Which physical format will be playable the longest?

There will still be many many millions of CD players in existance in 50 years time.The 300 million Playstations produced all play CD .Lots of the 1 billion DVD players produced play CD.
My 40 year old Philips CD players looks and plays perfectly and i'm sure it will for many years to come.Even if no more CD players were ever produced and 90% had broken by the year 2072.There will still be plenty about to play CD's on.

 

Vinyl.

 

They don't in general.

 

I think flash memory has limited write cycles, but in theory unlimited read.

 

Vinyl and CD. Those listed never got a foothold on the mass market or have been superseded (by Blu Ray currently), SACD seems to hang on in the audiophile world so it's between that and Blu Ray audio. DVDA and even DVD are nearly dead formats today.

 

There is no reason why Minidiscs won't last far longer than CDs. Pre-recorded MDs are basically the same thing as CD in minature while recordable MDs can be overwritten 10's of 1000s of times. That media is many times more stable chemically than the aluminium in CDs.

 

Bluray audio will have the longest lifeline for audiophiles because the home theater dudes/videophiles will keep the bluray format alive indefinitely. Based on my observation, these guys won't be sold on streaming any time soon.

 

CDs. I'm unsure why they were an option on the poll.

I think almost any 5.25 optical based system can read them: BD/DVD/SACD, not to mention videogame consoles and computer drives.

While not indestructible, the functional half-life of CDs has not been established after 40 years as a consumer good, except for those units pressed in a particular plant at a particular time, e.g., PDO "bronzers."

The technology is fairly robust -- you really have to damage the surface -- and the jewel box most were sold with provides a significant additional layer of protection. Used copies can bought, sold and shipped many times over with little chance of damage.

 

Hopefully CDs, but who knows..........

 

This is a weird poll on a number of levels.

First, the two largest sellers and thus right answers are vinyl and CD. not included. So….I assume they mean to limit it to HD digital formats. Cool….why DVD? Not really a thing commercially…and only 48khz, so, hardly an HD format. DualDiscs and those odd DTS discs they made for like a year are the only examples I could think of….and DTS was data compressed lossy audio.

 

The ARSC Guide to Audio Preservation, 2015 pub164.pdf (clir.org) commissioned for and sponsored by the National Recording Preservation Board of the Library of Congress reported that the vinyl record is the most stable of physical media.

 

One format is missing - vinyl. That one will likely be still playable 100 years from now, like we can play 100 years old records (yeah, I know it is shellac, not vinyl, but still..).

 

Not a surprise but nice to see it confirmed in a more official manner.

 

Assuming it is played by Michael Fremer with his gear rather than with a Crosley.

 

But he has actually reviewed and been impressed by Crosley turntables:

Crosley Grows A Pair (Of Serious Turntables)

 

Er, you actually quoted why I said I was excluding it…

 

All true. But one day it will become impossible to find functioning optical drives, regardless of how good of condition our CDs are in. Hopefully that day will be come far later than I am envisioning. But I'm envisioning optical disks being about as difficult to read in 20 years as floppy disks and Betamax tapes are today.

 

Not really worried about any of them for me. As I told my roofer… “They don’t have to outlast the pyramids, they just have to outlast me!”

 

It is quite common for 35-40 year old CDs to have a minute flaw that allows contamination to enter the aluminium substrate. I have a lot of instances in my 80's CDs.
You can see it as black spider web like formations on the edges and around the hub. This won't happen with minidiscs because of the protection of the permanent case.

 

I went for DVD. Playability depends on both the disc remaining intact and there being playback hardware available. By that logic, and my own experiences:

1. DVD audio: never really took off, limited number of players could play it. Could argue that as long as the ability to rip it exists, the content is still playable, but the number of players you can put the disc in and play the DVDA content will fall.
2. SACD: probably in a better place than DVDA and still ongoing new releases. Still, reports of premature laser failures on SACD players abound, and it is still a minority format.
3. Blu Ray: plenty of players, but what about disc stability? I have far fewer BDs than either DVDs or CDs but have had several randomly fail on me after a few years (search threads on the Floyd Blu Rays; I am not the only one affected).
4. DVD: zillions of players and computer drives, widespread playback on computers, overall good disc stability. My winner!

P.S. I bet my CDs last longer, but they weren’t in the poll.

 

I do agree that the availability of players is likely to become a bottleneck sooner than the useful life of the actual discs ... I just think that point is further out than 20 years. But, as with the prior roofing analogy, the playability of CD just has to outlast me

 

Depends on the individual and what gear they own, and how long it lasts.

People are still enjoying Edison cylinders.

 

I can imagine the look on the faces of the Pro-Ject engineers when they met with Crosley to design those.

 

None of the above. Trick question. The answer is vinyl LPs.