CNET: Are you finished with physical media?

[avalanche 0]

CNET asks, "Are you finished with physical media?"

I always imagine I'll have a CD collection of some sort. It's been that way for 20 years now, and I don't think that will change. Even though I've ripped all the discs into both FLAC and MP3 for "on-the-go" listening, I still listen to the physical CDs, almost every day at home.

However, I have made the switch from physical books to the Kindle. For some reason, this device has just clicked with me.

[Trent Hoyt 13]

I will always have physical media. I am a collector.

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[MSM 116]

Books, cds, dvds. Physical. Although I have some books and some music only digitally.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,261]

Digital media are in many ways more handy, but they lack the gratification of ownership a physical product has.

[Charlie Brigden 6]

I love having physical items (especially LPs), but I also like the Kindle and don't have the space for books.

Also, due to shipping mainly, if the labels went to lossless downloads I would be happy.

[Trent B 325]

I'll be a physical media person for as long as I exist and as long as CDs are being produced by our beloved labels. I like having the physical CD.

All though on the go I do use an iPod so that way I can leave my CDs at home, safe and untouched.

[indy4 154]

Physical all the way, especially for CDs. I do use iTunes when I'm only interested in buying one track. But I rarely buy an entire album from iTunes.

[Brónach 1,272]

Physical media.

There are things like comic books that still can't properly transferred to digital media.

[Trent Hoyt 13]

Physical all the way, especially for CDs. I do use iTunes when I'm only interested in buying one track. But I rarely buy an entire album from iTunes.

I hate buying from iTunes. Either my password becomes invalid or something else annoying happens and I cant listen to the track I downloaded even though I still have the file on my computer.

[indy4 154]

Hmm, I've never experienced that problem. Very strange.

[King Mark 3,505]

i think it stops working after you switch the files to 5 computers. It might be a problem if you think long term

[Koray Savas 2,250]

That 5 computer thing was like 6 years ago.

[Datameister 1,876]

As a guy who spends much - perhaps most - of his free time at a computer, and who listens to music almost exclusively through digital means, I will never stop using physical media. CDs offer a convenient backup, lossless audio, the potential for liner notes, and that intangible physical-ness that digital files lack by nature. The CDs themselves may spend much of their time just sitting on a shelf or in boxes while I listen to high-quality rips of their contents on my computer or iPod, but that doesn't mean I don't care about those CDs. I dread the day when they go the way of the dodo.

And as for books, I have a REALLY hard time seeing myself getting into things like the Kindle. I have no problem with others using them, but there's something very special about the feel of a real book in your hands. And the fact that they're cheap (or free, in the case of library books) is a big deal for me.

[Wojo 2,450]

I will stick with physical media for as long as I can, for everything. CDs, books, movies, video games, etc. Digital ownership is an illusion.

[Elmo Lewis 6]

Digital media are in many ways more handy, but they lack the gratification of ownership a physical product has.

Well, now we have a firm grasp of the obvious.

I am a generation ahead of most people here, in that I feel no sorrow in owning absolutely no CDs -- what rarities I gathered in the 1990s and the 2000's rests now in my mother's basement, while I keep the files in my computer in a mostly shelf-less apartment. I keep DVDs because no better alternative has been created as of yet.

Now, books is something I'm too old to give up. I use eBooks all the time for work, when I have to read a specific essay in a few hours' notice and I can't wait for the publishing house to send me a copy for review. But I can't, as of yet, extract any pleasure from staring at words in a screen. Well that's unfair. Maybe I can. I just don't want to.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,261]

So reading this post is just another joyless, hollow experience for you?

[Richard Penna 3,173]

I get more security from knowing I have music in lossless than I do that it's on a disc.

But I always buy important stuff on CD (and no... being John Williams does not automatically mean it's important - it has to be personally significant in some way).

[Elmo Lewis 6]

So reading this post is just another joyless, hollow experience for you?

Depends on whose posts I'm reading.

For the most part it's pretty much like being on Facebook.

[Wojo 2,450]

I am a generation ahead of most people here, in that I feel no sorrow in owning absolutely no CDs -- what rarities I gathered in the 1990s and the 2000's rests now in my mother's basement, while I keep the files in my computer in a mostly shelf-less apartment. I keep DVDs because no better alternative has been created as of yet.

I wouldn't be so quick, then to say that you own absolutely no CDs. That's a stretch. You freely admit that what CDs you may have "used to own" are still in your mother's basement -- they're still in the family. And you have made digital copies of all other CDs that you used to own, before getting rid of them. Sell, donate, destroy, whatever. Your choice.

The point is that your music is still the logical byproduct of CDs. You bought a CD, you ripped it to keep the digital file. That's what any other person here that uses a portable digital media player does to avoid carrying hundreds of audio CDs or data CD-Rs around to listen.

The difference is that most people choose to keep their CDs as a physical and legal reminder of ownership, in case the FCC ever comes knocking on doors. It's easier to point to a wall of CDs than dig for Amazon and iTunes invoices. Anyone who sells a CD but doesn't keep a digital copy is probably lying.

Now had you denounced ever owning CDs in the first place, destroyed all of their ripped descendants, and purchased the music digitally in the first place....that's the intent of where the industry is heading. Digital first, CD never. And it is a frightening prospect indeed.

[Elmo Lewis 6]

Well, I don't buy CDs anymore. 100% of my music is either bought online or stumbled upon Spotify.

I disagree with you in that the music industry wants us to deny ever owning CDs and destroyed what music we bought from in the past decades when CDs were the only option. I don't think keeping CDs in the basement is any different from keeping your vinyl collection there in the 1990's.

[Jay 34,931]

Well, I don't buy CDs anymore. 100% of my music is either bought online or stumbled upon Spotify.

So you didn't buy La-La Land's Home Alone or 1941, FSM's Nightwatch or NWMYYDV2, or Varese's Midway? You won't buy an expanded Hook, Dracula, Jaws 2, etc? You wouldn't buy a Star Wars/Indiana Jones/Harry Potter box set if they came out?

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,261]

Maybe "bought" online should be more accurately called 'obtained" online.

[Elmo Lewis 6]

Oh, sorry. You got me. I thought we were talking about the way we generally obtain new music. I listen to a lot of new releases from other genres so film music re-releases are the exception in my system. It's gotten to a point where if a certain album is not for sale online, I don't bother buying it.

It happens with these re-releases. I do tend to pass on most of them. I'm not a collector, so out of the ones you mentioned I only bought 1941, which was promptly taken to the basement after being ripped. It felt kinda momentous, buying a CD. Prior to that I think the last ones I bought were Family Plot, the Indy box set and the Blue Box. (Hook would go in a heartbeat, and as of Dracula, I'd have to think about it -- I'm way satisfied with the original CD I bought in the late 1990s. Same for Indy, Potter and Star Wars. Again, I'm not a completist.)

Strangely, I can't bring myself to illegally download soundtracks. There's an emotional component in the way I perceive these re-releases and it'd feel like giving those labels the finger. For everything else (mostly classical), I tend to use Spotify.

And it's a surprisingly satisfying thing. I could have gone crazy and then bankrupt trying to locate and then purchase Mahler's symphonies by Rattler -- on Spotify all it takes is three clicks. Sorry to sound like a salesman. I'm just a very happy customer.

[BLUMENKOHL 1,067]

I have the scores and books I want in their *best* physical volumes.

Everything else I'm digital on. I'm not gonna collect some cardboard box with an ugly image on it just because it's something physical.

The quality of most physical media is just not what it used to be. Most things are mass produced garbage these days. It's a rare thing that I open a box or packaging and am blown away and find myself feeling the pages of a book or booklet for its fantastic quality.

Yeaaaah I can be anal about lossless vs. 256kbps or 320kbps, but most of the listening I do are in environments and situations where it's as good as makes no difference. That and if iTunes has shown anything, I can always upgrade to the latest available bit rate as it becomes available.

[Wojo 2,450]

I disagree with you in that the music industry wants us to deny ever owning CDs and destroyed what music we bought from in the past decades when CDs were the only option.

Perhaps not. That day will come when new CDs are no longer sold, at which point they will be available in second-hand shops and third-party transactions just like people still sell (and buy) cassette tapes, 8-tracks, and LPs. The cheap digital-only downloads of stuff we already have on CD is aimed at people who either a) don't have it and are just getting familiar with the music or b) people who are too stupid to figure out how to rip their CDs to their iPods. These people do, however, have jobs, drive, and vote.

I don't think keeping CDs in the basement is any different from keeping your vinyl collection there in the 1990's.

Alas, the music industry would like you to forget all about your LPs (and tapes), or else they would not go through the trouble of continually re-issuing LP-era albums on CD. These issues replace the now-lousy quality releases sold in the late 80s/early 90s, and now offer things like digital remastering, LP-like packaging, bonus tracks, B-sides and alternates, live versions, etc. Yes, you can buy USB turntables or connect your still functional machine to your computer to make digital files -- and if the quality or huge waste of time doesn't bug you, the money you save is worth it -- but that's a niche thing. And most people who buy the latest NEW album on LP don't aim to turn it into MP3s anyways.

I just spent a huge amount of money at Family Dollar stores to buy cheap VS soundtrack CDs for $4 apiece. If they had been digital only, I would have had no problem buying them from Amazon or iTunes or anyone else who would provide them in 320 kbps, because that's what I have been brainwashed into thinking that I want, and because then I wouldn't have close to 30 albums taking up space. For non-limited releases, Varese usually only puts liner notes into Michael G albums or special compilations, so these weren't the kind of limited edition discs with extensive liner notes that really scream out "put me onto your shelf and worship me."

[BloodBoal 7,538]

Japan overwhelmingly favors CDs to digital music

The article is a bit old, but that doesn't make it less interesting.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,775]

Yeah because you can't get an obi with a digital release and flog it on eBay for astronomical prices.

[Bespin 7,868]

Books and music, I'll keep it physical.

Like Olivia said : "Let's get physical, physical. I wanna get physical, let's get into physical."

[Romão 2,241]

Books still are pretty much unreplaceble for me

[Dixon Hill 4,232]

Yeah, when people start complaining about real books as "outdated," I'm leaving for another galaxy.

[Koray Savas 2,250]

Actually, eReaders are the one piece of technology that I feel make the physical counterpart completely obsolete. I will never buy a paper book again, there's absolutely no need to. With movies and music, the compression and discrepancies in quality make the physical media superior, but not with books.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,775]

Don't you hate it when your books run out of battery power?

[Bespin 7,868]

Don't you hate it when your books run out of battery power?

When there are 10 pages left to read... and the battery is 2 %.

Can someone start the Mission Impossible theme please?

[Koray Savas 2,250]

Don't you hate it when your books run out of battery power?

A single charge on a Kindle lasts one month.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,775]

In a post apocalyptic world where there is no electricty, you'll have no charge for your Kimble. But books don't need a charger, and you can read them as long as you don't break your glasses.

[Romão 2,241]

The good thing about e-readers is that it's making finding used books even easier

[Giftheck 834]

Physical items are much harder to revoke. I'll stick with physical.

[Wojo 2,450]

Plus in the new world order, e-readers let a nosy government know which controversial titles are in your library more easily, to tag you for suspicious or seditious activities.

[Dixon Hill 4,232]

In a post apocalyptic world where there is no electricty, you'll have no charge for your Kimble.

What about a one-armed man?

[Unlucky Bastard 7,775]

Lend the man a hand.

[Wojo 2,450]

I didn't kill my wife.

[Dixon Hill 4,232]

I don't care. I'm too busy reading an ebook!

[Wojo 2,450]

Peter Pan?

[DreamTheater 131]

I'll never be done with physical media I guess. I still buy my blu's, and watch them. I still buy my cd's and listen to them.

And when I buy stuff digitally, most of the time I burn it to a CD-R anyway, and make covers.

The one thing I'll run out of is storing space if I keep this up.

But life is too short to waste time pondering about that...

[Richard Penna 3,173]

Short & simple answer: no.

I store it digitally of course, but I always want the physical media it came from.

[Gnome in Plaid 218]

I'm absolutely not done with video in physical form - with the internet speed I have, streaming video can't even hold a candle to DVDs, much less Blu-Rays. As for music, I use iTunes and Amazon a lot, but for things I really love, I'll still buy the original CD.

[King Mark 3,505]

I still want to own my JW c.d.'s

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,261]

Indeed! A single broken hard drive can erase an entire collection

[BloodBoal 7,538]

A single earthquake can erase an entire physical collection.