Slashdot Mirror
Cassette Tapes On The Wane
jonerik writes "The BBC has an article on the current status of the once-popular cassette tape in the UK and elsewhere. It's been a long climb up and a long fall down for the audio format introduced by Dutch electronics giant Philips in 1963. Having sold 83 million units in the UK at their 1989 peak, cassettes sold just 900,000 units in the UK last year. And yet the cassette soldiers on in the West in niche applications - particularly in the audio book market - and in other countries where CD and MP3 penetration hasn't been as extensive. From the article: 'Keith Joplin, a Director of Research at the International Federation of Phonographic Industries, said that Turkey still sells 88 million cassettes a year, India 80 million, and that cassettes account for 50% of sales in these countries. In Saudi Arabia, it is 70%.'"
CDs can be nice, but I'm really sick of losing media to scratches. DVDs doubly so. I still have most of my VHS and audio cassettes from the mid eighties that work fine. Of course, its not like you had to carry a wad of tape to feed into a player, and manually wind it onto spools (most of the time). I'd like just one good reason why optical media has to be handled and exposed to the elements like this.
Waiting for ad.doubleclick.net...
The one thing I miss about cassette tapes is how durable they were. Now the newer music CDs that are coming out don't even let me back up my music. CDs only last for a few minutes in my grasp until they get scratched up and explode.
Apparently shoddy cds can shatter at high speeds. I've never seen or heard of it from my friends though.
But anyway, it is almost cunningly smart of these countries to rely on this old proven technologies, and skip technologies that are redundant. Iraq, for example, seems to be skipping landlines in their technological development and moving to a society where everyone will have a cell phone. By the time they get widespread DVD's in these countries, every player is/will be region free and support mp3/dvd+-r. They don't get the hassles of the format wars and probably never will as long as they remain half a step behind. If we should be so lucky to not be a giant beta-test site for the rest of the world.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Uhmm...
Unskinny Bop
'Nuff said.
Or even pop the audio book CD out of your car CD player and continue playing it on your home audio system. The CD would need a writable area to record the last play position.
Mod parent up. This is EXACTLY why CDs for audio books are bad. I'm listening to one now (or trying to; I may give up due to this frustration) and frequently want to shift from car to listening in bed at night. Believe it or not, I've started to copy some parts of it onto - you guessed it - cassette tape.
I would really not want to try to replace a 16-bit DAC chip in a CD player in the middle of the Sahara desert, but unclogging a jammed lever would be relatively easy.
I can't imagine anyone needing or wanting to replace a DAC chip anywhere! Did you ever know someone who's DAC chip went out?
Live digital instruments (such as professional keyboards) are often 20- to 24-bit, 192 KHz, and lossless digital amplifiers have been around since the 60s. (Though damn-near lossless high-end analogue amplifiers have been around about as long.)
I thought the topic was cassette use? What would that have to do with someone listening to a tape?
What we're getting is third-rate crap that only rich corporations can even maintain, which means most consumers treat such devices as disposable.
I don't know about you but I wouldn't trade my iPod or my Denon CD Player for a cassette player (walkman or CD deck). IMO good digital players blow away the poor quality of a tape. When you bring up 'lossless' in an analog tape, consider the signal-to-noise ratio, wow and flutter and most important - freqency response. With noise and distortion, it's hard to enjoy the 'lossless' expereince!