25 years of the compact disc
Aug 23, 2007
FRIDAY 17th August marked the 25th anniversary of the Compact Disk, popularly known as the CD. Has it really been a quarter of century since the first compact disc was pressed?
By Ziraba Mustafa
FRIDAY 17th August marked the 25th anniversary of the Compact Disk, popularly known as the CD. Has it really been a quarter of century since the first compact disc was pressed?
On that day in 1982, Royal Philips Electronics manufactured the world’s first CD at a Philips factory owned by PolyGram in Langenhagen, just outside of Hanover, Germany.
A nod to Sony, Philips and Sony co-developed the CD. The first at the plant being The Visitors by Swedish group ABBA, the superior sound quality and scratch-free durability, marked the beginning of the shift from analogue to digital music technology.
The CD became a catalyst for further innovation in digital entertainment, helping pave the way for the launch of the DVD and the current introduction of next generation HD-DVD and Blu-Ray optical media.
Having played a key role in the innovation of digital music, at home and on the move, consumers continue to witness huge advances in entertainment and lifestyle technologies, also ushering in the era of what we have come to know as the Digital Rights Management.
“The enormous success of the CD over the last twenty-five years, has opened many new opportunities for consumers to make the most of their music at home and on the move,†said Lucas Covers, senior vice-president and chief marketing officer, Philips Consumer Electronics, at an event marking the anniversary.
As early as 1979, Philips and Sony set up a joint task force of engineers to design the new digital audio disc. Many decisions were made in the year to follow such as the disc diameter and thickness.
The original target storage capacity for a CD was one hour of audio content and a disc diameter of 115 mm was sufficient for this. However, both parties extended the capacity to 74 minutes to accommodate a complete performance of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony.
CDs started trickling into Uganda in the early 1990s, with a few people having players let alone the disks themselves.
The recordable CD completely changed the market dynamics of audio CDs as it became easy to make copies. There is a significant difference between an original studio CD and a recorded one.
Today, most people’s music CD collections are on recordable CDs which, when first introduced on the market, cost not less than sh10,000. Found in almost every electronic store in any Kampala, un-branded recordable CDs go for a laughable sh500.
Branded ones such as Samsung, Sony and Philips cost between sh1,500 to sh2,000.
Evan Blass of Engadget.com says: “It would seem that the original shiny little platter is unquestionably in its golden years, with more convenient or capacious formats replacing it on almost every front.â€
The CD is the forefather of a wide range of applications such as the CD-Rom, CD-R and CD-RW, DVD, DVD-R, DVD-RW HD-DVD and Blu-Ray.
Philips estimates that over the past 25 years, over 200 billion CDs have been sold worldwide.
According to Buzzle.com, “The CD is one of the most successful and most prevalent mediums for storage of music and information ever conceived. It is a remarkable feat of engineering — playing music from a disc, while there is no physical contact with the medium itself.
This technology is a far cry from the days of vinyl when records got scratched and dirty which rapidly wore them out.â€
The CD remains a very popular music/video carrier, because of its quality, portability and resilience to damage.
It is unfortunate that there is a next generation format war brewing between HD-DVD spearheaded by Toshiba and Blu-Ray, having Sony at its forefront.
Both formats employ blue laser technology, which has a much shorter wavelength than the red laser technology used in current CDs. We will still enjoy digititalised electronics, whoever wins.
FRIDAY 17th August marked the 25th anniversary of the Compact Disk, popularly known as the CD. Has it really been a quarter of century since the first compact disc was pressed?
On that day in 1982, Royal Philips Electronics manufactured the world’s first CD at a Philips factory owned by PolyGram in Langenhagen, just outside of Hanover, Germany.
A nod to Sony, Philips and Sony co-developed the CD. The first at the plant being The Visitors by Swedish group ABBA, the superior sound quality and scratch-free durability, marked the beginning of the shift from analogue to digital music technology.
The CD became a catalyst for further innovation in digital entertainment, helping pave the way for the launch of the DVD and the current introduction of next generation HD-DVD and Blu-Ray optical media.
Having played a key role in the innovation of digital music, at home and on the move, consumers continue to witness huge advances in entertainment and lifestyle technologies, also ushering in the era of what we have come to know as the Digital Rights Management.
“The enormous success of the CD over the last twenty-five years, has opened many new opportunities for consumers to make the most of their music at home and on the move,†said Lucas Covers, senior vice-president and chief marketing officer, Philips Consumer Electronics, at an event marking the anniversary.
As early as 1979, Philips and Sony set up a joint task force of engineers to design the new digital audio disc. Many decisions were made in the year to follow such as the disc diameter and thickness.
The original target storage capacity for a CD was one hour of audio content and a disc diameter of 115 mm was sufficient for this. However, both parties extended the capacity to 74 minutes to accommodate a complete performance of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony.
CDs started trickling into Uganda in the early 1990s, with a few people having players let alone the disks themselves.
The recordable CD completely changed the market dynamics of audio CDs as it became easy to make copies. There is a significant difference between an original studio CD and a recorded one.
Today, most people’s music CD collections are on recordable CDs which, when first introduced on the market, cost not less than sh10,000. Found in almost every electronic store in any Kampala, un-branded recordable CDs go for a laughable sh500.
Branded ones such as Samsung, Sony and Philips cost between sh1,500 to sh2,000.
Evan Blass of Engadget.com says: “It would seem that the original shiny little platter is unquestionably in its golden years, with more convenient or capacious formats replacing it on almost every front.â€
The CD is the forefather of a wide range of applications such as the CD-Rom, CD-R and CD-RW, DVD, DVD-R, DVD-RW HD-DVD and Blu-Ray.
Philips estimates that over the past 25 years, over 200 billion CDs have been sold worldwide.
According to Buzzle.com, “The CD is one of the most successful and most prevalent mediums for storage of music and information ever conceived. It is a remarkable feat of engineering — playing music from a disc, while there is no physical contact with the medium itself.
This technology is a far cry from the days of vinyl when records got scratched and dirty which rapidly wore them out.â€
The CD remains a very popular music/video carrier, because of its quality, portability and resilience to damage.
It is unfortunate that there is a next generation format war brewing between HD-DVD spearheaded by Toshiba and Blu-Ray, having Sony at its forefront.
Both formats employ blue laser technology, which has a much shorter wavelength than the red laser technology used in current CDs. We will still enjoy digititalised electronics, whoever wins.