When will "Physical Media" Sales Stabilize?

FLAC has a MD5 checksum of the unencoded (lossless) audio as part of the spec. That MD5 checksum is written in the file and can be checked with various utilities to see if the audio data has been corrupted.

ALAC does not have that sort of check as far as I'm aware.

The FLAC MD5 and frame CRCs won't detect if the tag data has been corrupted, just the audio. So it's not a full file integrity check. Better than nothing though.

 

Physical media is on its way out. CD racks in stores such as Best Buy completely suck compared to what they were like 10 years ago. I suppose 10 years from now you'll still be able to buy the latest Adele or Susan Boyle type of trends on CD in Wal-Mart, but not much more.

I have been "rolling my own" (that is, creating FLAC-based archives from my CDs along with high quality over scans) because it's cool, it's what I want and the industry hasn't figured that out yet.

I never thought I would actually value my digital files over physical mediums, but I do.

 

Anyone remember that store Media Play?

Vidiot does have a point though...all of the vinyl and CD's wont do any of us a bit of good if lost in natural disasters but at least will have a chance to still have them in the digital realm.

I personally don't mind having my audio in digital as long as its in the highest quality possible as obviously media servers are getting more popular.

Seems to me the iJoe's are winning...

 

My personal opinion is this: I think CD and SACD sales are, or at least are close to bottoming out. At the current prices, I expect to keep buying the bulk of my new music on CD indefinitely. I actually like CD's and always have and I just don't see good value in downloads right now.

Furthermore, I do believe there are people who are "collectors", period. And what I collect is music. And I think there will always be a number of people like that, who prefer to own whatever it is they treasure (...and see it and touch it).

That said, the "industry" would probably like nothing better than to eliminate all physical media and move to a pay-to-play, cloud-based system.

 

Never.

 

I use a little piece of software called mkw Audio Compression Toolkit to verify my backups. Unfortunately I think it only runs under windows. It's an ancient program (2002) but simple and effective and works fine in Win7.

http://etree.org/mkw.html

It generates checksums in Windows Explorer very easily. I just go into Explorer, right click a folder and select "Generate MD5 Signatures" (that option is only available once mkw is installed). My music server folder (and subfolders) is currently 650 gigs. With 1 click I can generate a MD5 that will verify every file on the backups. Just copy/paste and execute that MD5 on each backup drive to make sure the data is identical. With 650 gigs it takes awhile to verify though, so I generally do it overnight.

I would assume there should be a similar program to do this on a Mac (?). And there's probably a better way to do it on pc by now, since mkw is 10 years old already.

 

Just wanted to add that for *album* listening, I think it's easier to pull a CD from the shelf, push the player's "open" button, drop disc on tray & push play. Done. Compare that with launching a music player on a computer & waiting for it to load - if the computer is on in the first place (is it even in the same room?) - finding then clicking on an album and hoping your wi-fi signal is stable that day........

Btw there are still inexpensive CD players being sold e.g. Sony's CDP-CD500 for $150 (debuted last year!) which like many dvd players includes a USB input for flashdrives for playback of those new fangled MP3 files. It also displays cd-text info, though most commercial CDs don't include this useful 16 year old(!!) feature, though better disc burning software usually includes it.

 

Can't say I agree with you. CD's are great but once you leave your listening room, they can still be cumbersome. With lossy files, I can dump ALL my music into a tool like Amazon Cloud Services and play them anywhere (Wifi being the requirement, as you stated). Or if you prefer local and lossless, a 120GB iPod / Zune / Cowon can hold tons of music and fits in your pocket. There's no way a CD can compare to that. And it's why Joe iPod doesn't care for them anymore.

Again, I don't dislike CD's -- they have no DRM, they are lossless and ubiquitous in nature and sound great when mastering well. But the writing is on the wall and I don't think there's going to be pushback, I think sales will keep declining until it becomes a specialized format.

 

But then there are those of us who's primary listening area/station is a personal computer outfitted with a high-end soundcard and professional studio monitors. The computer is always powered on, with the iTunes ap nearly always already open. Clicking on the iTunes icon at the bottom of the screen gives me immediate access to 1574 albums and 34885 songs (currently) all pre-sorted alphabetically by artist, most in pristine lossless quality. The most I have to do is scroll down the screen a bit till I find what I want, then click. And yes, it's all backed up on a separate hard drive.

AFAIC, far easier and more convenient than finding a disc on a shelf, getting it out, and putting it in a machine.

 

less clutter; complete 16 or 24bit selection at ones fingertips; artwork displayed on large HDTV

.. the thing that irked me about the CD in the 80's was the loss of the album cover/artwork. I didnt enjoy reading that tiny leaflet back then now its back and bigger than ever on the HD screen

 

And that's when my MP3 player comes into play (no pun intended ). Each playback system has its positives and negatives.

Though it sure is a relief to use the normal-sized buttons and info displays home components offer, and no, I don't have huge fingers or substandard vision.

Also, I just thought of something I don't think I have seen mentioned: except for high volume listening sessions, a home component system probably uses less power on average than a computer-based system. A CD player usually only consumes around, what, 10-20 watts? OTOH a typical computer used as a music source uses around say 150 watts and many times much more, and I think even a laptop averages around 60 watts.

 

Um, most of the decent new music online is available on CD format.

 

Having a car is great...until another driver hits you and you lose your transportation. What to do then?

(hint: it involves insurance or in the case of HDs, backup)

 

Exactly.

It's much more of a rarity to find new music that is NOT available on CD.

 

I just hope that DRM doesn't rear its ugly head and bite everyone who is pro-cloud/digital in the backside.

 

But again, think of Joe iPod. He's doesn't want to buy a CD and rip it to MP3 anymore. He's just going to get the MP3/AAC and be done with it.

As for a home listening station, they'd just use their iPod with an iPod speaker extension - these consumers don't even own stereos anymore. PC's aren't really a good playback device, so you're right. But downloaded files aren't relegated to PC's anymore and haven't been for quite some time.

At least for now. But even today there are exceptions --- the new Translator EP came out last week, for example. Digital download only, no CD and no vinyl. A fairly obscure band and release, but just an example of what the future may hold for us.

 

Until Joe iPod bricks his player and realizes that he has to start all over and buy his music again.... or bug his friends for a copy. (not recommended)
At least with a CD, or good backup system in place.... the player is not the place for music to die.

 

iTunes Match / Amazon Cloud Services. The two big boys finally have a solution for that problem.

I don't mention Google Play only because it doesn't support AAC without transcoding. But iTM / ACS support MP3 and AAC both for uploading (and iTM will sometimes Match).

It is a problem, you are correct. But so is leaving your CD's baking on your dashboard, or a fire/flood. But users have options now to backup themselves or use Cloud Services for that purpose.

I know it probably sounds like I'm pro-death of physical media, but I'm really not - I buy Cd's and vinyl all the time (and probably more than I should). But I also see the writing on the wall and it's not looking good, especially for CD's.

 

I've only made download purchases via Amazon so I don't know how other vendors work but -at least with their service - any purchase I make automatically goes to my cloud account so even if my device breaks, the files are still readily available so I don't need to re-purchase them.

EDIT: Roebeet beat me to it!

 

Right, it saves what you've bought so there's no need to worry if you lose something.

@ roebeet - true, there are bands who only release via digital but I think in most of those cases, they offer FLAC or at least high quality mp3. Really, who can blame them? It's cheaper to put out a digital file than it is to manufacture a CD and they make more on the download. Besides, anyone interested in the newer bands are likely to be more interested in the music itself than the format, so if they want the CD they'll just burn a copy onto blank media.

I had a choice of buying the new Brendan Benson on CD for 13 bucks or the 24 bit WAV for 8. I chose the 8 because it was the same quality as the CD, instant download and because I didn't so much care about the packaging as I did just listening and enjoying the actual music.

 

In this particular case there's no lossless option at all, at least not yet (I emailed the band but not response yet)

I've seen a lot of re-issues already that were lossy only, but again fairly obscure stuff. And you're right, it's clearly a cost-savings effort for them vs. physical distribution, but in a lot of these cases I've never seen a lossless option. And that's my biggest fear which is that lossy-only becomes the standard and not lossless.

EDIT: With your WAV vs physical option, I would have probably done the same thing - especially since it's 24-bit, and then the reduced cost makes it a no-brainer imo.

 

I'm not sure if I am going to like the future too much when it comes to good music and media....

 

Right, bands should ALWAYS put up a lossless option for the fans. It's a service and content/quality they should give their paying fans.

My friend just started a band and I'm involved with hammering out the details of the "business" as we're referring to it (kind of as a manager or consultant/creative partner).

The plan so far is to

a) put out lossless and other formats (probably via Bandcamp, iTunes, Noisetrade)
b) audiophile recordings (ie, we do NOT want to brickwall the sound) and market the band as giving their fans high quality sound
c) only sell CDs at the shows

He doesn't want to deal with the manufacturing cost, etc that comes with physical media. We can probably put some extra material in with the CDs...bundle shirts, maybe bonus tracks, etc. That way it'd give people who showed up at the show a little extra "thank you" for their support.

 

From my perspective, the future is only looking brighter (sorry I'm not young enough to enjoy it longer).

I've not bought a physical CD since 2006. Instead I've been streaming from Rhapsody, which sounds fine to me. For those items I've just had to own (little, frankly, and primarily for mobile listening), I've purchased DRM-free downloads.

As far as collected music is concerned, I've ripped every one of my CDs to ALAC, play it in lossless via Plex or iTunes, and when necessary, listen to the same library at 256K via iTunes Match.

I do still play vinyl as a conceit (it does not sound better than digital to me) and intend to continue, but if physical media disappeared tomorrow, I wouldn't care at all.

I like music. It's more available, easier to play, and in higher quality (I know this is in dispute here) than ever. It's like a miracle to me. The future can only get better.

 

Great post I agree, we should stop and smell the roses once in awhile.