1983: The COMPACT DISC and EMI | Newsnight | Retro Tech | BBC Archive

[@nickpapagiorgio8832]

I was the first person I knew who had a CD player. My brother worked for a retailer and was able to purchase one at a discount. So my parents bought me a Phillips model for Christmas 1985 for about $140. My first 2 discs were Rush/Moving Pictures and U2/War, and they cost $17-18 each. That was about double the price of an LP. I can still remember being astonished at hearing Rush and Neil Peart's drums in incredible clarity through headphones. And those discs, still in kept in a CD folio, sound just as incredible today as they did 37 years ago.

[@Bullcutter]

Goes on to show the amount of false information about CD that are perpetuated by dishounest and technically illiterate media.

[@rabarebra]

Great comment!

[@ingarchris]

Thank you for comment :^)

[@phoenixman8569]

37 years later and it still works? cool!!!!

[@DripDripDrip69]

@@phoenixman8569 Pressed CDs don't degrade like burned CDs tend to do.

[@DenD]

It can not be understated how important these Mini documentaries will become in the future.

[@DorianPaige00]

And expose the lie perpetuated today that everyone thought the cds suck when they came out. Everybody loved cds.....until a 12" disc was shown and then marketed on KZbin, Instagram, and Facebook.

[@rabarebra]

@@DorianPaige00 A vinyl records do sound better than CD, though, no matter how you twist it and how bad the dynamic range and noise floor is on a vinyl record vs a CD. A CD just sounds worse as if the dynamic range is too big and it just sounds baffled, dull and lifeless. I've compared so many albums released on both vinyl and CD, and the vinyl always comes better out with more body.

[@DorianPaige00]

@@rabarebra Vinyl sounds that way because it is compressed. When labels cut a 45, they used to cut it "hot" and that meant compression and boosting to bring things up in the mix. This idea of compression being "chop off the highs and lows" is really a myth. Take an album and put it on a cd-r and if you still like it then you like the way it was mixed and not the medium. Furthermore, if you had a ultra-high stereo, you'd hear more with the greater dynamic range. In a mid-level system, you're better off with the hotter mixes.

[@Magnus_Loov]

@@rabarebra It's not that they "sound better". It 's a matter of taste where the harmonic distorsion from vinyl sound warmer. But that is a form of distorsion that actually is making it sound less like what the original recording sounded like. So every measurable parameter is better on CD vs LP. But when it is down to the listener expericence some prefer the distorsion of LP and some the much better clarity of digital where you can actually hear more details and even some instruments/sounds that were totally masked in an LP. That thing is also something that is objectively better with CD/digital. But in some cases the detail isn't needed and some opt for the warmer LP sound. So it is wrong to say "a cd just sound worse than an LP" when it all depends on what you prefer. Then it is also the case of crackles, clicks and general degradation over time for LP:S (which makes them sound extremely bad no matter what in the end).

[@TheUtuber999]

*cannot be overstated

[@BenneWill]

It's amazing to realize these older executives talking about digital computers and sound were born in the 20s and 30s. They grew up on Edison phonographs and by the end of their lives, they saw the birth of digital music. That to me is really mind blowing.

[@unicorntomboy9736]

That's nothing compared to the coming 50 years. One exciting development is artificial wombs that means babies will be born in advanced biotech machines

[@CoasterMan13Official]

Yeah, when you put it that way, it is.

[@SimonLloydGuitar]

Although most of them woould have been born in the 40's and 50's, much like the biggest artists of the period...Duran, McCartney, Bowie, Queen etc

[@yasunakaikumi]

it actually had the same impact for me as a late 80s born, kid of the 90s, seeing analog videos goes digital in the 90s with VCD then DVD and late 2000s HD videos.

[@Nephilim-81]

What a way to celebrate 40 years of this iconic medium by watching this video. So cool. Great history lesson as well. :)

[@michaelgriffiths5723]

39 years! Being pedantic because I know a man who wants to remain in his 30s until the lady possible point 😂

[@NoName-jq7tj]

This is really fascinating. When people today talk about music from this period it is often talk about how great the music was & how we would all love to go back. But the part when EMI says that record sales are falling and people don’t have money to buy new music is really interesting. It places things into perspective.

[@phillipecook3227]

Good comment.

[@mhmrules]

I didn't know that the UK had an unemployment problem around this time.

[@pit_stop77]

@@mhmrules there was, Thatcher and the tories saw to that.

[@p0rq]

To me, it’s not whether the music was good or bad. It just highlights something they wanted to memoryhole in the early 00s, when they were blaming piracy for their slump in sales. CDs were this huge boon to the industry, with people spending the next decade replacing their vinyls with CDs. When that was exhausted and you only had new sales to rely on, sales slumped again. Record industry acted like this was some crazy unforeseen eventuality, and blamed piracy for the slump, as if someone was eating their lunch. In reality, the bubble had burst.

[@NoName-jq7tj]

@@p0rq It’s has if music is being recycled through the periods. First you had vinyl followed by Cassettes. There was the advent of the Sony Walkman. So for example if you had purchased a Roxy Music album in 1976 you now had to purchase it on audio tape in 1983 so you could play it in the car or on the Walkman. Than came the CD evolution in the late 1980s. I never really took to CDs that well. When I analyse music from that period the economic & social problems are there in the music. UB40 wrote about life on benefits. There was The Specials with Ghost Town. Duran Duran wrote escapist music about yachts in Rio & Hungary Like a Wolf filmed in Sri Lanka. Most people didn’t go these places in those days. Spain was as far is it went for a holiday. This film was possibly aired before Michael Jackson’s Thriller album which would take sales through the roof. 🎵 📻 🪩 💃 🕺

[@hansbambach4854]

“Doesn’t matter if you finger it, bend it or scratch it” that turned out to be the ultimate lie....

[@garryleeks4848]

Finger it 🙄🙄😬

[@samphelps856]

Every hole's a goal

[@garryleeks4848]

@@samphelps856 That’s true 🙄

[@rocketman584]

It's not a lie. Superficial scratches don't affect playback at all. Neither does touching the playing surface. Remember, they're comparing CDs to records, which were far easier to damage.

[@christopherjohnmatthews]

I started lol when I heard that 😂 the amount of times I've sat playing cds and there's no visible scratches yet it still skips and jumps. They were aloud to say anything back then and get away with conning us all.

[@Clavinovaman]

I still enjoy compact discs. Remove the plastic, pop the cd on, take out the sleeve notes, press ‘Play’ and while listening to the album in the track order it is presented, read the sleeve notes. The Perfect hour.

[@unicorntomboy9736]

Not as good as conveniently streaming music from Spotify

[@ianstrange5674]

Convenient, but a rather bland sort of experience.🙄

[@Clavinovaman]

@@ianstrange5674 depends on the music, lad.

[@ianstrange5674]

@@Clavinovaman No I meant streaming!

[@michaelturner4457]

@@unicorntomboy9736 Until you got no internet or the artist and song you want to listen to isn't on Spotify. That's not very convenient.

[@bodhid]

Funny postscript to this video: the EMI exec Brian Southwell ended up writing a book about EMI collapsing years later called ‘The Rise and Fall of EMI Records’.

[@AndreiTupolev]

"I think they can afford to wait and see on this", says the industry pundit 🤔

[@flaggerify]

@@AndreiTupolev I don't think CDs had anything to do with it.

[@jasonhatt4295]

Thank you for the postscript! I was curious to know what happened to EMI after this.

[@fidelcatsro6948]

its been almost 40yrs since this article, im still waiting for banana leaf player to come into the market

[@garymation7426]

I heard they had a few issues with flutter.

[@lmiddleman]

In kindergarten we learned Banana comes after Apple.

[@plan7a]

Just what I say!

[@sugreev2001]

I grew up in the 90’s, but my parents had bought two expensive CD players in the late 80’s and I grew up as one of the children incredibly fascinated by them and physical media, in general. Our old CD’s are still almost all playable, but none of the players work, for obvious reasons. I saved all their remote controls and their incredibly large size still amuses me. But I miss collecting CD’s, as they were still a big thing by the time I was in my final years of school.

[@sleepyelk5955]

The same here, I have still a very expensive CD player from the old times, which fortunately still works (Sony Esprit class) and a massive collection of CDs which seems to work all without problems ... was a great time 🤟

[@TheStevenWhiting]

Grew up in the 80s. We never had a player, neighbour did. When I'd looked after their dogs I realised they had one. I believe this was late 80s/beginning of the 90s. I'd never seen one or used one before. Was fascinated by it and couldn't resist trying it to see what it was like. Didn't know how to work it but managed to get a Sinatra CD to play. Sounded really nice. Didn't see a CD for several years after that, not until my sister got a portable player.

[@ajs41]

Why don't CD players still work? All of the old vinyl record players in our house still work, but our oldest CD player doesn't work very well.

[@TheStevenWhiting]

@@ajs41 A lot more electronics in them. The rubber belts in them degrade and fall apart but some of the capacitors are most likely leaking as well. Record players are built quite differently.

[@kyle8952]

@@TheStevenWhiting Everyone always blames caps going bad for why stuff doesn't work. Fifty years ago they always used to blame a valve. Truthfully it's rarely either. With a CD player there's usually no belt, but the laser is mounted on a rack and pinion and a slider that need greasing. Sometimes the lasers themselves just pack in.

[@lowket]

Loved the vinyl era, loved the tape era. Still love (and buy) cd's and dvd's in 2022, and will do so for eternity, or as long as available. MP3's are the most compact and digital format, but a physical cd (and dvd) are still with us, and here to stay. My fist audio cd from early 80's still sounds are great as on the first day. That, combined with the revolutions in audio sound technology makes them even sound better in 2022.

[@saghwteam]

It's unfortunate it's getting harder to find DVDs these days, at least where I live.

[@dzenacs2011]

Why you buying dvds when blu rays around?

[@lowket]

@@dzenacs2011 i prefer that format.

[@AALavdas]

@@lowket What's there to prefer in DVDs?

[@lowket]

@@AALavdas I prefer the format. The quality is good enough for me. No HD, no blu-ray, no 4K or 8K nonsense, just a good ADD or DDD audio cd or a dvd is excellent and longlasting physical media.

[@normandothegreat]

I remember sitting in front of a pair of Bose 901s listening to Boston rather loud being played by a CD back in 1983, unreal!

[@estusflask982]

All my CDs from the early 1990's still work. Try owning music on a cloud service for 30+ years.

[@WujiErTaiji]

You usually don't own music on a cloud service and if the world doesn't blow up it will still be somewhere digitally stored to listen to in 30 years. If the world blows up your CDs also won't work most likely.

[@Richumtutorials]

It's a bit funny that you write this on a video streaming service below a video that you couldn't watch anywhere if this technology would generally be deemed so bad as your comment seems to imply.

[@CaptainKenway]

A bunch of my DVDs from 15-20 years ago have disc rot and are now unplayable. Physical media isn't necessarily immune to the passage of time.

[@UXXV]

Tracks I bought in 2009 stopped working in 2011 ... yup

[@Thorpe]

You can also back them up easily in a lossless format (FLAC) for redundancy.

[@affalaffaa]

Started buying CD's over 30 years ago and all still play as good as the first time. I still buy CD's now, for this reason but also the cover artwork and the booklet inside. Can't see me changing until the stop producing them. Didn't realise they appeared very nearly 40 years ago though.

[@goodnightmoon]

i hope CDs won't die

[@nickwallette6201]

Amen to that. I still have the first CD I ever owned. I was young (around 6), and I put it through some stuff. But it still plays. I will keep buying CDs until they quit making them, at which point I'll just keep buying them, used.

[@BICIeCOMPUTERconGabriele]

They won't stop producing them... also the LP records are still produced now!

[@robertdallenger96]

Me too. Bought my first CD player on Jan 1st 1986. A Marantz CD84 for £284 in the sales. I reckon me and my partner are buying more CDs now than ever, thanks to all the secondhand and charity shops that sell them. I also prefer to support an artist by buying directly from an artist when possible. With over 36 years and almost 2000 CDs between us, we don't need to subscribe to a streaming service.

[@rreachingoutt]

CD/Vinyl sales outdid digital in 2021 in America for the first time since 2004. Physical media is back again. I’m 22 and a lot of my friends love physical media. A lot of artists are achieving #1s by utilising physical media. CDs are here to stay and so is vinyl.

[@tonyhancock3912]

Probably one of my most prized possessions is a signed banana leaf edition of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells

[@nickhirst999]

You are a true connoisseur!

[@plan7a]

You should get the plantain leaf version, it's much rarer and the sound hasn't quite developed into the banana leaf version yet!🍌

[@jackmag4056]

I love going down memory lane with content like this , and the video quality wow!

[@matthewweflen]

4:15 Love the audio engineer stating the obvious, massive superiority of CD sound.

[@chrisburn7178]

Fast forward to 2022 and audiophiles arguing about whether vinyl or CD sounds better, and people still making £50,000 turntables.

[@Foebane72]

@@chrisburn7178 Vinyl audiophiles are STUPID.

[@chrisburn7178]

@@Foebane72 Well, not necessarily: it's a bit like saying "anyone who likes broccoli is stupid". Yeah there are lots of hobbies and interests that I find a bit hilarious, but if it gives the practicer happiness then it can't be called stupid unless we're deciding everything is gradeable on an arbitrary stupid scale 😁

[@fredroberts8275]

And then we got the loudness wars because of its greater dynamic range.

[@Yetaxa]

@@chrisburn7178 trying to argue that vinyl records have better sound quality than CD *is* stupid, because it's objectively wrong It's not about the fact that they like, it's the ludicrous lies they make up about it

[@JoseVGavila]

I saw the first CD player on a relative house, back on the first 80s. I got shocked by the price of the player, the equivalent to 3000€ back them. It was on a large room and with good audio equipment. For some years, it was just a dream for me... Now people almost throw away audio CDs. I bought a high quality piano music collection for less than 0.25€ each CD. And they sound awesome!

[@Vylkeer]

Milestone of the music distribution. A revolutionary, *compact* optical support which was capable to store many audio files with a 44.1kHz/16-bit @ 1411 kbps quality and reach 96db of amplitude. Thank you for sharing this piece of history, BBC.

[@wisteela]

Great bit of history. I love how that recording station was using a U-Matic video cassette.

[@Rudolf_Edward]

Because of that, we ended up with the ‘strange’ sample rate of 44.1 kHz.

[@Bullcutter]

@@Rudolf_Edward 44.1 is not an strange sampling frequency! It corresponds to 20KHz top frequency! It is the standard for domestic digital audio equipment. It has nothing to do with U-Matic machines being used as PCM digital audio recorders.

[@Rudolf_Edward]

@@Bullcutter Absolutely Yes. > “The rate was chosen following debate between manufacturers, notably Sony and Philips, and its implementation by Sony, yielding a de facto standard. The actual choice of rate was the point of some debate, with other alternatives including 44.1 / 1.001 ≈ 44.056 kHz (corresponding to the NTSC color field rate of 60 / 1.001 = 59.94 Hz) or approximately 44 kHz, proposed by Philips. Ultimately Sony prevailed on both sample rate (44.1 kHz)”

[@DripDripDrip69]

@@Bullcutter Early digital audio was mastered onto video tapes(look up PCM adapters) then sent to pressing plants. All the data on your 80s CDs were transferred from either VHS or Betamax tapes:kzbin.info/www/bejne/mJ-9d3-wd7Rmr8U

[@straightpipediesel]

@@DripDripDrip69 and U-Matic, as this video shows. 3:53 is a Sony PCM-1610 adapter, 3:59 is the specially modified BVU-200B U-Matic VCR, 4:02 is DAE-1100 editing processor. The 1610 was the second generation PCM adapter, it had notable quality issues.

[@201081hero]

Going out to buy music and owning a mass load of records/tapes/CD's... great days

[@AtheistOrphan]

Idly thumbing through the vinyl in Our Price.

[@mhmrules]

I'm currently enjoying those great days.

[@krashd]

@@mhmrules Lucky for some, in my city the Virgin Megastore has long since closed down, HMV only seems to sell video games now, and the second-hand music shop that used to have every band under the sun was forced to close during the pandemic.

[@PatrickIngham21]

@@krashd HMV does not sell video games anymore just cd/vinyl and pop memorabilia

[@DorianPaige00]

You still can especially if you buy second hand. If you like what was popular on the charts back then, it shouldn't be too expensive. If you like Lawrence Welk, it might be free!

[@livingthroughtv]

Can't believe how timeless the design is on that Sony CD player!

[@lucalone]

I am saying this too !!! the Sony looks timeless while the first Philips player looks really dated and in my opinion ugly.

[@arnolddill]

⁠That’s odd, since the Philips is now worth twice as much, and more sought after now than the Sony. Partly because of it’s appearance, but mostly because it sounds better.

[@nickk6518]

I can't imagine these new-fangled Cd records taking hold in the market any time soon . . .

[@plan7a]

What? I'll stick to my wind up gramophone, thank you very much! (LOL).

[@vladimirimp]

What a fascinating historical document. Looking at this from 2022; knowing that CDs were the revolution (and then some) predicted here, that they saw off vinyl and cassette, and that they were themselves seen off by streaming. And when audiophiles pined for physical media again they went back to vinyl and not CDs. Also, all those promises (that I remember) about how they'd last and couldn't be scratched turned out to be untrue. Of all the things invented in my lifetime, CDs were one of the most astonishingly futuristic. They still look like something from a sci-fi movie.

[@johnmc3862]

@@TinLeadHammer They are into sounds not visuals.

[@krashd]

SD cards were the futuristic thing for me, I remember when someone in the early 90's said you could fit an entire encyclopaedia on a CD (which Encarta later did), well now you can fit half a library on a 128GB microSD card smaller than a fingernail. A million or so books on an object small enough to get lost in your pocket or wallet.

[@vladimirimp]

@@krashd That’s a great shout. I still feel like that. Somehow still think of floppy disks at 1.5mb (or whatever they were) and then the microSD card that’s smaller than a headache pill - half a terabyte - like a million floppy disks. Absolutely astonishing.

[@vladimirimp]

@@TinLeadHammer Are you ok? Did you really take time in your day to point that out? We were having a nice discussion until you came along. What was your goal here? To make me feel bad? To make me hesitate before posting again? To demonstrate your superior knowledge? Because the meaning was quite clear even if the capitalisation was wrong. I am quite aware that we are all ignorant of most things and that is not a crime. Like your use of commas, for example.

[@vladimirimp]

@gnu_andrew Great points, Andrew. I agree. Convenience is such a big driver of change. The conversion from VHS to DVD surprised a lot of people with its speed. Some mistook ‘higher definition’ as one of the main drivers and then over estimated the appeal of BluRay as a result; the ultimate uptake being nothing like DVD. Streaming, like cassettes, was a drop in quality but the uptake was huge because of convenience. In videogames consumers have taken to digital even though they’re often more expensive than physical and you can’t sell them on. But it saves a trip to the shop and getting up from the sofa to change the game. I totally agree about vinyl. Album artwork is a lost pleasure. And as for your physical collection… you’re not wrong. To cite videogames again, for the first time games are disappearing from the world. Whereas in the past they could be preserved, now they live on servers and when switched off…that’s it. And here’s an interesting philosophical point to end on. Since games are often regularly updated after release, which version is the ‘true’ version anyway?

[@Oldgamingfart]

5:58 My Banana Leaf player has been sat gathering dust. Here's hoping for a resurgence..

[@nickhirst999]

The album 'Bananamour' by Kevin Ayers should definitely be re-issued on Banana leaf, as well as anything by 'Bananarama', of course. And the Andy Warhol album by The Velvet Underground.

[@nickhirst999]

Ah! I've just heard that EMI have got back together and are due to issue a new format in 2023. The CBL (Compact Banana Leaf).

[@Tob1Kadach1]

I'm 30 & have been buying CD's since I was about 13, I use my CD player every single day.

[@GetOffMyyLawn]

I was also an early adopter in the 1980's. A few cds in my collection have suffered from visible degradation of the metallic layer (along with playback problems), but it has only happened to 2 or 3 discs. I've converted my collection to flac and everything now fits on a single usb drive.

[@fratercontenduntocculta8161]

These old BBC docs are super interesting to me. This one was filmed on my birth year!

[@Foebane72]

Vinyl LPs suffer from wow, flutter and above all, dust, so why they're making a comeback is absolutely baffling to me.

[@michaelturner4457]

I suspect for many people vinyl LPs still suffer from wow and flutter. Those who cheaped out with their Crosleys and Victrolas.

[@ninjacat230]

Novelty, I assume

[@CaptainDarrick]

On a good , even budget , record player there is no wow and flutter these days ...

[@Solitaire001]

I think one factor is that often CDs are not properly mixed and mastered, and techniques like The Loudness War degrade the sound quality. If properly mixed and mastered from a properly played master tape CDs can sound excellent but often that is not the case and can result in the LP/45 sounding better. As an example, per the Parlogram KZbin Channel, some of the early Beatles CDs were in mono but the master tape was played on a deck with a stereo head which negatively impacted the sound quality.

[@AnthonyTolhurst-dw1nc]

Pharlaphone? Hmmmm?

[@marcelokodama238]

I am the only one amongst every single person I know that still buys CDs. Streaming is more convenient sure but it will never be the same. I love the ritual of choosing the album I want to listen, taking it out of the CD tower and putting it on the CD player.

[@VivaciousVirgO]

Streaming/iTunes is good simply because you can get access to albums that are not available on vinyl and, in many cases, never was. I call them the "lost" albums and I have MANY! Other than that, I still feel that CDs and vinyl should remain celebrated.

[@Tob1Kadach1]

I'm 30 & have been buying CD's since I was about 13, I prefer owning my music and I use my CD player everyday because unlike many people today I listen to the entire album. Still buy BluRay & DVD's too.

[@notcarolkaye]

What a fascinating snapshot in time. So great to have this online.

[@noslost-z7r]

Well he was right to say it wouldn’t instantly replace the audio formats available. If anything cassettes were yet to peak. I think EMI probably didn’t want to be lodged into a multi-year contract they couldn’t get out of. After all, many formats had dropped out in living memory. Their presence in the market also probably wouldn’t have fast forwarded the key steps necessary to make CD huge. All in all, an interesting video and a very interesting time capsule.

[@DorianPaige00]

@Zockblatt Shickleblender Some then current Capitol distributed titles as late as 1987 didn't get a cd issue in the States.

[@bukeksiansu2112]

My CDs and cassettes collection still on the rack, never spinned almost in 20 years. Today I enjoy music or movies via streaming but CD and cassette keep in my heart cos my young age spent with those things.

[@Tob1Kadach1]

I still listen to music on CD unless I'm on the go, then I still use my iPod

[@joscallinet6260]

It's interesting to know that even in 2022 - going on 2023 - people can STILL buy NEW CD players and even CD TRANSPORTS (which only READ the CD so you need to have a device to convert the CD's digits into a form our ears can recognize as music - namely, a Digital-to-Analog converter, or 'DAC' for short. The latest, best designs of these CD players and transports make WELL-RECORDED CDs (made in the days before the Loudness Wars' Digital-Compression Craze ruined them) sound amazingly good even today. Some people still prefer the sound of well-recorded-and-mastered CDs played on GOOD present-day audio equipment over the best sound that streaming audio can currently provide - although the sonic divide between the two is narrowing. ANOTHER very interesting thing about CDs today is that back in the late 1980s/early 1990s, when CDs were in their prime, Philips and Marantz manufactured some very top-of-the-line CD players (such as the Marantz CD Player CD-94 Mk 2) which sound amazingly good even by today's (late 2022) standards. I was made aware of this Marantz model and found one on eBay sold by a Ukrainian eBayer! (I was amazed that he was still doing business while his country was under siege by Russia!). When I got it, it looked in MINT condition - like it was fresh out of the box in 1991. He, the Ukrainian seller, had had it serviced, lubricated and a fresh set of drive belts for the tray mechanism installed. I had to get a 110-to-220-volt converter to run it here in the U.S. - and it works and sounds beautifully!

[@richardmccrorie5814]

I own three CD players. Two Sony players and one Cambridge audio. The Sony players are best as the Cambridge player does not play CDs gapless for some strange reason. Sometimes I get the odd disc that plays fine on one machine but not the other. Compact discs and vinyl are still my preferred listening mediums.🎶🎼

[@pcpanikMusik]

Grown up with and still buying and using them. Latest buy: Marillion - One hour before it's dark. Nothing wrong with CDs for 40 years.

[@robertdallenger96]

Good choice. I have all the Marillion albums, including both lots of the EMI remasters funnily enough.

[@BitsOfBen]

I loved CD's. Especially during the days of ripping and burning. I would go down my local library and rent the latest albums and rip the music to my computer and then transfer it to my MP3 player. Those were the days. 😂

[@marleypumpkin4917]

MP3 is junk audio.

[@BitsOfBen]

@@marleypumpkin4917 Yep. I stream now.

[@tgs1766]

So you rented top quality CDs and then ripped them to an inferior, compressed format, that didn't sound as good, and kept those for your collection. You're a criminal mastermind!

[@tgs1766]

@@BitsOfBen Streaming is no better than MP3. It's actually worse in many cases.

[@BitsOfBen]

@@tgs1766 This was like twenty years ago and I really wasn't complaining about the quality. 😂 Did the job at the time.

[@bghoody5665]

I think the guy at the 7:02 mark makes a good point which is probably why Sony eventually ended up buying most of the music producing market. So it ended up that the guys producing the music playing media, such as CDs, were also the guys producing the music.

[@alanmusicman3385]

EMI were similarly conservative in the 1990s when the threat of downloads and MP3 was becoming apparent. Along with a lot of others they were busy being convinced by various salespeople that they could somehow protect their products from being copied. Of course all of that came to nothing - as it always does with any media - because, if it can be played it can be copied - and media products that can't be played are pointless. Making media go digital seemed to a lot of people in the 1980s like a good thing. The quality was far better and the resillience of the media - whilst rather overstated in many cases - was far better than Vinyl. In 1983 a world where every home had a computer with enough storage to hold many "perfect" copies of CDs on it - didn't seem to be all that likely. However within little more than a decade, that, MP3 compression and the Internet were the things which changed the music business out of all recognition. In many ways those record companies embracing and championing CD in 1983 were unknowingly taking the first step to a world where they were no longer the sole gatekeepers between the talent and the music loving public. Many would not survive that transition and although most of the label names still exist, most major labels now belong to a very few parent companies. EMI for example is now part of the Universal Music Group. How about the 1980s EMI & CD? Well, within about 7-8 years of this film they would build a new CD making plant at Swindon in Wiltshire and become Britain's biggest CD producer for a while - producing not only EMI music CDs but also for other non-EMI labels too as well as CD-ROM products.

[@Kylefassbinderful]

To this day I still find it very impressive that a CD player extracts jumbled data blocks from a spinning disc via a laser, also containing numerous parody bytes to correct errors, and reorganize all the data blocks in order to play audio from an onboard DAC - and it was all done so incredibly fast. Simply amazing that they had this tech in the late 70s, early 80s.

[@NoosaHeads]

Definitely greater signal to noise ratio and less hiss and crackle but I still love listening to my vinyl collection. I was listening to Jennifer Warne's Famous Blue Raincoat a week ago. I have it on vinyl and on CD. The CD player is high end, as is the turntable. I honestly thought the vinyl sounded nicer. More "engaging" Some friends say I'm imagining it. Maybe they're right but I don't think so.

[@CaptainDarrick]

You're right . Records certainly engage more than CDs ...it's not always about perfection. I think a well made vinyl analogue recording on LP simply sounds more musical , more organic , than it's equivalent cd ...which are steely and harsh and fatiguing ... especially though headphones

[@justinsmith1177]

I still buy lots of CD's from charity shops, which cost less than a Mars bar nowadays.

[@DavidMander-rs4uk]

Still buying them more than ever and have a huge collection 💿👍

[@aro4491]

Just looking at my 1980's Pioneer midi system which is sitting quietly in the corner playing an LP. I worked in WH Smiths back when CDs came out, on the music counter. They weren't an overnight success; the LP remained the medium of choice for many. Some early CDs lacked the warmth of sound you got from vinyl and the players and discs were expensive in comparison.

[@squirrelarch]

Didn’t own a CD player until 1991 when a friend gave me their basic but great sounding Trio player. First CD I owned was Low by David Bowie. It was hard to love the CD in quite the same was as vinyl. It is way better audio but sadly, at least in the pop and rock market sound quality is not what people really care about. I wish they’d adapted laserdisc as a music only medium and we’d’ve had the form factor of vinyl albums with decent sized artwork and a 12’ disc that could hold both analogue and digital audio. Anyway back to the streaming service. People eh? We’re a fickle lot.

[@sen5908]

I wouldn't say trio was basic it was a expensive hifi system in its day, up there with marantz and technics

[@squirrelarch]

@@sen5908 Trio became Kenwood at some point I think. It was a great sounding player.

[@davidhunt240]

I spent time during COVID lockdowns repairing three first generation CD players; Phillips CD100, Sony CDP-101, Hitachi DA-1000R. I put the ABBA CD "The Visitors" on each one and compared them using a instrumentation analogue/digital converter and looked at how each player has a different "sound" then compared that to reading the disc digitally and calculating the difference between the original source and the player performance. The Phillips has a softer, bassier sound with more harmonics. The Sony sounds crisp and sharp, but has problems with high frequencies that move between channels. The Hitachi sits somewhere in between. Trying out blind listening tests on unsuspecting colleagues, most people preferred the Phillips for classical, choral and jazz, the Sony for pop and electronic music and the Hitachi, well, no-one could say it was better or worse. There's a nostalgia to picking up a CD, warming up the player, plugging in headphones and just listening.

[@djmattc1978]

Little did EMI know that CD's were going to be the biggest thing the music industry has ever seen.

[@SaturnusDK]

Also interesting that EMI was later bought by Sony, broken up, and sold off in bits to the highest bidder.

[@0106johnny]

@@SaturnusDKSony and Universal each got about an equally huge piece of the EMI cake.

[@Hans-gb4mv]

I can see why they were hesitant. It costs money to invest in new technology and if you are uncertain about its future, you wait a little. 3 years later, EMI had it's own CD pressing plant in the UK, so it's not like they waited too long.

[@Solitaire001]

@@Hans-gb4mv It's understandable. I waited until I was sure that CD was going to last and there were titles I wanted before I purchased a CD player and some CDs. One of the reasons that CDs succeeded was that there was no format war like there had been with VHS and Beta, and Blu-Ray and HD-DVD.

[@jamesslick4790]

0:48 any modern retailer would LOVE to have that many people in the store now!

[@deftye7582]

I’m 26 and I still lovvveee CDs. Still buy them as well

[@TheUtuber999]

While watching the video, I couldn't help but marvel at how far dental care has come along in 40-odd years. 🤭

[@VivaciousVirgO]

Snaggletooth LOL!

[@video99couk]

That piece implies that Sony brought only marketing to the show, but in fact they brought much more than that. Philips had the laser and disc pressing technology already, but more was needed. There was a joint Philips Sony task force to develop the Red Book standard. It was a fantastic co-operation between two huge companies to bring a product to market which was reliable and fit for market. Some of Philips' products (like V2000) were not really ready for mass production, but CD stood on the shoulders of Laserdisc.

[@TheCranberrySource]

It didn’t take EMI long to get on board with CD, but the hold out bit them in the end when they weren’t able to keep up with the manufacturing demand of CDs in the 1980’s.

[@plan7a]

They had to drop the banana leaves though, as they began to rot too quickly and were subject to pests and blights!!! (LOL).

[@lynb87]

Wow, it took so many years for it to become widespread and affordable.

[@Synthematix]

Vinyl was horrendous to begin with and it never improved simply because its a terrible way of storing music, CD's are still awesome, more so on a good hifi

[@joebill3400]

40 years later, still listening to CDs with no intention of changing medium in the near future.

[@theinitiate110]

Agreed. I just bought a professional Sony CD burner to make my own mixdiscs with.

[@Sisu2280]

You guys can't be serious?

[@Yetaxa]

@@Sisu2280 it's not like a superior replacement has actually appeared

[@Sisu2280]

@@Yetaxa digital files?

[@Tob1Kadach1]

​@@Sisu2280We'll still be playing our CD's when your digital files are taken away when Spotify & iTunes no longer exist.

[@DavidPaulMorgan]

to be fair, Thorn/EMI/Ferguson had a tech partnership witḣ JVC & Thomson (France). JVC were developing VHD & AHD (Video & Audio Hi Density) media discs. Theÿ could also be linked to home computers for interactive media. However, unfortunately for them, it did not take off like their VHS format. CD-A was Philips & Sony and they set the standard wheñ working together - from whicḣ we got CD-Data, CD-V, VCD and eventually DVD-Video / DVD-Data.

[@elijahmodnar1]

took 8 years, when the "bitstream" (single bit) dac chips made it possible for £99 (eventually £79) players sold at say richersounds shops in the early 90s

[@stepheng8779]

Eventually they got as low as £29 for an Eclipse cd player. Mine still works 😂 Think it was £34 if you wanted a remote.

[@phillipecook3227]

I have my entire music collection on Edison Bell Cylinder ......Fascinating watch with the benefit of almost 40 years perfect hindsight. Had completely forgotten it was developed in the Netherlands. Who in 1983 could've possibly imagined that CDs would all but wipe out LPs and 45s but would itself become obsolete due to downloads and then streaming. Sooooo to the the audiophiles and nerds out there the obvious question: in 2023 or later what will be the next big thing in recorded music?

[@djoutrage18]

@Bryrenaissanceguy an Edison fireside phonograph is what I use. I have cylinders from the 1890s on my channel that don't sound half bad for how old they are. You can hear music under the noise, whereas I have some paper label cdrs I made in the early 2000s as a kid that simply will not play now no matter what!

[@neilmorton1971]

Banana leaf player.

[@sebastianharker4892]

My very first Compact Disc was Wham - The Final, which I purchased in 1989 for about $35 New Zealand dollars, which was a stack of cash back then, it is even now.

[@卡拉永遠OK唱不完]

My late father was at the UK studying around this era 1984-1990 but he told me he used cassettes instead of CDs coz it was expensive at that time and most VA compilation were still common on LP and cassettes.

[@MichaelGrylsk-sd5ow]

i remember around 1990 the price point dropped around 99.00 for cd players or stereo systems with cd multi- player in it.thats when people started buying the players more.and they just bought a few cds not alot like between 5 to 20. also they wanted to see what favorite albums sounded like on the new players.

[@09021983]

I think EMI did the right thing. Maybe they should wait for the Mini-Disk 😊

[@rabarebra]

Agree. CD mastering were really bad in the beginning. They just slapped the already mastered thing onto it, and didn't use the full potential of the CDs dynamic range. Some of these AAD CDs I really enjoy, though, as they are not compressed to hell and back.

[@BenvanBroekhuijsen]

My first CD was BAD from Michael Jackson. I did not have a CD player at that time, but I thought it would be stupid to buy a record. So I went to my neighbour, and copied my cd to a cassette so I could listen to it. I was worried back then that the CD's would oxidize after a couple of years and no longer would be playable. Little did I know how unimportant that would become in the age of spotify and other streaming services. Oh and the CD that is now 35 years old, still works fine :D Yes the quality of spotify is worse than a CD, but also are my ears. My tinnitus makes that I can no longer hear the difference between a good quality stream and a CD. I remember being mesmerized the first time I heard a CD, it sounded so much cleaner than a record. And now the youth is reverting back to records because they think it is cool :D Heck they even buy film for their analogue camera's. Been there, done that :D no need to go back there.

[@janrdoh]

They say EMI is busy working on a cassette tape that will replace whatever is being used in the future and may even be able to play up to one hour of music.

[@DorianPaige00]

Get your pencils ready!

[@jabin4175]

2:26 "It doesn't matter if you finger it, bend it"... Yup so true

[@TheRealBobHickman]

EMI: Every Mistake Imaginable - Den Dennis, Bad News (Nigel Planer)

[@anderidamedia]

Was thinking exactly the same 😂

[@BrianSmith-lj6ug]

Bought my first cd player in 1986,it was Hinari.My first album I bought was rather embarrassingly Nik Kershaw Human Racing.😁

[@SupahFraai]

Two classic tracks on there, not at all a bad album and something I would be embarrassed about :)

[@CountScarlioni]

Not embarrassing at all. It's a good album!

[@spooley]

My 1st was Bowie's Let's Dance, mainly because it was available along with maybe 10 others locally. Would have preferred Station to Station or some Beatles.

[@theflipflapchannelcreatedb8160]

As an Aussie-accented Brit, I am proud to hear, honoring Down Under by Men At Work in this archive vintage of a video! 😂😂😂

[@johnmiller0000]

Better than any streaming format quality

[@johnmc3862]

Not so. Hi-res audio(24bit)is higher than CD💿 (16bit),offered with Tidal, Apple streaming etc.

[@johnmiller0000]

@@johnmc3862 nothing to do with bit resolution

[@stepheng8779]

@@johnmc3862 you swallowed the snake oil 🤦

[@CrystalityCrystals]

the highlight of this episode was at 6:04 when the EMI man said they would publish on banana leaves if the public wants 😆

[@jurysout1]

"The Arabs..." I remember back in 1973/74 how the big record companies were treated with derision when they put up the price of an LP between 50p and a pound. The cost of the oil used in a vinyl LP after Yom Kippur war was less than 5p at the very most proving that the record majors simply wanted to make more money. Twas ever thus.

[@Saor_Alba]

EMI opened its first-ever CD factory in Swindon in 1986, by not adopting CDs from the beginning cost the company a lot in market share. Their sales consistently dropped from 1983 when this program was broadcast and the company struggled for some time for coming late to their decision to adopt the CD.

[@BillyJango]

I was 10 in 1983. I'd never heard of a CD back then. I didn't buy a CD player until 1998!

[@gotham61]

When they came out, I remember saying I would buy a CD player when they fell below $200, thinking that would never happen. I bought my first one in early 1986.

[@briancoyne6700]

Only time will tell

[@manzoman96]

And now EMI isn't around anymore to miss out on the next one

[@simonmcglary]

There was an audio equipment shop in my home town that didn’t stock CD players, “You can’t record on them!” They closed shortly after recordable CDs hit the market!

[@dobromirvidev9262]

That report aged really well. Not only because a guy from 1983 talks about the need people to buy new software....

[@Kim_Jong_Un_2023]

Where can I buy this invention

[@nkenchington6575]

All of my old CDs play perfectly. Mind you, they're being played on an Accuphase DP-450.

[@british31]

U-Matic 3/4 inch tape, never knew they also used it as a multitrack. :p

[@AussieTVMusic]

I have a huge box full of CDs from the 80s. They sound better than later CDs. Vinyl is too much hard work and they don't sound that great after a few yrs.

[@telliott]

I was around and listening to music back then and by the mid '80s, most music listeners either had or wanted a CD player.. EMI was releasing CDs by then but took too long to release older classic titles like Beatles and Beach Boys albums.

[@JAFOpty]

do they still charge royalties for CD?

[@NubianPrince85]

Whooohoooo! How times have changed 😃

[@twitchygiraffe4636]

you know it’s funny how things turn out? Everyone now likes the imperfections of vinyl so that’s come back, but I think it was largely down to online blogging hipsters as to why that is so popular now, so the one thing the record labels couldn’t predict in the early 80’s is that there would be this thing called the internet that slightly luddited hipsters (ironically using it!) would influence people to go back not forward in their choice of music format?! Now both old vinyl and cassettes from about 30 years ago have sky rocketed in price thanks to that lot! Cheers?!

[@rabarebra]

No, it is not hipster thing. It's because of its sound quality. Do you think it be around for this long if not? Not a chance. I still play the records I bought in the 70s, 80s, 90s, and 2000s, till this very day. I like all the formats, though, but vinyl records always sounds better. I'm not so into buying reissues, but I understand those who didn't get those records and can't find records in good condition wants to experience the high quality of a needle physically impaling a record groove. Can you clean and wash a MP3 file or streaming provider with distilled water and isopropanol? No, you can't. Streamer-only-hipster!

[@DyenamicFilms]

I still have most of my records, 8 tracks and cassettes from the 70's and 80's. 8-10 years seemed about right for CD's to catch on with the masses. I didn't buy my first CD until 1992 (I did feel late to the party), though I only first took notice of CD's in 1988. I remember when CD's first came in those long boxes which always seemed wasteful, but from what I understand, the boxes were designed so they can easily fit two CD boxes into the record shelves in the stores. Two CD boxes were the same size as one record. CD's do sound better than digital MP3 files, but you can't beat the convenience of MP3.

[@stepheng8779]

Except that you don't own anything

[@DorianPaige00]

@@stepheng8779 And you'll be happy..........not!

[@PerfectHandProductions]

Gonna have to get me some of these compact discs.

[@ajs41]

He was right about 8 to 10 years. We didn't buy our first CD player until early 1992.

[@robinvanags912]

Got my first that same year - a Sony machine that, 30 years on sounds as good as ever - I hope yours does too!

[@rabarebra]

1988

[@ajs41]

@@robinvanags912 It works okay, except that the little drawer that opens in order to insert the disc plays up quite often. Sometimes it doesn't open properly, and other times it keeps opening and closing multiple times.

[@ajs41]

@@rabarebra My uncle, who was a lot better off than us because he worked in the City of London, got a CD player around 1988 when they were more expensive. I think they were a lot cheaper by the early 1990s.

[@robinvanags912]

@@ajs41 Mine stopped opening altogether last year - a new belt for less than £5 solved that. I'm sorry I don't know the answer to your drawer situation.

[@endezeichengrimm]

Pure, perfect sound forever! But seriously though, don't thumb or throw them around.

[@-_James_-]

But it's ok to finger them, apparently.

[@endezeichengrimm]

@@-_James_- Only in the middle. Use lotion when you do.

[@SimonLloydGuitar]

My Dad had a brand new Phillips CD player as pictured here. It stopped working a few years ago but he still has it. The CD was (and still is) remarkable technology, and through a good high end system, reveals a quality that is astonishing and vastly underrated. We have gone backwards..Most people like to MP3 (lower quality than a cassette) and in mono!

[@alanpern]

Who knew then that the entire digital content of these discs would be uploaded to Napster 😮

[@Traveller69]

Still have my 1984 Phillips Personal Stereo (Walkman) Tape Player and yes obviously whilst the clunky nature of track select remains antiquated, the actual sound quality with current headphones far outweighs either CD or digital input from Spotify etc.

[@christianherzog76]

Nobody is talking about Man at work playing "down under" in the opening sequence 😄👌

[@MultiKs22]

yes CD's are very ideal to store and very easy to clean and play. the only thing is CDs they can skip and give up playing entirely with out any reason . some cd players can actually machine scratch's. your disc leaving surface marks which wont effect the playing of the disc but sometimes periodically the scratch the disc causing irreparable damage .by then you will have to throw the cd away and buy another new one to replace it. when I first bought CDs in 1991 on the sleeve notes they would always tell you no to touch the playing part of the disc only holding it by side edges to avoid pawn marks and dirt on the disc and when finishing playing but them back in the box and store in cool place. Philips manufactures would always emphasize that in their sleeves note as well on complications albums. Ian smith in his report from this 1983 documentary telling the people you can touch it scratch it or bend it and it wont effect the disc in any format which was bit misleading to the buyers of cds. personally the have life expectancy it all depends how much you play them over the years

[@r4zi3lgintoro65]

it took like 6 years for CD to took off.... image Blu-ray would only start taking traction in 2012 (or any HD video format)

[@vitajazz]

"lovely new toy.." EMI finally gave in to the CD revolution in 1986, with among their first releases being the Beatles. It's worth noting that EMI had used digital or bitstream recording from third parties for some classical music since the mid 1970s.

[@nikolabulic4821]

In beginning of demonstration there is an Philips CD100 in action,and inside,there is CDM-0 transport. The most reliable,and probably,one of the best ever maded...even Sony's BU1E or VRDS from Teac aren't close to this beast.

[@stefanegger]

I DO HAVE EMI CDs.I saw it before on the small print.