 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
Posted: |
Apr 11, 2014 - 9:11 AM
|
|
|
|
By: |
mstrox
(Member)
|
ITunes prices are much more expensive than a physical cd.
It's crazy to pay 1 US$ for one track. Here In Italy I pay 10-15 US$ for an audio cd with 10-15 tracks. Why Should I pay the same for a "liquid track"?.... No cd, no booklet, no collectible value. An Itunes song should cost 10 cent max...
I'm with you - I prefer CDs as well - but I disagree with the above. $0.10 per song is madness - the money you're spending on a CD or download is not just for the physical product, but also for the work that went into making the album - artists, performers, producers, etc. If we paid $0.10 per track, none of those people would make any money and with that business model, we wouldn't have music to listen to.
You're also pricing too high - you pay $1.00 - $1.29 for an individual track, and that can rack up quickly - but if you buy the whole album as a bundle, it's typically somewhere around $9.99.
An easy place to compare CD prices vs. MP3 prices is Amazon, who offer both and usually offer competitive prices on CDs. Note that all CD prices do not include whatever shipping cost you would pay.
http://www.amazon.com/Jurassic-Park-Original-Picture-Soundtrack/dp/B000002OOY/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1397228210&sr=1-1&keywords=jurassic+park
Jurassic Park's CD costs $10.19 at the moment, as compared to the $9.49 for the MP3 version with the 20th anniversary bonus tracks.
Schindler's List is $8.39 for the CD, $7.99 for MP3. Same for modern hits - Iron Man 3's CD is $10, MP3 is $9.49. Frozen is $11.88 for CD, $11.49 for MP3. Was going to compare more recent "hit movie scores" from this year like Captain America or Thor, but Intrada's $20 CD pricepoint skews it even moreso.
You get the idea. Others follow suit - Man of Steel, Batman, The Mission, The Godfather ($5.99 for MP3 - half of the CD price), Gone with the Wind, and so on and so forth. In my random typing of movie titles, the only MP3 albums that were MORE expensive were the 2-disc versions of the Star Wars scores - and only by a buck or so.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: |
Apr 11, 2014 - 10:53 AM
|
|
|
|
By: |
SchiffyM
(Member)
|
Anybody is free to want CDs and prefer CDs and love CDs and only buy CDs and like the opportunity to resell CDs.
But if you believe that the cost of producing a CD is in the few cents worth of paper and plastic and the shipping thereof -- and on the flip side, that servers and bandwidth are free -- then you're misunderstanding the economics of this. The vast majority of costs in either format is in getting the music into a file, be it an AIFF on a CD or an MP3/AAC/FLAC/whatnot on a server. The composers, the musicians, the recording, the mastering, the rights, the clearances, and on and on. That's what you're paying for either way.
Again, choose to buy what you want to buy. Just don't get indignant that the economics don't work the way you want them to work.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The only concern I have with moving completely to downloads is the distortion/artifacts I hear on the majority of material on iTunes and Spotify. Whether or not it's digital watermarking or just poor authoring, will lossless 24bit downloads be just like their 256kbps counterparts when it comes to this? It's not so much noticeable with pop music but is clearly evident with orchestral material.
You hear distortion/artifacts because it's compressed MP3s, you don't get that on Lossless files just like you don't get that on a CD.
That's not entirely accurate. Ripping errors are sometimes the cause. "Broken" songs on iTunes sometimes take forever to fix, and that's if they even take the problem tracks down in the first place. They have to go back to the source label, which is why you see the same errors across all the digital retailers for certain songs/albums.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The two situations aren't really close equivalents, Basil. For one, we have more options today than when CD took over; all sorts of new media coexists side-by-side with old media rather than replacing it. For another, the move from audio cassette (or vinyl for that matter) to CD entailed moving from one hard copy format to another. The same is not true for any proposed move to downloads. Additionally, optical media has many uses and platforms such as DVD, Blu-ray, video games and - what appears to be the real future for discs - data. This allows playback/access of audio CDs to continue, the lack of which would be the only true thing to spell death for the format.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: |
Apr 11, 2014 - 2:11 PM
|
|
|
|
By: |
Ed Lachmann
(Member)
|
Count your blessings as a physical CD collector (as I am), because most everything released seems to be available in that form if you want it. You have the option to do the download thing. And, then, you can burn a cd of that which you downloaded if you wish. People who want blu-rays of most great classic films have to download or stream them in substandard hi-def form from iTunes, Warner Archive Instant or Amazon Instant Video, to name a few. Once you "pay" to "own" a movie, you are prevented from burning a BD-R of it to preserve or play on your home system. This is, of course, to save the poor starving studios from spending all that money to create physical discs. Now they can lay off people in the art department and they can dispense with the people who distribute the physical product, such a win-win situation for them. Now they can charge you every time you watch it. And, this is how they've rigged it. And, this is YOUR future as a classic film collector whether you like it or not. Soundtrack collecting is a refuge from this kind of crap, at least for the time being. Enjoy it while you have it!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: |
Apr 11, 2014 - 2:15 PM
|
|
|
|
By: |
SchiffyM
(Member)
|
Spymaster, most studios put out their own DVDs, and that lack of middleman hasn't stopped them from releasing, re-releasing, remastering, and special-editioning them again and again. Why? Because there's profit in it.
Yes, downloads actually do go "out of print" for contractual reasons. Not often. But if they can release a new version and make you pay for it again, you'd better believe they will, regardless of format. It has always been thus. Admittedly, you can't then turn around and sell off your old version. Which is the one bummer for me.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
