Is optical media dead?
For a while now it’s been pretty obvious that faithful old CDs and DVDs are on the way out. In my opinion, not because they are being trumped by Blu-ray, but because digital distribution is quite obviously the way forward. iTunes, Amazon and other online digital music retailers (and lately services like Spotify, Pandora and Grooveshark) have done it to music; whilst comparatively more fledgling, digital video distribution is making massive ground. Netflix had plans to expand into the UK in 2004 which they shelved to focus on North America, a market which they’ve pretty much conquered with their digital distribution model. Just ask Blockbuster.
In their September keynote, Apple launched the second generation of the AppleTV - a storage free, streaming only box that could fit in the palm of your hand and allow you to stream music, television and movies from your computer, the iTunes store, your iPad or (if for some reason you wanted to) your iPhone. Again, no need for cluttered shelves of VHS tapes (yup, I’m that old!), CD or DVD cases or the hassle of tracking down the discs that are missing from their cases (yup, I’m that disorganised!) Another nail in the coffin of optical media.
Microsoft are playing the same game. The Xbox360 is their flagship in their hope to get a PC in every living room - moreso that their Media Center OS ever was. Whilst Microsoft were high profile supporters of (and investors in) the failed HD-DVD format, I do think this was purely an act of disruption against Sony’s PS3 and the Blu-ray format to divide the market and give digital distribution more time to get a hold of the average consumer. Now they’ve got the Zune Marketplace, Netflix integration and Sky Player all tied in to their media hub. BBC iPlayer should be following if they could just sort out the contractual agreements with the broadcaster. Another nail in the coffin.
In Apple’s OSX keynote earlier this week they unveiled two new MacBook Air models. I’ve never been a fan of the Air. Its low grunt / high price ratio has always made me steer clear. That changed this week. Whilst it could be argued that the 11 inch model is Apple’s stealth approach at moving into the netbook space (a space that Jobs so strongly chided at the launch of the iPad) the pricing and power is now such that I think they’ll sell by the bucketload. And that’s where the next nail in optical media’s coffin kicks in. The Air, like most netbooks, has no optical media drive. Where it differs slightly is in Apples approach to restore media. Other manufacturers have included restore media as a separate partition on the hard disk, or as a restore DVD - in some cases even when the device itself doesn’t even have an optical drive.
Instead Apple have opted for a tiny little USB drive. It definitely costs more to manufacture than a DVD - although it almost certainly uses less plastic. In a computer that’s going to sell in droves it’s going to be a lot of people who won’t have optical drives, nor a need for them.
Don’t get me wrong. It will be a long time yet before we see the absolute demise of this little circular pieces of plastic we’ve grown so fond of since CD’s launch in 1982 and DVD’s in 1993. But it’s definitely entering its twilight years. They’ve seen off other shorter lived formats. (Who remembers Minidisc? And don’t get me started on Sony’s UMD format) but the digital model is without doubt going to get the better of it.
