Dur... What's a CD?

[gregmaddux17]

I think these people would be confused by technology no matter what year it was. It could be 1948 and they'd be trying to play one of them new-fangled L.P.s on a crank-up Victrola.

I don't know why people complain about not being able to get V.H.S. anymore, I'm not an early adopter, but that was a horrible medium. The things would wear out after a few dozen playings and then snap and screw up your V.C.R., and have you ever tried to take one apart to splice the tape back together? They're horrendously complicated. You'd take off the case and a dozen little springs and levers would fly off into the corner of the room. We should have gone with Laserdiscs when we had the chance.

I've been wondering why laserdiscs never caught on? Seems we jumped straight from VHS to DVD and almost skipped right over laserdiscs with few people even knowing they existed.

[MadMike]

I once had a woman return a cassette tape smashed b/c she was trying to shove it in her car CD player.

Do I even want to know how she attempted that, or even thought doing that was a good idea?

I've been wondering why laserdiscs never caught on? Seems we jumped straight from VHS to DVD and almost skipped right over laserdiscs with few people even knowing they existed.

Maybe the size of the discs had something to do with it. This one guy I knew had one, back in the mid 80's, and I seem to remember those things being a little bigger than an LP. I'm sure they weren't exactly cheap, either.

[ArenaBoy]

I don't know why people complain about not being able to get V.H.S. anymore, I'm not an early adopter, but that was a horrible medium. The things would wear out after a few dozen playings and then snap and screw up your V.C.R., and have you ever tried to take one apart to splice the tape back together? They're horrendously complicated. You'd take off the case and a dozen little springs and levers would fly off into the corner of the room. We should have gone with Laserdiscs when we had the chance.

I heard Laserdiscs had better quality than the VHS but for some strange reason they chose size over quality. I actually had one of those once but we gave it away when we got a DVD player. I still have vinyl records and there is a couple of stores that sell vinyl records. On a side note, there are still bands that release things on vinyl, I've seen the new Rolling Stones album on vinyl, Green Day's American Idiot, and a few White Stripes records. Right now, I'm looking for RHCP's Stadium Arcadium vinyl version. Surprisingly, the sound is a lot nicer than it is on CD.

EDIT: Someone mentioned CDs looking like vinyl, I actually bought some a while back. Gets a laugh out of the older coworkers a lot.

[Becks]

I had a customer mad b/c we couldn't order vinyl or 8 tracks. Yes, he asked me for 8 tracks.

That's what garage sales are for.

[Banrion]

I love the "vinyl" CD's, I found them on clearance at BB once and bought 5 spindles. I'm through 3 of them, and haven't had a single dud yet.

[protege]

My grandmother gave me a bunch of 1930s and '40s jazz records when she was cleaning out her house. There were a few Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and other artists in there...some of which I'd never heard of. They hadn't been used in probably 20 years and were covered with dust. After a good clean, they came up like new. Even the liner notes were still in good shape. All I need now, is a turntable that can handle 78s and 33s and I'm in business

[Crosshair]

We should have gone with Laserdiscs when we had the chance.

Ah yes, the wonderfull laserdisk. I still have one of those. I use it as my nightstand with my TRS-80. Those where SOOOOO much better than VHS. Only advantage VHS had was being able to record. Heck, Betamax was better buy Sony chose cassette size over recording time.

[Spiffy McMoron]

when she heard about CDs she starting giving me every free CD she got in the post. I am up to my ears in AOL coasters.

Take a half dozen AOL CD's, and make a wind chime out of them. Sell them for $3.50 at a flea market.

Take a half dozen AOL CD's, and make a wind chime out of them. Label it to be a critque of modern man's dependance on technology, and a statement of todays youth to prefer spending time on a computer, rather than going outside to play. Sell to art gallery for $20,000.

[Gurndigarn]

I've been wondering why laserdiscs never caught on? Seems we jumped straight from VHS to DVD and almost skipped right over laserdiscs with few people even knowing they existed.

Cost (both for the player and for the movies, IIRC), easy to damage the disks (relatively... an adult shouldn't have many problems, but in a house with kids...), limited amount of space on a disk (something like 30 minutes per side?), inability to record.

But, considering that this is the US, cost was probably the driving reason.

[Sofar]

Ah, the cost. The motion picture industry rather shot themselves in the foot on that matter, they expected that the Laserdisc would be such a success, (this is when they began making them in 1977,) that box office figures would plummet due to so many people watching films at home. So they kept the price artificially inflated to make up for losses at the box office. As for the playing length, they held about one hour of analog video* per side, in constant linear velocity mode. (That means that unlike a record, the disc speeds up as the laser nears the middle of the disc. This is the standard recording method for compact discs.) They only held half an hour per side in constant angular velocity mode, (in this mode, like a record, the disc always spins at the same number of revolutions per minute.)

*It is indeed possible to record analog video in an optical format.

[Pagan]

I actually saw blank Beta tapes at Target a while back. I didn't even know they still made them!

When I got a new stereo a few years back, I made sure it had a turntable on it. I've got a lot on vinyl. Some I could probably sell for a lot. Like the original cover of Poison's "Open Up and Say....Aah", the one before the record company caved to Tipper Gore & Co.! And a Duran Duran single on the Harvest label.

What continues to torque me is the fact that the year I got my car was the one year that Saturn didn't put CD players in them! I've got plenty of tapes to play, but most of my Celtic music is on CD and that's what I like to drive with.

[jb17kx]

I actually saw blank Beta tapes at Target a while back. I didn't even know they still made them!

Sony still make beta tapes for broadcast DV, called digibeta. I wasn't aware that they still made standard betamax, though.

And whomever said that VHS tapes die after a dozen playings, I do hope you were exaggerating... I have 4 E240 VHS tapes that I rotate every few months, and I have used them youngest for nigh on 2 years now, the oldest 4. "Use" means frequent recording and playback, including fast forwarding and fast rewinding. Generally one tape will average a month or two of use, and this will involve 5-7 rewind and playback cycles. I have never had any tape damage, apart from some scratches and picture deterioration in some places.

[heather124]

We still sell laserdiscs at my work, mostly secondhand ones...and people actually still buy them

one day I was working and I noticed a guy looking through them and was taking them out of the case to look at them. I didn't think anything strange because people would do that from time to time to check for scratches before they buy them. I look back a few minutes later and notice he is still doing it, only now he's holding them really close to his face. I watch him put one away and then pull out another one and do the same thing..it was then I realized what he was doing. He was putting them up to his mouth, blowing on them to fog them up and running his lips and tongue along the inside of the disc. It was too weird, it freaked me out..and of course I was working alone that day and just the look of the guy was freaking me out. I asked him what he was doing, he told me he was polishing the discs for us.

[Spiffy McMoron]

I asked him what he was doing, he told me he was polishing the discs for us.

Holy crap! That's disgusting! For your safety, I hope that you told him to leave, and that he left the shop quickly. "Polishing the discs" eeewwww...

[Dreamstalker]

I once had a woman return a cassette tape smashed b/c she was trying to shove it in her car CD player.

BWUH?! One would think the relative sizes of the media and the loading slot would give a clue...

Take a half dozen AOL CD's, and make a wind chime out of them. Sell them for $3.50 at a flea market.

Take a half dozen AOL CD's, and make a wind chime out of them. Label it to be a critque of modern man's dependance on technology, and a statement of todays youth to prefer spending time on a computer, rather than going outside to play. Sell to art gallery for $20,000.

That is brilliant.

He was putting them up to his mouth, blowing on them to fog them up and running his lips and tongue along the inside of the disc. It was too weird, it freaked me out..and of course I was working alone that day and just the look of the guy was freaking me out. I asked him what he was doing, he told me he was polishing the discs for us.

I've heard of some weird fetishes, but...I don't want to know. I just don't.