CD Replication: History
The following text is an edited extract from original article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_Disc
Do you remember LaserDiscs? These 30cm wide plastic coated aluminium discs were the forerunner to the compact discs and DVDs we now see everywhere.
Invented in 1958 by David Paul Gregg and developed into commercial product by Phillips in the early 1970s, the LaserDiscs were a combined audio and video format disc that enjoyed a small market share in the USA competing with the VHS and Beta videotape formats, and a wider market in Japan where the disc format was well supported and distributed. It was virtually unknown in Europe. The LaserDisc players (the best produced by Pioneer) used Helium-Neon laser tubes to read the data.
In 1979, Sony and Philips Consumer Electronics set up a team to develop a new digital audio disc. The team continued and extended the research into laser technology and optical discs that Philips had begun in the 1970s and after a year of research produced the Red Book standard for audio compact discs. Sony contributed the error-correction method, CIRC, and the first CD players. Philips contributed the manufacturing process, which was based on video LaserDisc technology and Eight-to-Fourteen Modulation (EFM). EFM provided a long play time and a high resilience against fingerprints, scratches and other surface damage.
The first Compact Disc for commercial release (ABBA's The Visitors – 1981) was manufactured on 17 August 1982, at a Philips factory in Langenhagen in Germany.
Sony's CDP-101 CD player was released in Japan on 1October 1982, and early in 1982 in the United States and other markets. The rest as they say is history. It gained initial acceptance (at a high price) among classical music lovers and audiophiles, with the ease of handling and scratch resistant surface receiving particular praise. I suppose if you compare it’s durability to vinyl then it’s a fair assessment, but the initial marketing claims of a new indestructible media during the early 1980s were quickly hushed over by the manufacturers and retail outlets who had to deal with scores of disillusions customers returning unplayable discs that had proven somewhat less than indestructible.
As the compact audio disc gained a wider acceptance the price of players fell rapidly and the CD began to gain popularity in the larger popular and rock music markets. The first million-selling CD Dire Straits, with their 1985 album Brothers in Arms.
Sony & Phillips continued their alliance to produce CD-ROM data format (1985) and the recordable blank CD-R(ecordable) format in 1990.
