"David Chien" <chiendh_at_uci.edu> wrote in message
news:cjes74$r4c$1_at_news.service.uci.edu...
> > You *don't* have to move. CD *will* exist in 50 years -- just like LP
> > records ;)
>
> CD players will exist, perhaps yes just like record players. But
> will optical CD drives for the PC exist and be sold then? Probably not
> -- by then, they'll have shrunk the storage format to something smaller
> and higher density, and there simply won't be huge 5 1/2" CD drives
> anymore.
But the hardware is the same. If there still exist devices to get music
data off of CDs (and video data off of DVDs) then there will exist devices
to read any arbitrary sort of data. One of the things people miss when
comparing CDs and DVDs to 8 1/2 floppies is that there is just so much more
momentum behind the 5 1/4 standard -- music, movies, game consoles, computer
data. And, of course, the next generation of discs is going to maintain the
same form factor and backward compatibility.
>
> Don't underestimate how quickly people upgrade -- DVDs have been one
> of the fastest conversions ever noted -- people have moved from VHS to
> DVDs in just a decade, and it'll only get quicker as newer media formats
> arrive.
I don't think so. VHS tapes had just one use, 5 1/4 optical drives have
multiple uses. Part of what made the switch to DVD drives so fast was that
it was based on the CD standard and offered backward compatibility (that is
DVD players and computer drives hand CDs as well). Once we make the
transition to HD with 5 1/4 media, how long is it going to be before video
requires higher capacity than that? It could be a long time--how long were
the NTSC and PAL standards with us? More than 50 years and they're not dead
yet.
Mark
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