CD-ROM

First Creation Attempts

CD Presentation

Alexander Bell attempted to record the sound on a disc covered with wax focused by a beam of light about 130 years ago, almost simultaneously with the invention of the gramophone by Thomas Edison. His method of cutting the sound track turned out to be more practical. This invention was forgotten, but a set of wax discs recorded by him was preserved in the Smithsonian Museum (Washington), in 2013 these discs were able to read and listen to voices more than a century ago.

Music CDs

On March 8, 1979, the first prototype CD codenamed Pinkeltje was announced as a replacement for the then common vinyl records. This took place at an event called Optical digital audio disc demo in Eindhoven, Holland. From that very moment, according to approximate estimates, about 3.5 billion were sold. CD audio players and approximately 240 billion discs themselves.

The merit of distributing the CD format belongs, however, not only to Philips, but also to Sony, which helped in its standardization - after a while it was called the Red Book and included everything: from playing time (74 minutes), disc diameter to sampling frequency. The Compact Disc Story, written by employees of both companies, says: "The CD was invented collectively, by a large group of people from both companies working as a team."

But the history of the CD on this has not even begun - only the preface was written. The first chapter of popularity was completed on October 1, 1982, when the musician Billy Joel's album "52nd Street" became the first truly musical CD - it was quietly released in Japan along with the first CD player: Sony CDP-101. This day was a small revolution in the media environment.

CDs as a way to store data

In 1984, Sony and Denon developed a standard for CD discs, later it became possible not only to read, but also to record data on disk using a device that later became the standard for PCs. Since that moment, CDs have become a device for storage, their capacity was approximately 700 GB. The second generation in 2000 was 4.7 GB optical DVDs, and the third was Blu-ray discs capable of storing 25 GB. All three could be used as peripherals. Work is underway on the fourth generation, but they are not supposed to be equipped with storage.

Optical Disk Failure Reasons

Lag in optical disk capacity growth rate from HDD. When CDs appeared, they were quite consistent with the discs of that time, hence their popularity, DVD to a lesser extent, well, you don't have to talk about Blu-ray;

Reducing the cost of flash drives, the 128 GB USB flash drive has a small cost and does not require a special device to connect it;

The transmission of any media data over the network, what is called Non-Physical Media, brought down the traditional music market.

Read more about storage evolution here.

Chronicle

2021: US CD sales rise for first time since 2004

In 2021, sales of CDs increased in the United States for the first time since 2004. Such data were published by the United States Recording Industry Association. Deliveries rose to $46.6 million, and revenue from sales of physical CDs increased to $584.2 million.

Physical media as a whole experienced the first growth in sales since 1996. However, revenues from streaming music remain the main way to profit for the industry. According to the US department, paid music subscriptions amounted to about 57.2% of revenue of $8.6 billion, while streaming music with support for advertising brought $1.8 billion. Sales of CDs and vinyl albums combined accounted for less than 11% of revenue in 2021.

US CD sales rise for first time since 2004

Certain musical genres, such as K-pop, will always stimulate sales of physical media, but it is nice to see the rise as a whole, as interest in physical media is growing. A significant part of sales in the United States was the album of singer Adele - 30, the album sold 900 thousand copies of 2.15% of all sold CDs. The top of the best-selling discs also included Taylor Swift's album Evymore and Map of the Soul: 7 from the South Korean fight band BTS.

Many artists also profit more from sales of paraphernalia and physical media directly to fans. Instead of earning a penny a day on the streaming service, some music fans prefer to support their favorite artists in more traditional ways. It is also worth noting that with the removal of music such as Neil Young from Spotify, physical media in the form of CDs become a more attractive option for many users around the world. The MRC Data Integration Guide is confident that a full-fledged CD return will only be possible if the cost of streaming increases significantly and streaming music venues face any serious problems.^[1]

Links

30th anniversary of the CD

Notes