Longevity of lossy formats

Hi folks, really great site.

Does anyone have any predictions on when/if compressed formats such as mp3 might die out? Even now hard drive storage seems to be sufficiently cheap that few music collectors really 'need' to go lossy. I suppose it depends on the download stores making the effort - although here in the UK they don't seem to be in any rush. It's an outrage, I tell ya.

Hey milky - Welcome to Computer Audiophile. I am guessing mp3 or its lossy successor will always be around. I just hope there will be a lossless or uncompressed version available as well. When will that happen? Good question. Some places offer this but not many "popular" artists offer lossless or uncompressed. The new Walter Becker album is a fabulous lossless download!

I have this vision of people buying the latest 1 terabyte iPod in 2012 or whenever and only having compressed files to load onto it. It'd be a shame. I'll look into Becker, thanks.

I agree, larger mp3 player size would probably help. At least places like HDTracks (awesome site thanks for the heads up Chris) are starting to offer high rez downloads. I love using iTunes to organize my music collection, but I have yet to purchase any songs since they do not offer higher resolution.

Now that I think about it, Apple has a major incentive to offer huge uncompressed downloads. Sell more and larger iPods!

Larger AND higher rez iPods!

Chris .... you are a genius!

markr

It would also be nice if Apple supported a few more formats such as FLAC and OGG Vorbis too, in both iTunes and iPods! (Thank goodness for Cowon ;-) )

I was helping a guy at work this week a bit with iTunes. He has like a Dell laptop. He uses an iPod.

The Dell has about 30 GB of music on it, which he said is 1,000 CDs. I'm guessing (heh) it's compressed. He doesn't know. His iPod uses the little FM transmitter. He also sends a wireless signal to his outdoor speakers. He loves it all and I kept saying was, man that sounds really cool.

Point is, lossy works just fine for ... dare I say, the majority. At least for now.

I've been in that situation so many times I can't even remember! I stopped telling people the "truth" because they refused to ask for my opinion anymore! I guess if you don't tell people what they want to hear they don't ask. Oh well, I'm not complaining.