Hi Tony and all. I'm probably the grandfather of the list. So I have actually
lived through the birth of all of the formats that you mentioned.
First, I agree with you 100% that an earlier introduction of the DCC would not
have made any difference. But I'm not entirely sure that the reason for it's
failure was the fact that it was a tape media.
The regular cassette still continued to do just fine. And while the sale of pre
recorded cassettes may be dropping, the sale of blank cassettes still kills the
sale of the MD.
It is very difficult to predict the future of MD. In spite of it's growth in
recent years, the actual percentage of the market it commands is still
insignificant.
But the CD was not an over night success either. I knew many CD retail
operations that failed because they were ahead of their time (including my own
"Compact Disc Jockey"). One of the problems with the early CD was that there
were only a handful of manufacturing facilities.
If I ordered 10 titles, I was lucky to receive 3 from my distributor. And I
delta with the largest distributor in Philly, PA. The original manufacturing
process was more costly too.
I'm still not sure about the future of the MD.
BTW while the DCC did not have instant access, it did have random access.
I know that this is going to sound stupid to most of you. But I still question
using digital storage to store analog information. Sound is analog. At some
point in the process you are going to have to convert analog to digital.
Well just the ramblings of an old man.
LAS
Tony Antoniou wrote:
> It was still using an inferior format - tape; subject to degradation of the
> integrity of the information stored as the years go by, chewed tapes,
> cleaning heads, etc. It was still serial access, so you had to fast forward
> or rewind to your track of choice. People were far too used to CD's instant
> access to whichever track the listener chose, and that's one reason why DAT
> didn't take off as a consumer product, despite its technical superiority in
> real-time recording applications.
>
> So whether DCC was introduced earlier or not, I don't believe it would've
> made a difference in the market, MD would still reign supreme and its
> popularity would still continue to grow at the same rate as we are observing
> now. That's my view anyway.
>
> Adios,
> LarZ
>
> --------------- TAMA - The Strongest Name in Drums ---------------
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf
> Of Steven Brooks
> Sent: Saturday, 24 July 1999 0:30
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject:
>
> The whole DCC diasaster got me thinking. When did Philips first introduce
> this technology, maybe '92 or '93? Then they finally gave up in like '96 or
> '97? If they had had publicly introduced the DCC 4 or 5 years earlier, as
> a superior media to the cassette tape, the cassette would have gone the way
> of the 8-track (it is, admittedly, an obsolete and archaic technology, and
> the damn things STILL sell! -- you still see 'em in record shops!). We
> (the MD community) would now be in competition with DCC, instead of still
> trying to get rid of the tape. Does this make any sense?
>
> People then still wouldn't fear that the MD is trying to take over the CD,
> which from talking with people. Maybe it's just the fact (silly enough
> that it is) that 'MD' sounds so much like 'CD'...
>
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