June 2005 DiscBurn Newsletter
THE TOP OF POP PARADISE
Many people grew up listening to Casey Kasem or Shadoe Stevens countdown the Top 40 hit singles in the nation every week on American Top 40. American Top 40 is actually the largest and most-listened to show in the world, heard in over 120 countries by an estimated 1 billion people. By the early 1990s the 45-rpm vinyl single saw a downfall in usage. For 20 years it was an integral part of the show’s success and research. But in 1990, the re-released “Unchained Melody” by the Righteous Brothers became the last Top 40 single available solely on vinyl. By the end of 1990, only about half of the songs in the Top 40 were available as vinyl singles. According to the Record Industry Association of America (RIAA), vinyl single shipments fell from 131.5 million in 1984 to just 11.5 million in 1994. At the beginning of 1991, American Top 40’s Clearance Department told its affiliates the show would henceforth only be available on compact disc, not vinyl. One station dropped the show because it didn’t have a CD player!
Over 10 years later, the move to CD distribution has proven wise. Finding anything on vinyl (or even tape for that matter) can be difficult, and it’s just as well since CDs are more durable, reliable, convenient, and standardized. Let DiscBurn help your business become formatted for success – just like the world’s most-listened-to radio show, American Top 40.
American Top 40 website
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BETS PLACED IN BLU-RAY/HD-DVD BATTLE
There are many consumer wars… Coke vs. Pepsi, Microsoft vs. Apple, Wal-Mart vs. Target, etc. The list goes on and on. There is another one involving the DVD format that many people are watching with bated breath: Sony’s Blu-Ray vs. Toshiba’s HD-DVD format. This latest consumer war is painfully familiar to the VHS vs. Betamax war that was played out during the 1980’s. And this one appears to boil down to two main factors: quality of technology and cost. The VHS tapes certainly did not have the highest quality, but were cheap to produce. Betamax had far superior quality, and even continues to be used by professionals, though not for consumer-purchased videos.
This war is playing out much the same way, and many in the industry are placing their bets on the HD-DVD format because it is cheaper for manufacturers to produce. Others say that Sony is trying to prevent the problems that they had in the past with getting BetaMax into the mainstream and have learned their lesson.
This week Sony and Toshiba announced that chances of a unified format are slim, and a month’s worth of negotiations has fallen apart.
Read more...
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WHY SETTLE FOR GOOD WHEN YOU CAN HAVE GREAT?
DiscBurn offers high resolution off-set printing for all replicated products. Traditional silk-screen printing usually runs at about 120-130 lines per inch resolution. Now you can experience the rich vibrancy of off-set printing at 175 lines per inch. Try off-set printing on your CDs and DVDs this month at DiscBurn for no additional charge.
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HOT HARDWARE: TASCAM CC-222
TASCAM's CC-222 is the world's first device that combines a professional-quality stereo cassette deck with a CD-RW drive in a single product. Designed for everyone who wants an integrated solution for recording CDs from sources such as vinyl LPs and cassettes, the CC-222 is a completely self-contained unit that requires no computer or other peripheral tool to operate.
Read more...
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