WEBVTT - Rise of the CD 0:00:04.240 --> 0:00:07.240 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios, 0:00:07.320 --> 0:00:14.080 How Stuff Works. Hey there, everyone, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:14.120 --> 0:00:16.439 I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:18.319 How Stuff Works and I heart Radio and a love 0:00:18.720 --> 0:00:23.400 things tech. And we are continuing our epic series about 0:00:23.440 --> 0:00:28.880 the evolution of media, of recorded media specifically and our 0:00:28.920 --> 0:00:31.920 relationship with it and how that has changed over the years. 0:00:32.680 --> 0:00:36.240 And uh, you know, I started with the earliest days 0:00:36.240 --> 0:00:39.920 of consumer media, stuff like wax cylinders. By earliest days, 0:00:39.960 --> 0:00:42.760 I mean like media you could play back and experience, 0:00:43.120 --> 0:00:45.920 not stuff like sheet music or or written plays or 0:00:45.960 --> 0:00:48.199 things like that. And we're gonna be leading all the 0:00:48.240 --> 0:00:51.680 way up to today's streaming formats in this series. And 0:00:51.680 --> 0:00:53.640 in our last episode, I covered the birth of the 0:00:53.720 --> 0:00:57.000 video cassette, and I talked about the very early days 0:00:57.080 --> 0:01:00.200 of the compact disc. But I want to folk it's 0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:04.399 more on CDs in this episode because they are very important. Uh. 0:01:04.440 --> 0:01:08.520 They played a big part in sort of the transformation 0:01:08.560 --> 0:01:12.120 of music. So in order for us to understand the 0:01:12.240 --> 0:01:17.679 era of digital files and then eventually the the migration 0:01:17.760 --> 0:01:20.560 to streaming services, we have to understand more about c 0:01:20.680 --> 0:01:23.080 d s. And I talked a bit about the development 0:01:23.200 --> 0:01:26.480 of the c D standard, the compact disc standard, and 0:01:26.520 --> 0:01:29.600 the format of the compact disc in that last episode, 0:01:29.840 --> 0:01:32.840 and how the Audio CD debuted on the market way 0:01:32.880 --> 0:01:35.800 back in n two. But I should give a bit 0:01:35.840 --> 0:01:39.840 more background on some of those standards. I mentioned that 0:01:39.959 --> 0:01:44.280 the alleged reason that compact discs measure twelve centimeters in 0:01:44.319 --> 0:01:47.960 diameter is because an executive at Sony felt a single 0:01:48.040 --> 0:01:50.440 compact disc should be able to fit a full recording 0:01:50.480 --> 0:01:53.920 of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony on it. Sony had partnered with 0:01:53.960 --> 0:01:58.480 the company Phillips on developing this compact disc standard, and 0:01:58.560 --> 0:02:03.280 Phillips owned a subsidiary, uh and it was PolyGram Records. 0:02:03.320 --> 0:02:06.920 So PolyGram Records is music label. And the longest recording 0:02:07.160 --> 0:02:11.840 of Beethoven's Ninth that was in PolyGram's catalog was seventy 0:02:11.840 --> 0:02:14.840 four minutes long. So to fit seventy four minutes of 0:02:14.880 --> 0:02:18.400 audio on a compact disc using the standards they had 0:02:18.480 --> 0:02:21.880 arrived at would require a disc of at least twelve 0:02:21.919 --> 0:02:25.200 centimeters in diameter. Now again I said the beginning of 0:02:25.240 --> 0:02:28.520 all that allegedly because sometimes these things just turn out 0:02:28.520 --> 0:02:33.200 to be legends and not actually true, And I honestly 0:02:33.240 --> 0:02:35.840 don't know if that legend is true or not. It 0:02:35.880 --> 0:02:37.680 may well be. I hope it is. It's kind of 0:02:37.680 --> 0:02:40.480 a cool little way of saying that's why c d 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:43.080 s are the size that they are. Now, it wasn't 0:02:43.120 --> 0:02:47.600 just music that determined that size, right, It wasn't just 0:02:47.760 --> 0:02:51.800 the fact that Beethoven's Symphony is seventy four minutes, because 0:02:52.880 --> 0:02:55.360 why did seventy four minutes take up that much space 0:02:55.400 --> 0:02:57.880 as opposed to less space or more space? Well, the 0:02:57.960 --> 0:03:02.040 sample rate and the bit encoding played a big part 0:03:02.080 --> 0:03:05.160 in that. So sample rate refers to how many times 0:03:05.240 --> 0:03:09.040 you measure something, how many measurements you're taking per unit 0:03:09.120 --> 0:03:12.519 of time, And in this case with audio, uh, we're 0:03:12.560 --> 0:03:17.360 talking about measuring some sort of level of audio energy 0:03:17.800 --> 0:03:21.680 per unit of time. Frequency is typically what we're talking about. 0:03:22.040 --> 0:03:25.480 So the more times you sample audio per second, the 0:03:25.560 --> 0:03:29.600 closer the recording will resemble the original audio, And each 0:03:29.639 --> 0:03:32.880 sample has a certain amount of data associated with it. 0:03:33.120 --> 0:03:35.920 The more samples you take per second, the more data 0:03:36.040 --> 0:03:38.680 you're going to have to represent whatever it is that 0:03:38.720 --> 0:03:42.280 you've measured. So with audio CDs, Sony and Phillips decide 0:03:42.280 --> 0:03:45.280 on a sample rate of forty four point one killer hurts. 0:03:45.320 --> 0:03:49.800 That's forty four thousand, one hundred samples per second. So 0:03:49.840 --> 0:03:52.920 why forty four point one killer hurts? Why arrive at 0:03:52.960 --> 0:03:55.680 that number? Was it arbitrary? Well, and now it has 0:03:55.720 --> 0:03:58.480 to do with something called the Nyquist rate. So Harry 0:03:58.600 --> 0:04:05.200 Nyquist was an electric electronic engineer and he studied signal processing, 0:04:05.280 --> 0:04:07.640 and his work was what prompted the adoption of the 0:04:07.760 --> 0:04:14.520 term niquist rate and niquist limit um. So this explains 0:04:14.640 --> 0:04:19.520 a phenomena. It says that for any finite bandwidth signal, 0:04:20.120 --> 0:04:23.479 you need to sample the signal at twice the frequency 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:26.719 range of that signal in order to capture all of 0:04:26.760 --> 0:04:31.640 the information represented within it. So if a signals frequency, 0:04:31.800 --> 0:04:34.359 let's don't worry about audio. Just say that you've got 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:36.640 some sort of signal, and you say you've got a 0:04:36.640 --> 0:04:41.000 frequency that ranges from ten killer hurts to sixty killer hurts. 0:04:41.640 --> 0:04:44.719 The full range of frequencies there is fifty kill hurts 0:04:44.800 --> 0:04:48.080 right ten to sixty that's a fifty killer hurts range. 0:04:48.640 --> 0:04:53.039 To sample that bandwidth and to get all the information 0:04:53.360 --> 0:04:56.360 that is associated with that signal so that you're you're 0:04:56.400 --> 0:04:59.000 not losing anything, you would need a sample rate of 0:04:59.040 --> 0:05:03.080 at least one hundred killer hurts. That's twice the frequency range. 0:05:03.120 --> 0:05:06.039 The range was fifty, you double that. That's a hunry 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:09.920 killer hurts. That's your niquist rate. But how do you 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:13.640 come up with a single standard sampling rate for all 0:05:13.680 --> 0:05:18.240 audio recording? After all, a complex, nuanced piece of music 0:05:18.720 --> 0:05:22.080 there has a lot of very low pitch, very high 0:05:22.080 --> 0:05:24.919 pitch music in it could have a much greater range 0:05:24.920 --> 0:05:28.719 of frequencies than a simple pop song. And that's not 0:05:28.800 --> 0:05:31.800 me putting down pop music. I happen to love pop music. 0:05:31.839 --> 0:05:35.839 But how do you apply one set of rules to 0:05:36.000 --> 0:05:39.960 all music? Well, Sony and Phillips engineers agreed on forty 0:05:40.000 --> 0:05:43.440 four point one killer hurts because we generally say that 0:05:43.520 --> 0:05:46.880 the range of human hearing goes from twenty hurts to 0:05:47.000 --> 0:05:50.919 twenty killer hurts. So, in other words, any sounds that 0:05:50.960 --> 0:05:54.559 have a frequency below twenty hurts are too low pitch 0:05:54.680 --> 0:05:57.120 for us to hear, and any sounds with a frequency 0:05:57.200 --> 0:06:00.320 higher than twenty killer hurts are too high pit for 0:06:00.400 --> 0:06:03.400 us to hear. So a CDs sample rate is forty 0:06:03.440 --> 0:06:05.640 four point one killer hurts to be able to capture 0:06:05.680 --> 0:06:09.039 all the perceptible information in an audio piece with a 0:06:09.040 --> 0:06:11.520 little bit of wiggle room. But that's just part of 0:06:11.520 --> 0:06:14.960 the picture. Sure, we're measuring audio at forty four thousand, 0:06:14.960 --> 0:06:17.520 one times per second. But another thing we have to 0:06:17.560 --> 0:06:21.160 think about is how detailed are we getting with those measurements. 0:06:21.560 --> 0:06:25.160 Sony and Phillips decided on a sixteen bit audio bit 0:06:25.279 --> 0:06:29.880 depth that gives us sixty five thousand, five hundred thirty 0:06:29.920 --> 0:06:33.440 six possible ways to describe the audio energy in a 0:06:33.560 --> 0:06:37.720 sound file. So, in other words, you have that many 0:06:37.800 --> 0:06:42.080 degrees to describe the sound in in terms of its frequency. 0:06:42.240 --> 0:06:45.680 And uh, obviously the more degrees you have, the more 0:06:45.720 --> 0:06:49.880 precise you can be with that measurement. So it's pretty precise. 0:06:50.400 --> 0:06:54.240 It's it's not you know, it's not flawless, but it's 0:06:54.240 --> 0:06:56.520 pretty precise. Now, if we do a bit of math, 0:06:57.000 --> 0:06:59.600 we see that the bit rate or amount of information 0:06:59.640 --> 0:07:03.080 we need to describe the audio ends up being one 0:07:03.200 --> 0:07:09.320 point three five megabits per second. Now that's megabits, not megabytes. Remember, 0:07:09.360 --> 0:07:12.000 a bit is a single unit of information. It's either 0:07:12.080 --> 0:07:15.000 a zero or a one, whereas a byte is a 0:07:15.040 --> 0:07:19.360 collection of eight bits. Okay, so one point three five 0:07:19.600 --> 0:07:22.760 megabits per second is what we get for sixteen bit 0:07:22.840 --> 0:07:26.200 audio sampled at forty four point one killer hurts or 0:07:26.320 --> 0:07:31.280 Cede equality. That means a minute of stereo audio ends 0:07:31.360 --> 0:07:35.440 up being about ten megabytes of information storage space. So 0:07:35.600 --> 0:07:38.800 the amount of data per second, coupled with the total 0:07:38.840 --> 0:07:43.000 storage time is what dictated the CD form factor. Also, 0:07:43.560 --> 0:07:47.960 these were standards for consumer compact discs and compact displayers. 0:07:48.200 --> 0:07:51.600 In the professional audio world, the sampling rate for recording 0:07:51.640 --> 0:07:55.120 and duplicating tends to be forty eight killer hurts or higher, 0:07:55.440 --> 0:07:58.640 and that generates way more data per second than the 0:07:58.680 --> 0:08:03.240 lower sampling rates. But that was for the professional processing 0:08:03.320 --> 0:08:07.320 as opposed to consumer grade c d s and CD players. Also, 0:08:07.400 --> 0:08:10.320 this is a really good reminder that digital formats are 0:08:10.360 --> 0:08:15.480 inherently different from analog formats. In analog, you don't slice 0:08:15.560 --> 0:08:18.240 up the audio energy levels like you do with digital. 0:08:18.600 --> 0:08:21.840 It's sort of a seamless experience, at least to human perception. 0:08:21.840 --> 0:08:25.160 It's seamless. So with digital, you're taking what seems to 0:08:25.200 --> 0:08:29.320 be a smooth, unbroken sound, and effectively you're chopping it 0:08:29.400 --> 0:08:32.840 up and describing it at each instance for a certain 0:08:32.920 --> 0:08:38.480 number of instances per second. In this case, but these 0:08:38.480 --> 0:08:41.920 sections are so small that to us, to our perception, 0:08:42.040 --> 0:08:44.480 it doesn't really sound chopped up at all, at least 0:08:44.480 --> 0:08:46.440 if if you're doing the whole thing correctly, it doesn't 0:08:46.480 --> 0:08:49.360 sound chopped up. Still, this approach meant that audio files 0:08:49.360 --> 0:08:53.040 who swear by vinyl would often reject the very concept 0:08:53.200 --> 0:08:56.320 of digital music. There are those who argue that because 0:08:56.320 --> 0:08:59.440 CDs have a sample rate at all means they cannot 0:08:59.480 --> 0:09:02.920 possible capture all the information of an audio performance. And 0:09:02.960 --> 0:09:06.600 while you might say that the sounds not captured might 0:09:06.600 --> 0:09:09.360 be outside the range of human hearing, they might somehow 0:09:09.360 --> 0:09:12.560 shape other sounds in the recording in ways that aren't 0:09:12.600 --> 0:09:17.079 replicable in digital formats and only happen as we actively 0:09:17.120 --> 0:09:21.559 listen to analog music. So the sounds we can't hear 0:09:22.000 --> 0:09:26.079 might affect sounds we do hear, But if those are 0:09:26.160 --> 0:09:29.560 never captured on digital recording, if they are blocked from 0:09:29.559 --> 0:09:33.360 being recorded, then we'll be hearing something we weren't meant 0:09:33.400 --> 0:09:36.599 to hear. On top of that, if there are frequencies 0:09:36.640 --> 0:09:39.840 that are greater than the niquist rate, those frequencies are 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:42.800 attenuated and end up being at a lower frequency than 0:09:42.840 --> 0:09:47.079 they should, which is called aliasing. Aliasing is a real problem, 0:09:47.480 --> 0:09:51.360 and so to address that, engineers designed analog to digital 0:09:51.440 --> 0:09:55.080 converters or A d c s, and they incorporate a 0:09:55.120 --> 0:09:57.760 low pass filter. The ideas the filter kind of acts 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:01.480 like a bouncer at a nightclub. If a frequency in 0:10:01.520 --> 0:10:05.160 an analog audio source would be higher than twenty two 0:10:05.160 --> 0:10:08.040 point oh five killer hurts, which is the niquist limit 0:10:08.200 --> 0:10:11.120 for c d s. Since it's half the niquist rate 0:10:11.120 --> 0:10:13.960 of forty four point one killer hurts, then the filter 0:10:14.200 --> 0:10:17.200 doesn't let that frequency through the converter. It says, sorry, sorry, 0:10:17.240 --> 0:10:19.600 you're too high pitched, we're not laying you in. That 0:10:19.679 --> 0:10:23.040 information uh never makes it to the recording. In other words, 0:10:23.080 --> 0:10:25.559 it gets blocked. Now, if the A d C is 0:10:25.600 --> 0:10:29.280 well designed and really well implemented, the recorded audio shouldn't 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:32.320 really be affected in that case. But early A d 0:10:32.360 --> 0:10:34.480 c s were a bit primitive and sometimes they could 0:10:34.520 --> 0:10:39.240 degrade audio quality, giving music lovers ammunition in the vitriolic 0:10:39.400 --> 0:10:43.959 analog versus digital debate. And I'll probably touch on audio 0:10:44.000 --> 0:10:47.800 file objections now and again through the rest of this series, 0:10:47.840 --> 0:10:51.480 but let's get back to information storage. You store information 0:10:51.480 --> 0:10:55.080 on CDs in the form of little pits and and 0:10:55.200 --> 0:10:58.600 flat sections really, and a CD player has a laser 0:10:58.640 --> 0:11:00.679 that scans across the surf so of the c D 0:11:01.240 --> 0:11:04.360 and it detects these pits or the smooth sections. And 0:11:04.400 --> 0:11:07.920 these are very very small features on the c D. 0:11:08.240 --> 0:11:09.959 On a casual glance, you would never see them. You 0:11:10.000 --> 0:11:12.080 would really need to look super close, like with a 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:14.880 microscope to be able to see them. These sections on 0:11:14.920 --> 0:11:18.480 the c D represent zeros and ones, the binary digital 0:11:18.559 --> 0:11:23.559 information that the player will decode and then interpret as audio. 0:11:24.679 --> 0:11:27.960 On top of that, the laser starts from the inside 0:11:28.120 --> 0:11:31.760 edge of the c D and works outward in a spiral. 0:11:31.800 --> 0:11:34.480 It's sort of the reverse of a vinyl album. So 0:11:34.520 --> 0:11:37.360 if you wanted to listen to a full vinyl album, 0:11:37.720 --> 0:11:40.280 you would put the needle or stylus on the outer 0:11:40.480 --> 0:11:43.720 edge of that album, and as the record turns on 0:11:43.800 --> 0:11:47.280 the turntable, the stylus makes its way down the spiral 0:11:47.559 --> 0:11:51.120 path of the groove, slowly moving towards the center of 0:11:51.160 --> 0:11:53.240 the record until it gets to the end of that side. 0:11:53.679 --> 0:11:56.680 C D s go the other way. The laser positions 0:11:56.720 --> 0:11:59.000 itself near the center for the beginning of the album, 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:01.640 and then slow he moves outward toward the edge as 0:12:01.640 --> 0:12:05.160 the album continues to play. The music industry's response to 0:12:05.200 --> 0:12:11.080 the introduction of this technology wasn't immediately overwhelming. Music studios 0:12:11.080 --> 0:12:14.160 thought was interesting, but a lot of the retail establishments 0:12:14.400 --> 0:12:17.679 kind of resisted. Uh. They expressed some reluctance, and they 0:12:17.679 --> 0:12:21.120 gave a lot of different reasons for their pessimism. One 0:12:21.160 --> 0:12:24.720 perceived shortcoming was that c D s are much smaller 0:12:24.760 --> 0:12:28.120 than vinyl records, and that meant they might more easily 0:12:28.160 --> 0:12:30.960 be stolen. So there was a worry about shoplifting that 0:12:31.040 --> 0:12:33.280 these the c d s. Because of their form factor, 0:12:33.360 --> 0:12:37.280 you could probably shove one under your jacket and casually 0:12:37.280 --> 0:12:38.960 walk out of the record store and no one would 0:12:38.960 --> 0:12:42.600 be able to notice. Whereas vinyl albums took up more space, 0:12:42.760 --> 0:12:44.480 it was harder to to get away with that kind 0:12:44.480 --> 0:12:47.600 of stuff. One of the ways that some retailers tried 0:12:47.640 --> 0:12:52.840 to fix this perceived problem was in the packaging see PolyGram. 0:12:52.880 --> 0:12:55.480 The division over at Phillips had come up with what 0:12:55.559 --> 0:12:58.400 would become the standard CD case, also known as the 0:12:58.480 --> 0:13:02.000 jewel case. The purpose of the case was to protect 0:13:02.000 --> 0:13:04.720 the reflective surface of the c D that's the side 0:13:04.720 --> 0:13:07.840 that actually contains all the information on it, and the 0:13:07.880 --> 0:13:10.720 cases needed to hold that c D in place so 0:13:10.760 --> 0:13:13.800 it didn't slide around because it could potentially get scratched 0:13:13.840 --> 0:13:16.199 up if it slid around, And the case needed to 0:13:16.240 --> 0:13:19.679 be fairly inexpensive to produce, because otherwise it was going 0:13:19.720 --> 0:13:23.040 to add to the already premium price of a compact disc. 0:13:23.679 --> 0:13:26.680 The original jewel cases were thicker than the ones that 0:13:26.679 --> 0:13:30.080 would come on later, and the original ones were less 0:13:30.080 --> 0:13:33.079 likely to break. They were much more resilient. But as 0:13:33.080 --> 0:13:36.360 competition drove companies to find ways to cut costs, many 0:13:36.360 --> 0:13:39.160 would take liberties with the design of the jewel cases 0:13:39.400 --> 0:13:42.720 and make them with less plastic material, make them thinner 0:13:42.760 --> 0:13:46.640 and less dirty. In North America, retailers would put the 0:13:46.679 --> 0:13:50.640 CD jewel cases in what we're called long boxes. These 0:13:50.640 --> 0:13:53.839 packages were twelve inches in length that's about thirty point 0:13:53.920 --> 0:13:58.880 five centimeters. This was way longer than a jewel case was, 0:13:59.040 --> 0:14:01.800 but it meant that the boxes could easily fit in 0:14:01.880 --> 0:14:06.480 the displays that had previously held LP vinyl records, because 0:14:06.480 --> 0:14:10.240 that was about the same height as a vinyl record sleeve. 0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:13.880 So long boxes required special art or they were in 0:14:13.920 --> 0:14:16.600 generic white boxes that had sort of a a clear 0:14:16.679 --> 0:14:18.800 panel that would allow you to see the cover art 0:14:18.960 --> 0:14:21.760 on the jewel case that was inside the box. The 0:14:21.800 --> 0:14:24.760 boxes were also harder to hide under a jacket or something, 0:14:24.800 --> 0:14:26.920 so they were thought of as a sort of theft 0:14:27.040 --> 0:14:30.400 deterrent strategy, but they were also really wasteful, and after 0:14:30.440 --> 0:14:35.280 pressure from several different fronts, including artists and consumers and 0:14:35.480 --> 0:14:39.920 environmental advocacy groups, it forced the industry's hand in the 0:14:40.000 --> 0:14:43.960 long box, said Farewell, and retailers focused on selling CDs 0:14:44.040 --> 0:14:46.680 that were just in the jewel case, albeit with other 0:14:46.760 --> 0:14:49.880 anti theft measures put in place in you know, in 0:14:50.000 --> 0:14:54.640 order to again deter that shoplifting. One retailer said that 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:57.000 the smaller size might actually make consumers feel like they're 0:14:57.000 --> 0:15:00.520 not getting enough for their money, which I personally pretty 0:15:00.520 --> 0:15:04.000 funny since most people I know weren't thinking about the 0:15:04.040 --> 0:15:07.160 physical media so much as the experience to listening to 0:15:07.200 --> 0:15:10.280 the music that was stored on that media, And there 0:15:10.320 --> 0:15:13.360 was a reluctance to invest in a technology that would 0:15:13.400 --> 0:15:17.000 require retailers to double up on their inventories because they 0:15:17.000 --> 0:15:20.040 would have to carry both vinyl records and c d s, 0:15:20.800 --> 0:15:24.800 or later on cassettes and CDs. That was something that 0:15:24.840 --> 0:15:27.680 the retailers were forced to do. As cassette tape sales 0:15:27.800 --> 0:15:31.720 grew beyond vinyl sales, they were supporting vinyl and cassettes, 0:15:31.760 --> 0:15:34.800 and then some were even doing vinyl, cassettes and CDs 0:15:34.880 --> 0:15:37.160 all at the same time. I was a kid in 0:15:37.200 --> 0:15:40.480 the eighties and I was completely unaware of CDs until 0:15:40.640 --> 0:15:43.440 very late in the nineteen eighties. I always thought music 0:15:43.520 --> 0:15:46.680 was essentially available either on vinyl albums or This was 0:15:46.720 --> 0:15:49.120 way more common the cassette tape when I was a kid. 0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:53.280 That's largely because when CD players first came out, they 0:15:53.280 --> 0:15:58.840 were incredibly expensive, prohibitively so for my budget. So when 0:15:58.840 --> 0:16:01.200 we come back, I'll talk a little bit about what 0:16:01.320 --> 0:16:04.880 the earliest CD player was like and how much it cost, 0:16:05.400 --> 0:16:08.520 and then we'll talk more about the evolution of the 0:16:08.520 --> 0:16:12.480 compact disc as a medium itself. But first let's take 0:16:12.680 --> 0:16:23.560 a quick break, all right. So I left off talking 0:16:23.600 --> 0:16:27.480 about how the first CD players were really expensive. Let's 0:16:27.520 --> 0:16:30.600 look at an example. The first consumer c D audio 0:16:30.680 --> 0:16:33.960 player to hit the market was Sony's c D P 0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:39.040 one oh one that retailed for nine D dollars as 0:16:39.040 --> 0:16:42.280 the base model. It was an even grand if you 0:16:42.320 --> 0:16:44.680 wanted to get the unit that had a remote control, 0:16:44.880 --> 0:16:48.480 a little infrared remote control you could use. Adjusted for inflation, 0:16:49.080 --> 0:16:51.480 that would be the same as about two thousand, three 0:16:51.600 --> 0:16:55.480 hundred to two thousand five fifty dollars today just for 0:16:55.520 --> 0:16:59.160 a CD player, not like a full stereo system with 0:16:59.200 --> 0:17:03.440 speakers and everything. The CDs themselves cost about thirty dollars 0:17:03.480 --> 0:17:06.919 a piece, which, again if we adjust for inflation, is 0:17:06.960 --> 0:17:10.880 today about seventy six dollars. So just imagine that albums 0:17:10.920 --> 0:17:14.800 costing more than seventy five bucks a pop. You really 0:17:15.040 --> 0:17:17.680 better like that band before you PLoP down the cash 0:17:17.720 --> 0:17:20.960 for their latest album. I found a review for the 0:17:21.080 --> 0:17:24.960 c d P one ah one player online which revealed 0:17:25.000 --> 0:17:28.879 some other interesting tedbits. For example, the prototype model that 0:17:28.960 --> 0:17:33.800 Sony had shown off earlier UH played discs vertically, with 0:17:33.920 --> 0:17:36.840 the playing surface parallel to the front of the player. 0:17:37.400 --> 0:17:39.240 The c d P one oh one went with what 0:17:39.359 --> 0:17:43.240 would become the more traditional orientation for most CD players, 0:17:43.680 --> 0:17:47.000 with a horizontal tray that would slide out to accept 0:17:47.000 --> 0:17:50.199 a c D before sliding back into the player. The 0:17:50.240 --> 0:17:53.240 review also went into how the CD would allow you 0:17:53.320 --> 0:17:55.399 to do things that you couldn't do with other types 0:17:55.440 --> 0:17:58.920 of recorded media and allowed you to to skip to 0:17:59.080 --> 0:18:02.919 specific track X or sometimes they call them bands on 0:18:03.160 --> 0:18:05.720 the CD, not bands as in musical bands, but bands 0:18:05.760 --> 0:18:09.920 is in bands of of recording, so track one, track 0:18:09.960 --> 0:18:12.960 two or band one band two made it really easy 0:18:13.040 --> 0:18:16.080 to select a specific passage or song on the c D. 0:18:16.520 --> 0:18:19.480 And it also the review marveled and how you could 0:18:19.520 --> 0:18:21.840 quickly skim through a track and you could hear a 0:18:21.880 --> 0:18:24.120 sped up version of the music as you were going through, 0:18:24.160 --> 0:18:27.760 either fast boarding or rewinding. But while it was sped up, 0:18:27.800 --> 0:18:30.800 it didn't increase in pitch. You know, if you increase 0:18:30.880 --> 0:18:35.680 the rotational speed of a turntable, then the pitch of 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:40.440 the record increases as well, something that lead to never 0:18:40.680 --> 0:18:44.040 ending hours of entertainment. When I would put a thirty 0:18:44.119 --> 0:18:48.240 three rpm record on a turntable but switched the turntable 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:51.679 to forty five rpm so that everything sounded like it 0:18:51.680 --> 0:18:54.600 was sung by the chipmunks. You really haven't listened to 0:18:54.640 --> 0:18:58.000 Pink Floyd's the Wall until you've listened to the Chipmunks 0:18:58.119 --> 0:19:02.080 saying Pink Floyd's the Wall. Anyway, that didn't happen with 0:19:02.119 --> 0:19:05.720 CDs because it was in a digital format. It wasn't 0:19:05.760 --> 0:19:08.199 an analog signal that was being sped up and with 0:19:08.280 --> 0:19:13.200 a pitch increasing. It was literally just skipping through the 0:19:13.240 --> 0:19:18.520 digital file, so you would get this sped up effect, 0:19:18.840 --> 0:19:23.320 but the pitch remained the same. Another option that the 0:19:23.359 --> 0:19:27.240 review mentioned was the option to play a track on repeat. 0:19:27.960 --> 0:19:31.439 Apparently that merited special mentioned because it's again something that 0:19:31.480 --> 0:19:35.080 you could not easily do on vinyl or cassette. Uh. 0:19:35.359 --> 0:19:37.600 You could do it like if you listen to a 0:19:37.600 --> 0:19:41.040 particular track on vinyl, after that track has finished playing, 0:19:41.080 --> 0:19:43.960 you could get up, walk over to the turntable, gently 0:19:44.040 --> 0:19:47.480 lift the stylus, gently move it back to the beginning 0:19:47.520 --> 0:19:49.600 of that track, drop it back down, and listen to 0:19:49.640 --> 0:19:53.439 it again. Cassettes were worse because you had to push stop, 0:19:53.600 --> 0:19:56.199 hit rewind, push play, find out where you are in 0:19:56.200 --> 0:19:58.200 the track. Maybe you've gone too far, maybe you haven't 0:19:58.240 --> 0:20:01.520 gone far enough. Adjust that way. CDs made it so 0:20:01.600 --> 0:20:03.280 much easier. You could just hit a little button and 0:20:03.280 --> 0:20:06.400 it would repeat the song you liked as many times 0:20:06.520 --> 0:20:08.679 as you wanted until you got tired of it and 0:20:08.680 --> 0:20:11.399 you told it to stop. It happens to be baby Shark. 0:20:11.720 --> 0:20:13.720 You might just leave it on for weeks at a 0:20:13.800 --> 0:20:19.280 time for your child. Yeah, Anyway, the CD player really 0:20:19.320 --> 0:20:23.640 started to get popular in Japan pretty quickly, and Europe 0:20:23.640 --> 0:20:27.119 followed not too long after that. It took longer to 0:20:27.160 --> 0:20:30.000 get traction in the United States, and part of that 0:20:30.160 --> 0:20:34.200 was just logistical because the manufacturing facilities for the players 0:20:34.280 --> 0:20:37.280 and for the c ds we're all in Japan, and 0:20:37.320 --> 0:20:40.560 those facilities were already chugging away to meet domestic demand. 0:20:41.040 --> 0:20:43.679 That left very little breathing room to produce units for 0:20:43.680 --> 0:20:46.240 the US market. And in fact, in the beginning, there 0:20:46.240 --> 0:20:50.399 were only two manufacturing facilities in the entire world that 0:20:50.480 --> 0:20:54.040 were making compact discs, and they were each owned by 0:20:54.080 --> 0:20:58.040 Phillips and Sony. And that price was a really big 0:20:58.080 --> 0:21:00.800 barrier too, Like, not a lot of people were willing 0:21:00.840 --> 0:21:04.040 to jump in. There was a limited number of material 0:21:04.119 --> 0:21:07.440 out there for the players, and they were really expensive. Meanwhile, 0:21:07.480 --> 0:21:11.400 cassettes and records were relatively cheap. It would take some 0:21:11.520 --> 0:21:13.520 time for the price to come down for CDs to 0:21:13.560 --> 0:21:16.840 start to gain on cassettes, but boy howdy, when it happened, 0:21:16.880 --> 0:21:19.919 it happened big time. The demand for compact discs in 0:21:20.000 --> 0:21:23.280 Japan led to more investment in the industry, and soon 0:21:23.359 --> 0:21:26.720 there were six manufacturing facilities, and not long after that 0:21:27.119 --> 0:21:30.080 it grew to forty manufacturing plants that were churning out 0:21:30.119 --> 0:21:33.560 compact discs. The technology was gaining momentum, and with the 0:21:33.600 --> 0:21:37.800 increased output came improvements in manufacturing with more efficient processes, 0:21:38.080 --> 0:21:41.600 which led to a steady decrease in manufacturing cost, which 0:21:41.600 --> 0:21:44.240 meant companies could sell their products for less money while 0:21:44.280 --> 0:21:47.600 still maintaining a profitable business. This in turn led to 0:21:47.720 --> 0:21:51.080 wider adoption of the technology in general, and this is 0:21:51.160 --> 0:21:54.440 how new tech typically works out. If it's new tech 0:21:54.520 --> 0:21:57.960 that you know, actually works and has an appeal to 0:21:58.080 --> 0:22:01.760 a customer base, the early versions are really expensive and 0:22:01.840 --> 0:22:05.720 sometimes prohibitively so for much of the intended market. Then 0:22:05.760 --> 0:22:07.960 you get early adopters. If you have enough of those 0:22:08.040 --> 0:22:11.200 jumping on, they're able to demonstrate that there's a demand 0:22:11.280 --> 0:22:16.000 for that technology that merits additional investment. The investment means 0:22:16.040 --> 0:22:18.560 that you've paved the way for the rest of us 0:22:18.560 --> 0:22:20.840 to get a chance to join in once those price 0:22:20.880 --> 0:22:23.120 tags are more in line with our own personal budgets. 0:22:23.320 --> 0:22:26.600 So I'm thankful for early adopters. Um I don't quite 0:22:26.640 --> 0:22:30.400 make the money to be one most of the time anyway. 0:22:30.640 --> 0:22:34.480 In the first year of sales, Sony sold twenty thousand 0:22:34.640 --> 0:22:38.480 CD players, which is not an enormous number, but it 0:22:38.560 --> 0:22:41.840 was significant for a brand new technology that was going 0:22:41.920 --> 0:22:45.280 head to head with vinyl and the emerging cassette market. 0:22:45.840 --> 0:22:48.880 And other companies besides Sony and Phillips began to make 0:22:48.920 --> 0:22:51.639 players as well. And it's here that I mentioned that 0:22:51.720 --> 0:22:56.160 the first CD title, according to some sources, wasn't Abba, 0:22:56.280 --> 0:22:59.400 nor was it a Symphony, but was rather Billy Joel's 0:22:59.400 --> 0:23:02.800 album fifty two Street. In the last episode, I mentioned 0:23:03.119 --> 0:23:06.879 Abba and Classical Music were the first albums pressed to 0:23:07.080 --> 0:23:10.760 c D. Other sources called Billy Joel's album fifty two 0:23:10.880 --> 0:23:14.440 Street the first CD album UM, and then The Guardian 0:23:14.840 --> 0:23:17.520 says the first album recorded specifically with the c D 0:23:17.720 --> 0:23:21.800 medium in mind was Dire straits Uh Brothers in Arms 0:23:21.840 --> 0:23:25.120 in So it may well be that all of these 0:23:25.119 --> 0:23:28.720 are true to some extent. That Abba and the Symphony 0:23:28.800 --> 0:23:34.080 were pressed to c D, UM, that Street was uh 0:23:34.280 --> 0:23:37.760 it debuted, and then one of the formats it debuted 0:23:37.800 --> 0:23:40.400 on was the c D, and that Brothers in Arms 0:23:40.400 --> 0:23:43.800 came out specifically four CDs and was engineered for that purpose. 0:23:44.320 --> 0:23:46.560 Maybe that's what it all means. All I can tell 0:23:46.560 --> 0:23:50.439 you is that history tends to be complicated, and there 0:23:50.440 --> 0:23:52.800 are a lot of stories out there that, at least 0:23:53.240 --> 0:23:57.720 on first glance, seemed to contradict each other. Well, the 0:23:57.800 --> 0:24:01.480 music industry racked up sixteen points seven million dollars in 0:24:01.600 --> 0:24:05.680 CD sales. Uh, that's a lot of cash. But vinyl 0:24:05.720 --> 0:24:09.520 albums were bringing in one point nine billion dollars that 0:24:09.680 --> 0:24:13.800 same year, so nearly two billion compared to CDs at 0:24:13.840 --> 0:24:17.120 sixteen point seven million. Cassette tapes were not that far 0:24:17.200 --> 0:24:20.280 behind vinyl. In night three and the following year in 0:24:20.320 --> 0:24:24.520 eight four, cassettes sales surpassed vinyl and kept going strong, 0:24:25.000 --> 0:24:28.640 and CDs were laying the foundation for future success. So 0:24:28.680 --> 0:24:31.080 this is what kind of set the tone, at least 0:24:31.080 --> 0:24:34.160 in the United States, for vinyl to go on the decline, 0:24:34.480 --> 0:24:37.919 cassettes to rule the eighties, and for CDs to be 0:24:37.960 --> 0:24:41.280 well positioned to take over after that. Sony even tried 0:24:41.320 --> 0:24:43.960 to get a jump on portable CD players in the 0:24:44.200 --> 0:24:47.520 very very early days of the technology. Back in nineteen 0:24:47.520 --> 0:24:51.640 seventy nine, Sony had released the Walkman, the portable cassette 0:24:51.640 --> 0:24:55.000 player that was a popular accessory in the nineteen eighties 0:24:55.040 --> 0:24:57.879 just watch any comedy from the nineteen eighties or set 0:24:57.960 --> 0:25:00.600 in the nineteen eighties, and you'll likely see one you know, 0:25:00.640 --> 0:25:03.480 like Back to the Future. It factors into the plot 0:25:03.680 --> 0:25:06.560 in the original Back to the Future. Anyway. By the 0:25:06.600 --> 0:25:10.760 mid nineties, Sony was trying to replicate the success of 0:25:10.800 --> 0:25:13.879 the Walkman with a CD player, and the result was 0:25:13.920 --> 0:25:18.240 the Discman D fifty, the world's first portable CD player. 0:25:18.640 --> 0:25:21.760 And while the D fifty had some shortcomings, it truly 0:25:21.960 --> 0:25:27.119 was an amazing technological achievement. See, the D fifty was small. 0:25:27.400 --> 0:25:30.119 It was about the size of maybe five or six 0:25:30.280 --> 0:25:33.320 c D cases stacked on top of each other, so 0:25:33.840 --> 0:25:37.159 that meant all the circuitry and all the components of 0:25:37.200 --> 0:25:40.320 a full size c D player needed to be shrunk 0:25:40.440 --> 0:25:44.240 down to fit this tiny form factor. And this was 0:25:44.320 --> 0:25:47.600 just a couple of years after the full sized version 0:25:47.680 --> 0:25:50.040 of a CD player had come out. So it's hard 0:25:50.080 --> 0:25:54.280 to explain exactly how challenging this was, but here's an example. 0:25:54.320 --> 0:25:58.240 The optical path for the laser was a huge obstacle. 0:25:58.320 --> 0:26:01.240 To work around the size constraints, Sony engineers had to 0:26:01.240 --> 0:26:04.880 figure out how to fold the optical path to make 0:26:05.000 --> 0:26:08.560 enough space for it. To have the laser position in 0:26:08.600 --> 0:26:11.240 the right way for the disc. On top of that, 0:26:11.800 --> 0:26:14.960 the engineers had to custom build all the circuits for 0:26:15.040 --> 0:26:18.000 the D fifty to both fit inside this small case 0:26:18.000 --> 0:26:21.159 and not immediately drain the batteries of all their juice. 0:26:21.560 --> 0:26:25.200 Even so, the D fifty was a pretty power thirsty gadget. 0:26:25.640 --> 0:26:29.400 As Walkman Central, a fun website, has explained, you could 0:26:29.720 --> 0:26:32.520 buy a battery holder that would plug into the D 0:26:32.680 --> 0:26:35.320 fifty to supply the electricity you would need to jam 0:26:35.359 --> 0:26:38.480 out to your tunes. And one version was called the 0:26:38.560 --> 0:26:42.560 e P B nine C battery pack and it would 0:26:42.600 --> 0:26:47.000 hold either six C cell batteries sometimes called U eleven 0:26:47.040 --> 0:26:50.000 batteries in Britain at that time. They are about two 0:26:50.000 --> 0:26:52.679 inches in length and about an inch in diameter. And 0:26:52.760 --> 0:26:57.280 another option was a big bulky rechargeable battery that would 0:26:57.280 --> 0:27:00.320 plug into the e P B nine C and you 0:27:00.320 --> 0:27:03.280 would put the D fifty inside this battery packets sort 0:27:03.280 --> 0:27:06.040 of acted like a protective case, and then you would 0:27:06.040 --> 0:27:09.440 wear the whole thing with a shoulder strap. So technically 0:27:09.720 --> 0:27:12.680 the system was portable, but it was kind of portable 0:27:12.720 --> 0:27:15.440 in the same way that the earliest portable phones were 0:27:15.480 --> 0:27:18.600 portable you wouldn't want to go jogging with one. On 0:27:18.680 --> 0:27:21.360 top of that, this was before companies had developed anti 0:27:21.520 --> 0:27:25.320 skip software technologies that could keep a CD player on 0:27:25.400 --> 0:27:28.160 track even if the player were jostled by someone jogging 0:27:28.359 --> 0:27:30.919 or a car hitting a bump on the road or something. 0:27:31.200 --> 0:27:33.880 So moving around while listening to music might also mean 0:27:33.920 --> 0:27:37.240 hearing some skipping as you did. So it wouldn't be 0:27:37.320 --> 0:27:40.800 until the mid to late nineties that that technology would 0:27:40.800 --> 0:27:44.800 start to make these portable systems much more viable, and 0:27:44.840 --> 0:27:48.800 by then the ending of the CD era was already 0:27:48.840 --> 0:27:52.800 on the horizon. The D fifty also was marketed as 0:27:52.840 --> 0:27:56.280 a more affordable compact disc player. It didn't cost nearly 0:27:56.320 --> 0:27:58.320 as much as the c d P one on one, which, 0:27:58.680 --> 0:28:01.680 if you remember, reta for a thousand dollars if you 0:28:01.720 --> 0:28:04.359 wanted the version that came with a remote control. The 0:28:04.440 --> 0:28:06.719 D fifty came in at a budget price of just 0:28:06.920 --> 0:28:11.719 three fifty dollars in nineteen four, which is still admittedly 0:28:11.720 --> 0:28:15.720 pretty expensive. In fact, if we adjusted for inflation into 0:28:15.840 --> 0:28:19.399 two thousand nineteen dollars, that's about eight hundred fifty six 0:28:19.480 --> 0:28:23.840 bucks for a portable CD player. By seven, CDs were 0:28:23.840 --> 0:28:27.680 accounting for more than one point five billion dollars in sales. 0:28:28.040 --> 0:28:31.520 Cassettes were still leading the pack, but CDs were now 0:28:31.600 --> 0:28:36.120 outperforming vinyl records at that time, so compact discs ended 0:28:36.160 --> 0:28:39.280 up catching up too, and then passing vinyl records sales, 0:28:39.640 --> 0:28:42.080 although you could argue that the final record sales were 0:28:42.120 --> 0:28:45.240 on the decline not from compact discs but rather from 0:28:45.320 --> 0:28:49.440 the domination of cassette tapes. In nine nine, the last 0:28:49.520 --> 0:28:53.200 year that cassettes would outperform compact discs, the two formats 0:28:53.240 --> 0:28:56.320 were nearly neck and neck. Cassettes made up about three 0:28:56.360 --> 0:29:00.000 point six three billion dollars in sales revenue and see 0:29:00.040 --> 0:29:02.760 d s were at three point three six billions, so 0:29:03.200 --> 0:29:08.240 right behind, and in nine CD sales would outperform cassette sales, 0:29:08.560 --> 0:29:10.560 and it seemed like the compact disc would become the 0:29:10.640 --> 0:29:14.800 definitive medium for recorded music, but in truth it would 0:29:14.840 --> 0:29:17.680 rain for less than a decade. Sales would peak in 0:29:17.800 --> 0:29:22.680 nineteen ninety nine and around fifteen billion dollars, and those 0:29:22.680 --> 0:29:25.360 figures would take a very slight dip in two thousand 0:29:25.680 --> 0:29:29.000 and then every year after that, CD sales figures were 0:29:29.080 --> 0:29:31.800 on the decline. We'll go more into that in just 0:29:32.080 --> 0:29:35.840 a second, so Japan was going nuts for compact discs 0:29:35.920 --> 0:29:39.400 shortly after their introduction, as well as a related technology, 0:29:39.440 --> 0:29:42.240 the mini disc, which failed to get very much support 0:29:42.280 --> 0:29:45.600 in the United States. In Europe, compact disc sales began 0:29:45.640 --> 0:29:50.240 to pick up. Starting in nineteen five. PolyGram Phillips's music 0:29:50.280 --> 0:29:53.239 branch was leading the pack in CD production, with the 0:29:53.320 --> 0:29:57.440 partnership of CBS and Sony taking second place. Cassettes were 0:29:57.440 --> 0:30:01.360 still doing really well. Unlike the early as with compact discs, 0:30:01.680 --> 0:30:05.560 cassettes worked pretty well for car stereo systems and portable systems. 0:30:05.600 --> 0:30:08.080 You didn't have to worry about all that skipping. Plus, 0:30:08.120 --> 0:30:10.440 you could buy a blank cassette and you could record 0:30:10.440 --> 0:30:13.360 to them, and initially you could not do that with 0:30:13.480 --> 0:30:18.400 compact discs. It wasn't until nine when companies started to 0:30:18.480 --> 0:30:22.000 develop the Compact Disc Recordable or c d R format, 0:30:22.720 --> 0:30:26.800 and even then it wasn't available on the consumer market. 0:30:27.200 --> 0:30:28.920 It took a few years for the tech to make 0:30:28.960 --> 0:30:31.720 its way to that market. It was available for professional 0:30:31.840 --> 0:30:35.880 use as early as nineteen uh Pioneer would go on 0:30:35.960 --> 0:30:38.840 to introduce a c d R for the consumer market 0:30:38.920 --> 0:30:44.400 in nineteen six. The earliest CDR drives were slow. It 0:30:44.400 --> 0:30:48.560 took sometimes hours to burn data to a CDR, whether 0:30:48.600 --> 0:30:51.840 it was music or anything else, and because of other 0:30:51.840 --> 0:30:55.440 technological limitations, primarily how computers at the time we're not 0:30:56.080 --> 0:30:59.240 super well suited for dealing with really large file sizes, 0:30:59.600 --> 0:31:02.120 the qual do you burned music in the early days, 0:31:02.160 --> 0:31:05.600 if you were using a consumer c DR typically was 0:31:05.680 --> 0:31:08.200 lower than what you would get from a pre recorded 0:31:08.280 --> 0:31:11.120 c D from a store. Still, the introduction of a 0:31:11.120 --> 0:31:13.920 writable disc meant that the CD was starting to catch 0:31:14.040 --> 0:31:17.920 up to all the benefits of having a cassette, and 0:31:18.040 --> 0:31:21.960 it also set the stage for the introduction of the 0:31:22.160 --> 0:31:25.880 c D r W or rewriteable compact disc, in which 0:31:25.880 --> 0:31:27.600 you can only record to c D but you can 0:31:27.640 --> 0:31:30.880 also a race and re record to it. Phillips introduced 0:31:30.880 --> 0:31:32.880 a CD recorder for c D R and c D 0:31:33.120 --> 0:31:37.840 r W formats in ninete, and you could say that 0:31:37.920 --> 0:31:40.720 this also helped set up the c D for its 0:31:40.720 --> 0:31:45.160 eventual decline, as c ds became more popular, displacing cassettes, 0:31:45.160 --> 0:31:48.880 which in turn had displaced vinyl records. The music industry 0:31:49.040 --> 0:31:52.640 was I was dancing in the streets, I guess so speak. 0:31:52.960 --> 0:31:55.960 Sales were great. The industry was making more money than 0:31:55.960 --> 0:32:02.120 ever before, fifteen billion dollars in an enormous amount of money. 0:32:02.160 --> 0:32:04.080 But part of that was due to what some other 0:32:04.080 --> 0:32:08.160 people would call false flags. People weren't just buying new albums. 0:32:08.480 --> 0:32:11.960 They were also repurchasing albums that they had already owned 0:32:11.960 --> 0:32:15.960 in other formats, like on cassette or vinyl, than they 0:32:15.960 --> 0:32:18.440 would go out and buy the CD version. And so 0:32:18.480 --> 0:32:21.959 while sales were great, it wasn't necessarily an indicator that 0:32:22.120 --> 0:32:26.600 newer work was doing better than any preceding medium. It's 0:32:26.640 --> 0:32:29.160 not saying that, oh, we're selling more new albums now 0:32:29.280 --> 0:32:32.600 than we were when we were selling cassettes or vinyl records. 0:32:33.000 --> 0:32:36.080 It was more that a lot of people were backfilling 0:32:36.280 --> 0:32:39.200 their music libraries by going through the catalogs of these 0:32:39.240 --> 0:32:42.840 record labels and repurchasing these albums. I've seen the same 0:32:42.880 --> 0:32:46.400 thing happen with tech stuff. Actually, as new listeners discover 0:32:46.480 --> 0:32:49.040 the show, they tend to dip into the back catalog 0:32:49.080 --> 0:32:52.600 of episodes, and so my numbers will bump up a 0:32:52.600 --> 0:32:55.760 bit whenever that happens, but you can't count on that 0:32:55.800 --> 0:33:00.160 going on indefinitely. Eventually those higher numbers will peak and 0:33:00.200 --> 0:33:03.200 then they'll decline. Now, if you're lucky, you can still 0:33:03.240 --> 0:33:07.800 see steady but probably less dramatic growth once things settled down. 0:33:08.280 --> 0:33:11.760 If you're not lucky, you'll see sales continue to diminish 0:33:11.760 --> 0:33:15.520 over time, and c d s would be not lucky. 0:33:15.800 --> 0:33:17.840 I'll explain more in just a second, but first let's 0:33:17.840 --> 0:33:28.440 take another quick break. One of the big reasons, or 0:33:28.560 --> 0:33:30.720 actually two of the big reasons why c d s 0:33:30.720 --> 0:33:33.120 weren't lucky. It was a double ammy. It was in 0:33:33.120 --> 0:33:36.440 the form of computer advances and the development of audio 0:33:36.520 --> 0:33:40.680 compression file formats, primarily the MP three. We'll go into 0:33:41.000 --> 0:33:43.720 more detail about m P three's and other foul formats 0:33:43.960 --> 0:33:47.880 in our next episode, but they definitely hurt CD sales 0:33:47.960 --> 0:33:51.120 as time went on. In two thousand, the music industry 0:33:51.160 --> 0:33:54.520 saw a decline in CD sales, and every year after that, 0:33:54.520 --> 0:33:57.800 that decline continued and it got more dramatic. In an 0:33:57.800 --> 0:34:01.560 effort to fight off the inevitable and also to combat piracy, 0:34:01.960 --> 0:34:05.360 as computers were getting better at ripping music from c 0:34:05.520 --> 0:34:08.800 d s and writing it to a different disc, companies 0:34:08.840 --> 0:34:13.080 began to incorporate digital rights management, or DRM on their 0:34:13.160 --> 0:34:16.120 c d s. The idea was that this DRM would 0:34:16.200 --> 0:34:20.759 limit how you could actually use the compact disc. Sony's 0:34:20.800 --> 0:34:25.319 BMG music label did this to disastrous results. It's one 0:34:25.320 --> 0:34:31.120 of the the big warning signs warning stories of DRM 0:34:31.160 --> 0:34:35.080 and unintended consequences, or potentially unintended. Some argue that they 0:34:35.080 --> 0:34:39.680 were completely intentional consequences, which makes it even worse. So 0:34:39.719 --> 0:34:42.000 what was this all about. Well, let's say you go 0:34:42.040 --> 0:34:45.160 out and you buy an album that was from Sony's 0:34:45.200 --> 0:34:48.719 BMG label, and this is around two thousand five or 0:34:48.719 --> 0:34:51.400 two thousand six. You buy this c D and you 0:34:51.440 --> 0:34:54.279 put in a normal CD player, Well, it would work 0:34:54.480 --> 0:34:57.200 just the way it was supposed to, no problems there. 0:34:57.239 --> 0:34:59.640 You're just putting it in a stereo system or maybe 0:34:59.640 --> 0:35:02.960 your are a little portable CD player or whatever. It 0:35:03.000 --> 0:35:05.840 works just fine. However, if you were to put it 0:35:05.920 --> 0:35:09.520 into your computer, either to listen to it, or maybe 0:35:09.560 --> 0:35:11.400 you wanted to rip a copy so that way you 0:35:11.440 --> 0:35:15.200 had to back up something like that, something else happened. 0:35:15.600 --> 0:35:18.920 There was some code on the disks that would prompt 0:35:18.960 --> 0:35:23.640 your computer to automatically install some software on your PC. 0:35:24.600 --> 0:35:27.680 The purpose of the software, at least the stated purpose, 0:35:27.960 --> 0:35:31.719 was to prevent someone from making unauthorized copies of that 0:35:31.840 --> 0:35:35.360 compact disc. In other words, to prevent people from pirating 0:35:35.360 --> 0:35:38.400 the music, but the software also opened up a backdoor 0:35:38.520 --> 0:35:42.719 vulnerability on the person's PC, meaning it was possible for 0:35:42.760 --> 0:35:46.320 a third party to infiltrate that computer and take control 0:35:46.400 --> 0:35:49.759 of it. Uh. In fact, essentially what was happening was 0:35:49.880 --> 0:35:54.279 the CD was prompting the computer to phone home to 0:35:54.480 --> 0:35:58.600 Sony b MGS servers and to give information about how 0:35:59.200 --> 0:36:01.880 the person was using that c D, what was there, 0:36:01.880 --> 0:36:05.040 what were there listening habits. It was kind of spying 0:36:05.920 --> 0:36:10.600 on the consumer, and you could argue that the Sony 0:36:10.640 --> 0:36:15.120 b MG DRM software was behaving like malware, like a 0:36:15.160 --> 0:36:19.360 trojan horse or a backdoor vulnerability. The discovery of the 0:36:19.440 --> 0:36:22.480 DRM lad to class action lawsuits and a lot of 0:36:22.480 --> 0:36:26.880 pressure from the industry, and eventually Sony would stop the 0:36:26.920 --> 0:36:31.000 practice completely by two thousand seven. UM. It was not 0:36:31.160 --> 0:36:35.640 a pretty picture. It was a very ugly story and also, 0:36:35.680 --> 0:36:38.160 like I said, a warning not just two companies, but 0:36:38.280 --> 0:36:42.600 to consumers that be aware that anytime you are introducing 0:36:42.600 --> 0:36:46.360 anything to your computer, there are the there are possible 0:36:46.840 --> 0:36:50.160 vulnerabilities you could be introducing. In some cases it could 0:36:50.160 --> 0:36:54.080 be really really intrusive, so you gotta be careful. Now, 0:36:54.160 --> 0:36:56.960 this is not to say that the decline of the 0:36:56.960 --> 0:37:00.719 compact disc was instantaneous, that the CD form factor and 0:37:00.760 --> 0:37:04.520 went obsolete overnight. It stuck around for a really long time. 0:37:04.719 --> 0:37:08.319 In fact, it's only been fairly recently that some of 0:37:08.360 --> 0:37:11.240 the larger retailers have kind of moved away from selling 0:37:11.280 --> 0:37:15.200 c d s. In the winter of retailer best Buy 0:37:15.239 --> 0:37:18.080 announced that it was going to stop carrying compact discs 0:37:18.080 --> 0:37:22.360 and its stores starting on July one, two thousen. Target 0:37:22.440 --> 0:37:25.799 meanwhile went a slightly different route. They said they would 0:37:25.800 --> 0:37:28.000 continue to sell compact discs, but they would do it 0:37:28.120 --> 0:37:32.000 on consignment. So, in other words, instead of ordering a 0:37:32.120 --> 0:37:36.160 large inventory of c ds and trying to sell them, 0:37:36.719 --> 0:37:38.840 you know, paying for that inventory, trying to sell the 0:37:38.920 --> 0:37:42.040 CDs and then if they didn't sell stock, they would 0:37:42.080 --> 0:37:47.920 send it back to the studio for credit for future stock. 0:37:48.200 --> 0:37:50.719 Instead of doing that now, Target says, no, here's how 0:37:50.719 --> 0:37:54.440 we're gonna do it. We will sell copies of CDs 0:37:54.600 --> 0:37:57.239 and for every copy we sell will send a little 0:37:57.280 --> 0:38:00.320 bit of money back to the studio. But other eyes, 0:38:00.719 --> 0:38:02.440 we're not doing it. So if you don't want to 0:38:02.440 --> 0:38:03.840 work with us on that, you're not going to have 0:38:03.920 --> 0:38:08.399 your CDs held carried in our stores because people were 0:38:08.400 --> 0:38:10.600 buying so few of them now, and it puts the 0:38:10.719 --> 0:38:13.799 risk of inventory on the music studios rather than on 0:38:14.080 --> 0:38:19.359 targets stores, and it just changes where the risk ends 0:38:19.440 --> 0:38:24.920 up falling. That change has continued, right, Uh, And really 0:38:25.080 --> 0:38:26.800 you could say that the writing was on the wall 0:38:27.520 --> 0:38:30.480 by two thousand fourteen, when digital music sales over the 0:38:30.520 --> 0:38:34.799 Internet were eclipsing CD revenue, and even then digital was 0:38:34.840 --> 0:38:38.400 on the decline. It was it was already on the 0:38:38.440 --> 0:38:43.040 downward slope. It had peaked at that point and was 0:38:43.200 --> 0:38:46.480 it was outperforming CDs, but both CDs and digital sales 0:38:46.920 --> 0:38:50.919 were starting to lag behind. Like I said a moment ago, 0:38:50.920 --> 0:38:53.439 in our next episode, we're going to explore the rise 0:38:53.480 --> 0:38:56.160 of the digital file era, which leads into what we're 0:38:56.160 --> 0:39:00.279 seeing today with consumption moving more towards streaming services rather 0:39:00.320 --> 0:39:06.200 than downloading tracks or buying physical media. One thing I 0:39:06.200 --> 0:39:08.600 want to shift to before I end this episode would 0:39:08.600 --> 0:39:12.120 be the evolution of video media in the wake of 0:39:12.160 --> 0:39:17.560 the c D. The digital versatile disc or DVD evolved 0:39:17.680 --> 0:39:22.040 from the compact disc. It was effectively the second generation 0:39:22.480 --> 0:39:26.560 of the c D technology. Even as companies like Sony 0:39:26.600 --> 0:39:29.000 and Phillips were trying to get the c D into 0:39:29.040 --> 0:39:33.120 the consumer market. They were simultaneously researching how to improve 0:39:33.200 --> 0:39:36.239 that technology in order to store even more data on it, 0:39:36.280 --> 0:39:40.439 including video with sound. That development would mostly happen behind 0:39:40.520 --> 0:39:43.320 closed doors for a little more than a decade among 0:39:43.440 --> 0:39:46.920 various companies. By the mid nine nineties, there were two 0:39:46.960 --> 0:39:49.719 formats that had emerged from R and D departments. They 0:39:49.719 --> 0:39:53.920 weren't on the market yet, but they were almost ready, 0:39:54.040 --> 0:39:57.280 and one was with Sony and Phillips. They had developed 0:39:57.280 --> 0:40:00.759 a technology that they called the Multimedia c D or 0:40:01.120 --> 0:40:04.759 m M c D. Meanwhile, you had another group that 0:40:04.880 --> 0:40:08.719 was including the Time Warner Group and Toshiba, and they 0:40:08.719 --> 0:40:11.840 had developed a different approach called the Super Density or 0:40:12.080 --> 0:40:15.680 s D disc. Neither side was eager to engage in 0:40:15.719 --> 0:40:18.640 an all out format war like the one that pitted 0:40:18.640 --> 0:40:23.240 Beta Max versus VHS and fractured the market, so instead 0:40:23.320 --> 0:40:25.640 they decided that they were going to work together to 0:40:25.760 --> 0:40:28.960 develop a common standard between them, and it was mostly 0:40:29.000 --> 0:40:32.680 based off the s D format from Tashiba. This became 0:40:32.880 --> 0:40:37.960 the DVD and by companies were starting to produce DVD players, 0:40:38.440 --> 0:40:41.480 which originally went on sale in Japan and then expanded 0:40:41.520 --> 0:40:44.319 from there, and like CD players when they first came out, 0:40:44.400 --> 0:40:48.479 they were pretty darn expensive, but it actually the path 0:40:48.600 --> 0:40:53.600 for DVD to hit widespread adoption. It happened much more 0:40:53.760 --> 0:40:57.840 quickly than CD players did. Like a CD player, a 0:40:57.920 --> 0:41:01.400 DVD uses a laser to read pits on the reflective 0:41:01.560 --> 0:41:05.160 surface of a disc, but the lasers in DVD players 0:41:05.280 --> 0:41:08.360 use a shorter wavelength of light than the lasers and 0:41:08.520 --> 0:41:12.120 CD players. A laser in a compact disc player emitst 0:41:12.160 --> 0:41:15.560 red light at a wavelength of around seven eighty nanometers, 0:41:16.120 --> 0:41:19.520 DVD players were in the sixty five and six hundred 0:41:19.600 --> 0:41:23.240 fifty nanometer range. The shorter wavelength meant that the pits 0:41:23.320 --> 0:41:26.719 on a DVD can be smaller than those you would 0:41:26.760 --> 0:41:29.480 have on a c D. So smaller pits means you 0:41:29.480 --> 0:41:31.960 can pack more pits in the same amount of space, 0:41:32.640 --> 0:41:35.360 meaning you can put more data on the disc. And 0:41:35.400 --> 0:41:38.040 that's why you can fit a full length film on 0:41:38.080 --> 0:41:42.640 a DVD with audio using a compression format like IMPEG 0:41:42.680 --> 0:41:46.640 two and a c D can't hold that much information. 0:41:47.080 --> 0:41:49.840 The DVD format brought with it improvements in picture and 0:41:49.920 --> 0:41:53.759 sound quality, and it also allowed for interactive features such 0:41:53.760 --> 0:41:58.000 as menus chapter selection, commentary tracks, bonus footage, that kind 0:41:58.040 --> 0:42:00.920 of stuff, So it really helped set it self apart 0:42:01.239 --> 0:42:05.400 from the VHS form factor the video tape, so the 0:42:05.480 --> 0:42:09.839 DVD format allowed consumers to navigate films more easily, So 0:42:10.000 --> 0:42:14.320 it kind of comparison between compact discs and audio cassettes. 0:42:14.680 --> 0:42:19.640 DVDs had the same advantages over video cassettes even when 0:42:19.680 --> 0:42:23.000 they were first introduced. DVDs could hold more information than 0:42:23.040 --> 0:42:26.239 a typical VHS tape unless you were, you know, using 0:42:26.280 --> 0:42:30.399 like a consumer video tape and you were recording at 0:42:30.440 --> 0:42:33.480 the slowest possible setting, meaning that you were using the 0:42:33.600 --> 0:42:39.520 least amount of tape to capture video. It would result 0:42:39.520 --> 0:42:41.919 in the lowest quality video, but you would be able 0:42:41.920 --> 0:42:44.400 to put a lot of it onto a single tape. Well, 0:42:44.480 --> 0:42:48.320 DVDs could hold way more information than your your standard, 0:42:48.880 --> 0:42:53.720 uh good VHS tape. These DVDs were single side, single 0:42:53.800 --> 0:42:57.000 layer discs, but the format allowed for up to two 0:42:57.040 --> 0:43:01.000 recordable layers per side, so you would get a double 0:43:01.120 --> 0:43:04.279 layer disc or even a double sided double layer disc. 0:43:04.880 --> 0:43:07.800 With a double layer disc, the reading laser can actually 0:43:07.800 --> 0:43:11.560 focus through one layer of data on a disk to 0:43:11.600 --> 0:43:14.520 see a second layer written underneath it. You can think 0:43:14.520 --> 0:43:16.840 of it almost like imagine you've got two sheets of 0:43:16.840 --> 0:43:19.920 paper and you've used a very dark ink, and the 0:43:19.960 --> 0:43:24.200 paper itself is almost translucent, and you can read what's 0:43:24.200 --> 0:43:25.960 written on the top sheet, and you can look through 0:43:26.000 --> 0:43:28.759 the top sheet and see what's written on the bottom sheet. Well, 0:43:28.800 --> 0:43:31.080 imagine you've got like some sort of magic X ray 0:43:31.080 --> 0:43:34.640 glasses that let you read the bottom sheet as if 0:43:34.680 --> 0:43:37.759 there was nothing, you know, obscuring your view. That's kind 0:43:37.760 --> 0:43:42.040 of how a double layer DVD works. The single layer 0:43:42.120 --> 0:43:45.080 DVD can hold up to four point thirty eight gigabytes 0:43:45.080 --> 0:43:49.040 worth of information. A single sided double layer DVD can 0:43:49.080 --> 0:43:53.400 hold seven point nine five gigabytes, not quite twice as 0:43:53.480 --> 0:43:56.880 much as a single layer DVD. So why is that? 0:43:57.000 --> 0:44:00.399 Why can a double layer DVD only hold a little 0:44:00.480 --> 0:44:03.880 less than twice as much while it's because, in order 0:44:03.920 --> 0:44:09.160 to avoid interference between layers, the pits on a double 0:44:09.239 --> 0:44:13.040 layer DVD have to be slightly longer than they would 0:44:13.080 --> 0:44:17.040 first single layer, so you can pack slightly less information 0:44:17.280 --> 0:44:22.040 per layer. Thus it's not quite twice as much. If 0:44:22.080 --> 0:44:24.799 you have a double sided, double layered DVD, you could 0:44:24.800 --> 0:44:28.520 store whopping fifteen point nine gigabytes of information on it 0:44:28.960 --> 0:44:31.080 then That would end up being dwarfed by Blu Ray 0:44:31.160 --> 0:44:34.319 later on, but at the time it was incredibly impressive. 0:44:35.040 --> 0:44:37.160 The DVD caught on faster in the market than the 0:44:37.239 --> 0:44:39.760 contact disc did. It only took a few years before 0:44:39.840 --> 0:44:44.480 DVD sales were outperforming VHS. It was early two two 0:44:44.560 --> 0:44:48.120 when the DVD Entertainment Group broke that news video rental 0:44:48.160 --> 0:44:50.919 stores were starting to phase out VHS copies of the film. 0:44:51.080 --> 0:44:54.360 They were leaning harder on the DVD format themselves, and 0:44:54.400 --> 0:44:56.560 the writing was on the wall, despite the fact that 0:44:56.640 --> 0:44:59.400 even in two thousand two, there were more than twice 0:44:59.400 --> 0:45:02.440 as many, how useholds that had VCRs as those that 0:45:02.520 --> 0:45:05.560 had DVD players. There were ninety six million households the 0:45:05.560 --> 0:45:08.800 head of VCR, and twenty five million had a DVD player. 0:45:09.400 --> 0:45:13.040 But people with DVD players were spending more buying more films, 0:45:13.239 --> 0:45:15.520 so it was pretty much a sign of what was 0:45:15.560 --> 0:45:17.880 to come. This was also really good news to the 0:45:17.920 --> 0:45:21.960 movie and TV studios out there. And unlike VCRs, your 0:45:22.000 --> 0:45:26.440 standard consumer DVD player had no way of writing two disks, 0:45:26.480 --> 0:45:29.720 so there was no way to copy discs, at least 0:45:30.080 --> 0:45:34.840 not initially. There were computers that would get DVD R drives, 0:45:34.880 --> 0:45:38.640 and you could invest in some specialized equipment to copy disks, 0:45:38.960 --> 0:45:41.239 but most people didn't have access to that, and in 0:45:41.280 --> 0:45:43.600 the early days, it took a long time to write 0:45:43.800 --> 0:45:47.080 a significant amount of data to a DVD, So studios 0:45:47.120 --> 0:45:50.160 had less of an adverse reaction to the DVD format 0:45:50.239 --> 0:45:52.439 compared to the VHS tape. They didn't see it as 0:45:52.840 --> 0:45:55.560 a threat to their business. On top of that, the 0:45:55.600 --> 0:46:00.000 industry's experience with VCRs had taught it the incredible value 0:46:00.239 --> 0:46:03.759 of the home market. They knew there's this market of 0:46:03.800 --> 0:46:08.319 consumers eager to buy up a catalog of movies, so 0:46:08.360 --> 0:46:10.839 they had already established that with VCRs, and they were 0:46:10.840 --> 0:46:13.560 able to apply that with DVDs. It gave these companies 0:46:13.800 --> 0:46:18.360 ways to monetize their back catalogs of films and television shows. 0:46:18.360 --> 0:46:21.319 So they leverage that knowledge with the DVD format. And 0:46:21.440 --> 0:46:25.279 unlike the prerecorded VHS tapes when they first came out, 0:46:26.000 --> 0:46:29.000 you know, those those cost eight dollars apiece when they 0:46:29.040 --> 0:46:32.960 first debuted in the early eighties, DVDs were much more 0:46:33.000 --> 0:46:36.200 reasonably priced. They typically fell around the twenty dollar range 0:46:36.239 --> 0:46:39.319 for a single film. The extras really helped too. They 0:46:39.320 --> 0:46:42.479 gave creators the chance to provide more insight into their work. 0:46:42.960 --> 0:46:45.600 Fans got way more material. They could watch a show 0:46:45.719 --> 0:46:48.000 or a movie with commentary to learn about what went 0:46:48.040 --> 0:46:50.800 into making it. They could hear about behind the scenes 0:46:50.880 --> 0:46:54.160 drama or challengers the makers faced when they were making 0:46:54.160 --> 0:46:57.360 their productions. Not every DVD contained that kind of extra, 0:46:57.800 --> 0:46:59.759 but enough of them did to create sort of an 0:46:59.760 --> 0:47:04.520 expectation among collectors. Uh. It also meant that sometimes a 0:47:04.680 --> 0:47:07.480 show that had gone off the air would come back 0:47:07.680 --> 0:47:12.920 because there'd be a demonstrable demand for that show. A 0:47:13.000 --> 0:47:15.880 big example of that is Family Guy. It was on Fox, 0:47:15.960 --> 0:47:19.720 it got canceled, the DVDs went on sale, the sales 0:47:19.760 --> 0:47:22.840 were really good, and it convinced Fox to bring the 0:47:22.880 --> 0:47:26.800 program back. The DVD also opened up opportunities for different 0:47:26.920 --> 0:47:30.560 versions of the same work. Ask any fan of a 0:47:30.600 --> 0:47:35.000 movie like Brazil or Blade Runner or Evil Dead about 0:47:35.040 --> 0:47:37.600 their DVD collection, and you'll likely hear that they own 0:47:37.800 --> 0:47:41.759 several different copies of their favorite film. This created yet 0:47:41.800 --> 0:47:44.719 another way for companies to profit from their catalogs, will 0:47:44.760 --> 0:47:50.120 simultaneously satisfying the insatiable demands of consumers and yep I 0:47:50.200 --> 0:47:53.359 own a few different copies of Evil Dead, so I'm 0:47:53.360 --> 0:47:57.120 one of those suckers anyway. Like the VHS era, the 0:47:57.200 --> 0:48:00.600 DVD also create opportunities for independent makers to burn their 0:48:00.600 --> 0:48:03.879 works directly to disk, by passing the studios and going 0:48:03.920 --> 0:48:07.560 straight to market. So the direct to DVD industry thrived 0:48:07.560 --> 0:48:10.600 as well, and some companies like Circuit City tried to 0:48:10.680 --> 0:48:15.000 launch a competitor to DVD. The Circuit City version was 0:48:15.080 --> 0:48:19.680 called Digital Video Express or DIVIS, not to be confused 0:48:19.680 --> 0:48:23.360 by the codec that's the same name. A DIVIS player 0:48:23.440 --> 0:48:27.160 required a connection to a phone line, so each DIVIS 0:48:27.280 --> 0:48:29.879 disk had a barcode on it that the player would 0:48:29.920 --> 0:48:32.520 be able to read, and it could send information over 0:48:32.560 --> 0:48:35.759 the phone line to a centralized server which kept track 0:48:35.800 --> 0:48:38.760 of all the discs on the network. If you purchased 0:48:38.800 --> 0:48:42.120 a basic disc, you would get essentially a license to 0:48:42.280 --> 0:48:45.399 view the movie within forty eight hours. If you wanted 0:48:45.400 --> 0:48:47.640 to watch it after those forty eight hours were over, 0:48:47.880 --> 0:48:49.880 you would have to pay for an upgrade to watch 0:48:50.200 --> 0:48:53.399 it for some more viewing time, and even then it's 0:48:53.560 --> 0:48:56.960 just another two days. There was a pretty strong negative 0:48:57.000 --> 0:49:00.160 reaction from the home theater enthusiasts out there, and the 0:49:00.200 --> 0:49:02.919 format did not do well, in fact, it only took 0:49:02.920 --> 0:49:07.120 a year by Circuit City pulled the plug on dvics. Now, 0:49:07.120 --> 0:49:08.960 in our next episode, I'm gonna talk a little bit 0:49:08.960 --> 0:49:12.200 more about the DVD industry and the lead into h 0:49:12.360 --> 0:49:16.800 D DVD and Blu Ray, which is really another format 0:49:16.840 --> 0:49:19.200 war we're going to talk about. We won't spend too 0:49:19.320 --> 0:49:21.919 much time on those formats because while they can pack 0:49:22.040 --> 0:49:25.520 more information on a desk than DVD can, they work 0:49:25.560 --> 0:49:29.880 on essentially the same principle. Then we're gonna transition to 0:49:29.960 --> 0:49:34.719 digital files and streaming services to sort of conclude this series. Uh, 0:49:34.800 --> 0:49:37.520 If you guys have suggestions for other topics, whether it's 0:49:37.560 --> 0:49:39.560 something I should do a full series on or maybe 0:49:39.560 --> 0:49:42.600 just a standalone episode, send me an email. The addresses 0:49:42.640 --> 0:49:45.680 tech Stuff at how stuff works dot com. Pop on 0:49:45.719 --> 0:49:48.719 over to our website that's tech stuff podcast dot com. 0:49:48.760 --> 0:49:51.400 You'll find an archive of all of our older episodes, 0:49:51.640 --> 0:49:55.279 plus links to our social media presence on there, so 0:49:55.320 --> 0:49:57.840 you can reach out to me on Facebook or on Twitter. 0:49:58.640 --> 0:50:01.520 You can also check out our online store. We've got 0:50:01.560 --> 0:50:04.000 some fun stuff in there. Go see that stuff and 0:50:04.040 --> 0:50:06.000 maybe about some of it. Don't just look at it, 0:50:06.040 --> 0:50:08.240 but because it goes to help the show and greatly 0:50:08.239 --> 0:50:11.160 appreciate it, and I'll talk to you again. Really said. 0:50:15.840 --> 0:50:18.040 Text Stuff is a production of I heart Radio's How 0:50:18.080 --> 0:50:21.479 Stuff Works. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit 0:50:21.520 --> 0:50:24.560 the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you 0:50:24.680 --> 0:50:26.000 listen to your favorite shows.