"What is a Compact Disc?" - booklet inside early DG CD release*

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by MC Rag, Mar 16, 2017.

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  1. MC Rag

    MC Rag Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Found an nice little booklet inside an early DG classical CD I picked up today. I'm surprised it says "with up to an hour's continuous playtime". I thought they had more right from the beginning of the CD era.

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    DiabloG, andrewskyDE, tmtomh and 11 others like this.
  2. Rolltide

    Rolltide Forum Resident

    Location:
    Vallejo, CA
    Its kind of entertaining how when we transition from one form of media to the next, its sometimes necessary to describe the new medium in the context of the last one. Example: "it has no grooves" and "the laser doesn't wear out the disc". These were likely questions on people's minds, but feels kind of silly in hindsight.
     
    George P, DiabloG, shaboo and 11 others like this.
  3. Raylinds

    Raylinds Resident Lake Surfer

    Invulnerable to dirt and damage?!?!? So what's with the dozen or so CDs I had to toss because they wouldn't play due to scratches?
     
    DiabloG, Hendertuckie, Spsesq and 2 others like this.
  4. Bingo Bongo

    Bingo Bongo Music gives me Eargasms

    Location:
    Ottawa, Canada
    At some point they went to 80 minute CDs, didn't they?
     
  5. Solitaire1

    Solitaire1 Carpenters Fan

    From what I understand, the maximum length of a CD is compliant with the Red Book Standard is just a few seconds less than 80 minutes.
     
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  6. Rolltide

    Rolltide Forum Resident

    Location:
    Vallejo, CA
    Based on this ancient thread, it seems that as Solitaire1 says, redbook was always ~80 minutes. I'm not really sure why initial CD-Rs were 74 minutes and eventually we got the 80's.
     
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  7. acdc7369

    acdc7369 Forum Resident

    Location:
    United States
    Red book allows up to 80 minutes. You can overburn a disc and get up to around 83 minutes or so if you're lucky
     
  8. ThmsFrd

    ThmsFrd Forum Resident

    Initial CDs were 60mn, weren't they ?..
     
  9. Rentz

    Rentz Forum Resident

    Location:
    Texas
    And then music labels decided bands should use all 80min leading to a lot of filler tracks
     
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  10. Larry I

    Larry I Senior Member

    Location:
    Washington, D.C.
    I have dozens of CDs that exceed 80 minutes in length. I think the longest is close to 84 minutes. If you buy really big box sets, the way cost is lowered is by pushing the limit on length. A lot of my 80+ minute discs are in the box sets for classical music, like the Mercury label set and the RCA label set and stuff like the complete Bach set.

    I believe the playing time was suppose to be 74 minutes according to Sony's redbook standards. But, all of the standards are not a single absolute figure; the standard includes tolerances. So, if a manufacturer of a disc pushes up to the edge of the specified tolerance, much more can be put on the disc. The width of each "track" can be narrowed to the specified minimum, as can the space between the tracks. The distance from the spindle hole to the track can also be pushed right up to the tolerance limit. And so on.
     
  11. MrRom92

    MrRom92 Forum Supermodel

    Location:
    Long Island, NY
    I think the longest pressed disc I have is 87 or 88 minutes. I also have a stack of 99 minute/870mb CD-Rs but they're not very good for audio - okay for data due to better error correction of the cd-rom standard.
     
  12. MC Rag

    MC Rag Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Anyone got a disc from 1984 or before longer than 60 mins?
     
  13. Mike-48

    Mike-48 A shadow of my former self

    Location:
    Portland, Oregon
    Probably DGG chose not to include more than 60 minutes of music on any of their (early) CDs.
     
  14. Carl Swanson

    Carl Swanson Senior Member

    99 times out of 100, the data layer itself, which is what the ad referred to, is undamaged. They were obviously anticipating a minimal level of care.
     
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  15. Solitaire1

    Solitaire1 Carpenters Fan

    I agree. My experience has been that, as long as you do the following, you should have few problems:
    • Handle the CD by the edges and the center hole and never anywhere else.
    • Put the CD in its case when you are not playing it
    • Avoid the type of CD players (often the type used in automotive players) where the CD is pulled into the player since:
      • The mechanism touches the data portion and the vulnerable label side of the CD
      • The CD can get stuck inside of the player, making it difficult to extract it without damaging the CD.
    When burnable CDs became available and affordable, those where the only CDs I'd play in my car since I could easily reburn a CD if it got damaged without risking my original CDs.

    The first CDs I purchased are still as playable as the day I purchased them and I've never needed to clean a CD.
     
  16. Solitaire1

    Solitaire1 Carpenters Fan

    You are supposed to be able to push it to almost 80 minutes by going up the edge of the standard without violating it. I'm guessing that the 74 minute limit is if you stay within the originally established standard.
     
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  17. Solitaire1

    Solitaire1 Carpenters Fan

    It's likely that going over the standard to put more than 80 minutes on a CD would result in a digital audio disc that might not play on some CD players.

    It's unfortunate that they didn't incorporate a mono option as part of the CD standard (where you can play each channel separately like with a laserdisc) for certain uses like audiobooks, allowing up to 160 minutes of mono audio on one CD. Of course, with the development of lossy formats like MP3 it is likely a moot point since you can easily get over 6 hours of audio on one CD-ROM.
     
  18. delmonaco

    delmonaco Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sofia, Bulgaria
    The English text on this add claims "up to 60 min", but all other language versions sais something like "both sides of a regular LP fit on the sole readable side of the CD", so the "60 min" limit don't have to be taken as some very accurate technical spec in this case.
     
  19. Rolltide

    Rolltide Forum Resident

    Location:
    Vallejo, CA
    That makes sense. 74 minutes probably became the rule-of-thumb healthy buffer, where as 80 minutes is like overclocking. As home CD burners got better about preventing errors, at some point it was probably determined there wasn't any reason to avoid 80 any longer.
     
  20. SKBubba

    SKBubba Forum Resident

    Location:
    Tennessee
    I think the 74 minute standard came from a Sony executive's requirement that his favorite symphony had to fit on disc.
     
  21. skimminstones

    skimminstones Forum Resident

    Location:
    Kent, UK
    i remember the tweaks people said improved the sound. Putting black marker pen around the edges anyone? What was that all about lol
     
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  22. MC Rag

    MC Rag Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Hadn't spotted that.
     
  23. Guitarded

    Guitarded Forum Resident

    Location:
    Montana
    What's that in Metric?
     
  24. The Pinhead

    The Pinhead KING OF BOOM AND SIZZLE IN HELL

    But the pitch is altered, not that many people will notice.
     
  25. delmonaco

    delmonaco Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sofia, Bulgaria
    I presume that all the titles in the add were available also in vinyl LP format, so they just wanted to point out that single-faced CD is enough for a whole big double-faced LP, and none of those LP's exceeded 60 min, so they articulate on this.
     
    moj likes this.
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