CDs obsolete in 5 years?

I hope that they do obsolete CDs sooner! I want to buy the old stuff at cheap prices as everyone chases the new format. Just like vinyl;)

A memory device with no moving parts has been an objective for many years, and will soon be practical even for very large blocks of data like the digital representation of high bandwidth music. This is separate from the question of how the digital representation is formatted. A static memory device could output a data stream exactly like that obtained from a spinning disc.

I have no significant experience with MP3, but I gather that this protocol has used data compression as a way to put more music into less data space, with "acceptable" fidelity. However, don't condemn all data compression. It can also be used to provide greater resolution from an available data space. Why leave the highest order bits of your data as zeros throughout most of the music, just so you can make them ones for a few seconds? With a few exceptions (specialized computers in military equipment) computers use Floating Point data format so that they can achieve great accuracy using a reasonable number of bits in a word. Digital music should do this also.

The RIAA will kill it with all kinds of copy protection schemes just like they kill all new formats.

Good point bluefin,

Take into account, if you can store a gigabyte of into in a 1cm cube, say the storage device is 10 cubic centimeters, then you got a nice 10 gigabytes.
You can put far far more information on that than you could a CD. im not sure how much data you can put on a DVD or SACD.

The whole point of MP3 is to compress, the only reason to USE an MP3 is to pack alot of songs on a limited storage space. If the storage space is quite large, then the need for compression is no longer there. You can put the music on uncompressed, and probably at rather high resolution.

Its innovations like this that are not only seafood, but have the potential to be the dessert and show afterwards.

more than a CD killer, this might be better called a possible MP3 killer.

everyone recognizes the fact that MP3 sucks in quality, but the convinience makes it worth while for many people in many applications.
Tell them that they can have the same style of gadgets but hold better than CD quality on it, and they will jump at it.

Mp3 just breaks down when something complex is played through it. especially hard rock. When the going gets tough, the symbals sound warped and the guitars sound muddeled.

You can read data and store them in memory while playing. The same trick can apply to all digital formats. Engineer can design that way, actually those portable sport CD player is kind of like that. That's not for MP3 only. MP3 has less data therefore easier to put more song in the moving free memory. However, it contains less information also. With less data, there is no way for it to beat CD even. It is the "free" download which could kill other format's market not its sound quality. Low quality product beats better quality stuff by its price! Like a fast food store can take many cooks' job. Ah Men! Enjoy your hamburger, I like sea food!

There ya go Thsalmon,

get some plugs like the people in "The Matrix", jack that thing up to your head and your are literally IN the concert hall.

Now if we could get the music out of the PEDOT polymer directly into our auditory cortex, all of out hardware would be obsolete too!

I was reading abouyt that in Yahoo News.

Lets hope they dont waste this technology by stuffing them chalk full of MP3's. With the amount of data they can hold they should be able to have resolution easily comparable to DVD-A or SACD.

Gotta say, there is definatly something appealing about having a high resolution player that has no moving parts to wear out.

I think something like this has a far better chance to replace CD's than SACD or DVD-A, especially if they use all that space to ensure some wicked resolution. Hell, if they use this stuff to audiophile standards, it will probably replace all three formats.

It would certainly be a practical storage medium, and with that kind of capacity, who knows where it will lead.

Im sure that vinyl will continue no matter what.