CD-DVD Dualdiscs hybrid makes a play for CD buyers

Double the pleasure and double the fun, but only a few dollars more. Have you bought a DualDisc yet? If you don't know about them it is basically a CD and a DVD fused together like that poor guy Jeff Goldblum in the movie "The Fly". The hybrid discs have a standard recording on one side and music videos, interviews and photo galleries on the DVD side. Now capable of new tricks that's no argument, but there is no free lunch, so the discs are slightly thicker. However, on the good side you can now get a lot more entertainment value such as 5.1 surround sound and video of your favorite performers. According to this article though, these fancy discs have attractions for a much wider audience and they are trying to lure their old buddy, the CD customer.

That's not to suggest that the discs are narrowly aimed at the audiophile crowd. Record labels are hoping that a high-profile release such as Bruce Springsteen's "Devils & Dust," which will be available only on DualDisc upon its release at the end of the month, will make ordinary CD buyers aware of the product's potential. The industry's adoption of the DualDisc is part of an effort to reduce the steady decline of CD sales. Illegal file sharing, not to mention the dramatic growth of MP3 music sales, have flummoxed an industry whose decades-old distribution network has been geared to deliver products to record-store racks. Though recording companies are getting into the MP3 business, they're also bundling multimedia material onto albums to shore up the traditional sales model. "The industry is very much trying to add value to the CD," says Brian Garrity, a business writer at Billboard magazine. "We're basically operating in a time where physical-product music has been substantially devalued."

It looks like the music industry is waking up and smelling the coffee. You can't sit around and whine forever at claimed lost sales and revenues. You can't just sue the pants off your customer base and hope to win a bigger slice of the pie through a fear campaign. You have to wipe the tears from your eyes and take a look around at the world. The DVD movie industry for instance and it's phenomenal growth is mentioned in this interesting article. They are laughing all the way to the bank, while the music industry is running their ineffective public education program against piracy. Make sure to read the rest of the story over at USA Today it's a good one. Also, let us know if you have tried any of these new discs, we would like to know if you think they are a good value and if they work well with your hardware.

Source: USA Today