Reality Check
The Future of CDs In 1967, the digital recorder was introduced in Japan - 77 years after the first recording studio opened in New York City. In the following years, artists, producers, and the entire music industry were swept up in a language of zeros and ones that revolutionized the creation and distribution of recorded works. Wired asked five experts in the field about the future of digital recording technology. - David Pescovitz
Ivan Roger Ron Peter Jerry Bottom
Berger Dressler Gompertz Gotcher Harrison Line
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Custom CDs on Demand 1998 never 1996 1995 1996 1996
Digital Studio Recording 1997 2005 2010 1997 never 2002
Affordable Home CD Recorders 1999 never 1997 1996 1997 1997
Online Shopping for CDs 1997 2005 1995 1999 1996 1998
Death of Audio CDs 2005 2020 2010 2005 2010 2010
Custom CDs on Demand
Dressler believes in-store kiosks that press custom CDs cannot offer "real CDs as consumers know and love them today" because the compression schemes that must be used degrade the audio quality. According to Harrison, the greatest use for the CD-on-demand technology will be for new albums and artists with unpredictable sales potential and for "difficult-to-find albums, which at present would not be profitable to release on CD."
Digital Studio Recording
Gotcher points out that while the transition toward disc-based systems is gaining momentum, "tape has deep roots in this market." Gompertz adds that digital software and hardware are prone to crashes, and analog tape is still the way to go. Harrison agrees that the specific sonic qualities and low price of analog tape - and the large amounts of nonlinear digital storage space needed for audio - will keep magnetic tape in the recording loop except perhaps in the worlds of film and advertising.
Affordable Home CD Recorders
While these can be had now for around US$2,500, Harrison thinks they will face the same controversy as home Digital Audio Tape recording, "the problems with protecting copyrights." Berger predicts that 5-inch CD recorders will first become popular among home-computer users to create CD-ROMs, and as the hardware sales increase, the recorders will drop in price enough to break into the home-audio market.
Online Shopping for CDs
Gotcher believes that "alternative music distribution could be revolutionized by this technology." But he points out that the integral part of this technology is getting consumers "wired" with the high bandwidth necessary to download music at a reasonable rate. Harrison says the quality of compressed audio retrieval "will not be as good as buying the real thing," and after considering the price of the service provider and the recorder, the cost of downloaded recordings "may not be less than normal purchases."
Death of Audio CDs
Gotcher predicts that the CD-ROM format may stick around for a while but that electronics and record companies could "push a next-generation technology with greater revenue potential." Dressler speculates that in 25 years "data densities in memory cards will be high enough and cheap enough to popularize solid-state storage in mass-market audio systems," a concept similar to the flash ROMs Harrison thinks will become the format of choice for portable players.
Reality Checkers:
- Ivan Berger: technical editor, Audio magazine
- Roger Dressler: technical director, Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corporation
- Ron Gompertz: president, Heyday Records, co-creator of Cyborgasm and The Edge of the Bed: Cyborgasm 2
- Peter Gotcher: president and CEO, Digidesign Inc.
- Jerry Harrison: audio producer and member of the now-defunct Talking Heads
