lost in a fire or crashes beyond the ability to recover. If Apple duplicates that, by the simple fact that iTunes is considered by many as the only source for digital music purchases (I know a lot of people that didn't even know Amazon sold mp3s), they will be perceived as the inventor of the technology. Sad but true.

 

[mzpro5]

I could be wrong, but I think the reception to Amazon's cloud player was flat because nobody needs/wants a cloud player. Smartphones and portable players have enough storage for most people. Wireless carriers are imposing caps on bandwidth. Finally, the cloud player will only work once you take the time to upload your collection to it, and who has the time and patience to do that? Most people don't bother to back-up their critical files so it's unlikely they'll go through the effort to upload their music collections.

What excited me about the Amazon cloud service is that all purchases through Amazon would be available for me to download forever. So no worries if I my portable device gets lost or broken. No worries if my computer is lost in a fire or crashes beyond the ability to recover. If Apple duplicates that, by the simple fact that iTunes is considered by many as the only source for digital music purchases (I know a lot of people that didn't even know Amazon sold mp3s), they will be perceived as the inventor of the technology. Sad but true.

The other reason the reception wasn't good, from the scuttlebutt I've heard, is you have to load everything via individual files, you cannot upload "folders". Makes it a tedious process unless all you have in it is stuff you've bought from Amazon.

If the apple service allows uploading of "folders" it could take off.

 

[Yesfan70]

......Wireless carriers are imposing caps on bandwidth.......

Great point. Maybe I'm wrong, but the Cloud kinda seems like an oxymoron, if your IP provider is going to cap your usage per month. think about it, what's the point of having terabytes of data via the Cloud, if you're IP provider only limits you to a couple of hundred Gigs per month? To me, that's like my wife being alright with me purchasing hundreds of CDs per month, but only allowing me 2 hours a week to play them my system. :think:

 

[Towen7]

Internet access providers and wireless carriers in particular want you to need more data. Thet don't care why you need the access (personal or business) or what you do with it (watch videos, download/stream music) all that matters to them is that you are willing to pay for it.

Cloud players and storage will work once there is a wide-spread perceived need for them. Turning a good idea into something people just gotta have is something Apple is pretty good at.

 

[Yesfan70]

I was looking at it from the consumer's point of view. I totally agree about the IP Provider's wanting you to use more data, after all, it's going to make them more money.


I probably should have worded my post better. Sorry about that.