Quick Search
Latest News
- Why America Has a Crush on Susan Boyle
- Primal Scream reveal all about new album
- Kid Rock, Lynyrd Skynyrd Team For RebelsTour
- Madonna tops Mariah with Candy
- NINE INCH NAILS: New Album 'The Slip' Available For Free Download
- Alicia Keys lets the music guide her
- Rappers Lil Wayne, DFB Among Celebrities Attending At Static Major Tribute
- Steve Winwood makes comeback with new album
- OneRepublic Singer Cancels Gigs After Surgery
- Radiohead says no more music freebies
Compact Disc celebrates 25th anniversary
- 16-8-2007
It was Aug. 17, 1982, and row upon row of palm-sized plates with a rainbow sheen began rolling off an assembly line near Hanover, Germany.An engineering marvel at the time, today they are instantly recognizable as Compact Discs, a product that turns 25 years old on Friday — and whose future in an age of iPods and MP3 players is increasingly in doubt.Those first CDs contained Strauss' Alpine Symphony and would sound equally sharp if played today, says Holland's Royal Philips Electronics NV, which jointly developed the CD with Sony of Japan.The project that brought digital audio to the masses was a risky technical endeavor back then, said Pieter Kramer, the head of the optical research group at Philips' labs in the Netherlands in the 1970s."When we started there was nothing in place," he told The Associated Press at Philips' corporate museum in Eindhoven.The proposed semiconductor chips needed for CD players were to be the most advanced ever used in a consumer product. And the lasers were still on the drawing board when the companies teamed up in 1979.In 1980, they published what became known as the "Red Book" containing the original CD standards, as well as specifying which patents were held by Philips and which by Sony. Philips had developed the bulk of the disc and laser technology, while Sony contributed the digital encoding that allowed for smooth, error-free playback. Philips still licenses out the Red Book and its later incarnations, notably for the CD-ROM.The jump into mass production in Germany was a milestone for the CD, and two weeks later the companies announced their product was ready for market. Both began selling players that fall, though the machines only hit U.S. markets the following spring.
Sony sold the first player in Japan on Oct. 1, with CBS supplying Billy Joel's 52nd Street as its first album.The CD's design drew inspiration from vinyl records: like the grooves on a record, CDs are engraved with a spiral of tiny pits that are scanned by a laser — the equivalent of a record player's needle. The reflected light is encoded into millions of 0s and 1s: a digital file.Because the pits are covered with plastic and the laser's light doesn't wear them down, it never loses sound quality.Legends abound about how the size of the CD was chosen: some said it matched a Dutch beer coaster; others that a famous conductor or Sony executive wanted it just long enough for Beethoven's 9th Symphony.But Kramer said the decision evolved from "long conversations around the table" about which play length made the most sense.It was a massive hit. Sony sold more players, especially once its "Walkman" series was introduced in 1984. But Philips benefited from CD sales, due to its ownership of Polygram, now part of Universal Music Group.The CD player helped Philips maintain its position as Europe's largest maker of consumer electronics until it was eclipsed by Nokia in the late 1990s. Licensing royalties sustained the company though bad times."The CD was in itself an easy product to market," said Philips' current marketing chief for consumer electronics, Lucas Covers. It wasn't just the sound quality — discs looked like jewelry in comparison to LPs.By 1986, CD players were outselling record players, and by 1988 CDs outsold records. "It was a massive turnaround for the whole market," Covers said.Now, the CD may be seeing the end of its days."The MP3 and all the little things that the boys and girls have in their pockets ... can replace it, absolutely," said Kramer, the retired engineer.But Kramer said it had been satisfying to witness the CD's long run at the top and know he had a small hand in its creation."You never know how long a standard will last. But it was a solid, good standard and still is," he said. This report is provided by usatoday.com