Facing ever-decreasing CD sales and the rise of the
iTunes Empire, Disney has decided to fight back the best way it can: by
innovating tacking on worthless features to a dead format. The company's new CDVU+ format, to be released through its Hollywood Records subsidiary, features "digital magazine extras" like band photos, interviews, lyrics, and photos that can be accessed by sticking the disc into a computer. To increase CDVU+'s appeal, the company has pledged to develop unique content for the format and not just repackage already-available media -- a promise we've heard about virtually every
crazy new format that's come down the pike. Notwithstanding the fact that Steve Jobs is on Disney's freaking board of directors, we're utterly in shock that the company thinks this is actually going to work -- this sort of content has been available and ignored on Enhanced CDs for years. Will anyone ever learn?
posted Jul 19th 2007 at 8:36AM
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Charles @ Jul 19th 2007 8:57AM
CD is only dead because people are morons. Compare what you get with a CD to iTunes:
Audio Quality: Audio quality on CDs much better
Price: CDs can generally be bought cheaper than the same album on iTunes
Playback options: You can listen to a CD in its full quality on your stereo, PC or car CD player, rip it to lossless flac and store it on your computer, rip it to MP3 and put it on your personal music player or play it in any number of other ways. With iTunes you can only play the music back from your PC or iPod.
DRM: CDs generally don’t come with DRM and can be ripped to multiple formats while with iTunes you can only play the music back on your iPod or PC.
Longevity: If your hard disk fails or something else goes wrong you have to buy all your music again while with CDs the only way to lose it is if you lose the disc. If you lose your digital rips of the CD you can just rip it again.
I really don’t understand why anyone would buy music from iTunes. Why pay more for low quality music with restricted playback options that can easily be lost when you can get the higher quality recordings on a physical CD that can be ripped to the format of your choice?
NHAnimator @ Jul 19th 2007 9:03AM
And when I buy a CD, I'm forced to buy a good number of songs that suck.
andres @ Jul 19th 2007 9:28AM
wrong. CD's are (close to) dead because of lack convenience. You can get song/album without ever leaving the couch, you can start listening to your music within seconds, and you can have it on your iPod/mp3 player right away.
The majority of people don't care about sampling rate or bitrate. they can't even tell you what those words even mean. As long as it sounds good in their computer speakers or DMP headphones they'll be satisfied.
If you can't understand that then your just out of touch with the rest of consumers. Not necessarily a bad thing.
Chuckles McGee @ Jul 19th 2007 9:17AM
Uhm, iTunes Plus,anyone? Albums on iTunes plus are about $10, no DRM, without the hassle of ripping to ones player, with information already neatly indexed for fast searches. While I'm sure some audiophiles can appreciate the difference between 256 kbps and CD-audio, it'll be in a quiet room over massive hundred dollar headphones or speakers. The vast majority of us listen to music on the go, with the buzz of cars, planes, buses or exercise equipment in the background over mediocre earbuds where that difference isn't noticeable- the hassle of carrying around some skippy CD player that's a behemoth in comparison with today's Mp3 players plus every single CD album you'd care to listen to just isn't worth it. The CD is going to be relegated to the shelves of audiophiles' collections- and once lossless, DRM-free formats start getting sold on iTunes, even picky, paying customers will abandon the CD.
Tis---strange @ Jul 19th 2007 9:17AM
Youre absolutly right!
And why buy a portable player that sucks, when you can hear your music in your appartement with "real" boxes?? and to that matter, why buy music anyway? The quality in Concert is much better, and with a good memory you can imagine you hear the music as often as you want to. You can even imagine to hear it on your pc, convertet to looseless FLAC! Think about that...
L. Cyphre @ Jul 19th 2007 9:22AM
The true question is, why would anyone even pay for music at all?
As for the Disney idea:
>features "digital magazine extras" like band photos, interviews, lyrics, and photos that can be accessed by sticking the disc into a computer.
Silly me, and I thought we've had this SINCE CD's WERE FIRST FREAKIN' INTRODUCED AS COMPUTER MEDIA?
Greg @ Jul 19th 2007 9:36AM
"Audio Quality: Audio quality on CDs much better"
Wrong. Audio quality of digital music is dependent on the sample rate, and a CD does not guarantee quality.
"Price: CDs can generally be bought cheaper than the same album on iTunes"
Categorically wrong. iTunes albums are generally $9.99. Physical versions bought at retail are at least several dollars more expensive. Go to Best Buy and see how many albums you can find for less than $9.99. And there are other ways to get digital music for even more cheaply.
"Playback options: With iTunes you can only play the music back from your PC or iPod."
Wrong again. Digital tracks can be burnt to CD and used in any of the ways you list, and numerous iPod/DMP accessories can be used for car and home stereo playback. iTunes tracks are more restricted, but as we've learned, there are other ways to get digital music than just iTunes.
"Longevity: If your hard disk fails or something else goes wrong you have to buy all your music again while with CDs the only way to lose it is if you lose the disc. If you lose your digital rips of the CD you can just rip it again"
CD's are one of the most fragile storage media on the planet. With iTunes and most other digital distributors, you can replace lost files that you've already bought for free. FYE doesn't let you replace lost or broken CD's.
The real question is, why buy an expensive, fragile disc, full of songs that you might not like? Well, we must all be "morons" as you put it. Have fun being the smartest person on Earth, sitting on top of your pile of obsolete media- the rest of us are moving on.
Electromodo @ Jul 19th 2007 10:11AM
I've always been a big supporter of MP3 format and MP3 players, but Charles got one thing right: there is still an advantage of buying a CD instead of iTunes track:
1. The CD media is a "master copy" in comparison with generously compressed MP3 from iTunes.
2. There are no restrictions on CD playback and you can copy/rip it to anything. Even after MP3 format and DRM get replaced by something else.
CD is a collectors item. When iTunes start to provide a maximum bitrate or uncompressed files with NO DRM, then I will stop buying CDs completely. Until then I will. :)
Constable Odo @ Jul 19th 2007 12:54PM
Are CDs really dead? You mean to say that consumers will not be able to purchase music unless they have a computer?
I grew up in the period of 33, 45 and 78 RPM vinyls and I think there were limits on how good their quality was. Still, most people were able to enjoy them. I think the sounds, lyrics and artists were more important than things like bit rate. I believe that many people buying music still find those things important. Not everyone's hearing is perfect enough to detect every flaw or musical instrument. If you only have a dollar and like a song, why not buy the single through iTunes or hear it through a subscription service until you tire of it? What about people who bought audio cassettes. They had fair audio quality, but it degraded relatively quickly when played using a substandard cassette player.
Still, what makes a person a moron because they use freedom of choice. Some people like CDs, some like vinyl records, some people like iTunes, some like subscription services. Nothing is perfectly secure. CDs, vinyls and harddrives are susceptible to things such as theft, flood, fire and tornado damage. I've known people who had entire music collections wiped out due to fire and partial collections damaged by flood.
Much of the music couldn't be replaced since they were limited production vinyls.
People are entitled to listen to music any way they prefer due to limited cash or convenience or whatever. This belief of what is best for one person is best for all is ridiculous. You are entitled to an opinion. I can understand attacking a particular media, but calling people morons because they prefer something different than what you prefer is wrong.
Chuckles McGee @ Jul 19th 2007 8:58AM
People still buy CDs?
silverblackvoid @ Jul 19th 2007 9:06AM
of course people buy cd's. where do u live, on a galaxy far far away or something?
Mike @ Jul 19th 2007 9:15AM
I will buy a CD if the number of good songs and price are similar to (or better than) digitally downloading the tracks I want.
There's also something to be said about owning a CD that I can re-rip to whatever happens to be the latest-and-greatest digital audio format. With your DRM'd lossy tracks, you are stuck with the lower quality and can only rip to CD and reencode.
If labels would dump DRM and players could do a better job of supporting DRM-free loseless formats, it would be a whole different ballgame. While many players support Apple Loseless and OGG, battery life and storage requirements are still a notable issue.
Mike @ Jul 19th 2007 9:21AM
... Oh... and you can't re-sell your digital downloads at the local CD Warehouse...
Greg @ Jul 19th 2007 9:39AM
Sure can't. But if I bought the album for 14.99, and sell it back for $2, I'm still losing 12.99. At least with the iTunes store I got it for 9.99, so I still save $3. Or with P2P I save all 14.99.
Mike @ Jul 19th 2007 9:55AM
My point is that downloaded tracks have ZERO resale value. Period.
What if you download an album and grow tired of it? You get nothing back.
As far as P2P is concerned, the act is the same as walking into a store, stuffing a CD in your pants, and walking out the door... only it's harder to get caught. Stealing is stealing, whether it's digitally or physically.
Rob @ Jul 19th 2007 9:25AM
Why people buy music from iTunes? I have many words for it, but let's look at some of the reasons.. They don't want to take the time to put the disc into their computer, hit "import", and wait a few minutes. They pick whatever format and quality they want. Also, they may not want to buy an entire cd full of songs they may not want to pay for. So stores like iTunes, Napster, and Yahoo make it easy for them.
However, all of this comes at a very expensive price; audio quality. But, the majority of people that buy online play their content back on portable mp3 units and/or audio systems that are very good at masking the deficiencies of the format. Most of these people may not be able to tell the difference, or care about it. My best way to tell an mp3 encoded cd from a commercially released cd is by listening to the high-hat. If it's all nice and clear, it's most likely a cd or a very high quality encoded file.
John B @ Jul 19th 2007 9:35AM
As one who still prefers CDs, the reasons why I don't buy as many as I used to are simple: (A) many of my CDs are of repurchases of albums that I owned and I've replaced the ones that matter to me the most and (B) to be quite frank most modern music SUCKS!! If the studios would get rid of the cookie-cutter format of computer-generated music and talentless, factory-manufactured pop/rock bands, I'd want to buy more music!
Why do I still prefer CDs? Easy -- no DRM, top audio quality, ability to do with it as I want including make backups or transfer to other PCs, and -- no -- I completely disagree with statements that they take up too much room. Let my hard drive crash. I'll still have the CD to listen to.
Greg @ Jul 19th 2007 9:42AM
No, modern music doesn't suck. Top 40 has always sucked, still sucks and always will suck. There's more music out there than what's on American Idol and the FM dial, and a lot of it is very, very good.
philipbarrett @ Jul 20th 2007 12:27AM
As to the "CD" quality, it generally isn't there - all of anti-skip enabled in-dash or portables (try to find one that isn't) re-sample the CD at low bit rates (equivalent to, or less than mp3) then buffer the data before playing it. Unless you have a very high end unit most home players have such horrible playback errors that again, the actual audio quality is much lower. That's why a check-sum rip in iTunes takes so long as you're actually forcing the deck to playback ALL of the CD.
Loonie @ Jul 19th 2007 10:52AM
Didn't they invent Disney DVD as well?
Ryan @ Jul 19th 2007 11:01AM
Sigh.
CDs are dying, unfortunately. And I agree with most of the pro-CD posts on here. I feel that the best point made was by Electromodo. A CD is a COLLECTOR'S ITEM. It is an ACTUAL PHYSICAL item that you can hold and keep, with ACTUAL ARTWORK you can flip through, unlike a digital download, which is a FILE stored on a drive. It has no worth, you cannot resell it, and the only way of knowing that you have any sort of "collection" is by looking at a list on a screen.
This is sort of the same argument about vinyl dying when CDs were introduced.
The main reason digital distribution is able to thrive is because of its convenience (for both getting things quickly and obtaining hard-to-find music), but I fear that we may be looking at the death of the album as we know it. "Artists" will just start releasing single songs one at a time, that will get their radio and video play. It's less dangerous for them this way because they don't have to waste time and money recording tracks that won't be hits. And the (idiotic) general public will eat it up, because we've never wanted to waste our money on songs we don't like anyway.
The Quality is also generally ALWAYS better on a CD, though once again most people downloading the latest Beyonce track don't care about this. I just can't believe people prefer a file to an album. Having a CD with artwork, a booklet, packaging (especially creative packages and artwork), is much, much better than downloading a file (downloading one song from a concept album is a disgrace to the artist) or group of files and (as iTunes has attempted to catch up with CDs lately) an included PDF file. It's inferior, in my humble, humble opinion.
You can take your digital files, I'll keep my master physical copy, which I can do as I please with, and proudly display my stacks of CDs instead of a list on a screen pretending to be a music collection.
Brian @ Jul 19th 2007 1:03PM
I completely agree with you. Hell, I still buy vinyl copies of new music because the sound is richer and there's just somethign satisfying about owning a tangible physical item with large, quality artwork and inserts and all that. Plus, I guess i am one of the few people left who lieks t actually put an album on and listen to it from beginning to end rather than just skip from single release to single release. Plus many labels, like Merge on the new Spoon Album, let you download a digital copy as well. Plus you can always capture the audio yourself from the turntble.
It seems like the more music formats progress the less sense they make, but I will never understand digital distribution? Why spend money on iTunes, a ridiculously closed format with shitty quality, when you can get something universally playable? Besides, shouldn't we be trying to support the small local record stores. Otherwise where can we go to find white label Frank Zappa imports or Brian Eno noise rock LPs?
iTunes is maybe the worst thing to ever happen to music.
Ryan @ Jul 19th 2007 2:23PM
Agreed. iTunes itself IMO is a disgrace. The only thing good about digital distribution (and I DON'T mean iTunes here, I mean DRM-free downloading from artist websites) is the greater oppurtunity to discover new and obscure music.
Unfortunately people don't seem to care about this anymore. As I stated before and someone else did as well, I fear the death of the album is upon us.
Josh @ Jul 19th 2007 11:07AM
Why would Disney waste heaps of money to develop (redevelop) a dying format to compete with iTunes, even though it will most likely fail spectacularly and catapult iTunes to an even higher userbase?
Is this a real quandary, Engadget? You answered it yourself: "Steve Jobs is on Disney's freaking board of directors".
Craig @ Jul 19th 2007 11:09AM
from reading your comments, it seems like some of you don't seem to realize that "other online downloads" come from a CD. while i don't listen to my music using the actual CD, i do rip it from a CD, so i certainly don't want CDs to disappear.
Richard Garfinkel @ Jul 19th 2007 11:10AM
Actually, I just read in the LA Times that Disney's CD sales are up.
Craig @ Jul 19th 2007 11:18AM
agreed. a big fear of mine is the album becoming commercially inviable
OddManOut @ Jul 19th 2007 12:44PM
Yeah...CD as a MARKETABLE media is dying. I really wish MD/Hi-MD had taken off better in the west. I think they would be a worthy successor as far as physical media goes. All it would have taken was internal/external PC MD drives and for Sonic stage to have not sucked...
But at least we've got ever cheapening flash memory...
dale_nx26 @ Jul 19th 2007 12:56PM
theoretical ?: would CDs be possibly replaced by flash media, but still retain the packaging (think nintendo DS games)? It'd be cool actually, but one 1GB card (to hold ~700MB of music) is much more costly than one CD. I know...rhetorical questions shouldn't be answered.
dale_nx26 @ Jul 19th 2007 12:55PM
As much as I really like iTunes, I pretty much refuse to buy music from there, or any other download services for that matter. My reasons are the same as those above, mainly: higher quality, artwork (on/in package and on the cd themselves), lyrics, and the fact that they're physical. I don't want to pay the same amount of money or save a measly $2 for less. Until online music services include digital booklets for EVERY album (most albums I want don't) and uncompressed quality, or some nice extras like videos, or lower the price 30-50%, I'll stick with CDs. I can't stand getting less for the money (who does? oh wait, those who don't know better).
Ryan @ Jul 19th 2007 1:06PM
Exactly. People are getting less than they think with digital downloads, and a digital booklet is absolutely nowhere near a viable substitute for an actual booklet.
Milo @ Jul 19th 2007 7:46PM
Warner is doing pretty much the same thing now with their MVI format. See http://www.mvimusic.com/ .