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What to do with my aging music and video collection.
Like many 50+ year olds, I have an entertainment collection.
- LP’s 35
- 45’s 29
- CD’s Music 112
- CD’s Videos 9
- VHS Movie 146
- DVD’s Music 17
- DVD’s Movie 85
When packaged, my collection including the DVD Racks, VHS drawer cabinets, CD Rack and their contents can be squeezed into two large boxes and four small (book boxes) or in shipping parlance 1.2 cubic metres.
In 2002 – I packaged up my entire collection and placed it in storage where it stayed for the next five years. Along with household furniture (and other paraphernalia) the monthly cost was $880 per. The total storage volume was 26 cubic metres.
So the value of storage of music and video collection came out to approximately $2436.92 for the period.
If we attribute that same storage cost across my lifetime, and allowing for a high per square foot/m2 floor space rate, (approx 440$ per m2 P.A.) the cost of keeping my physical media is around $500.00 per annum, over and above it’s purchase price.
If I am to live to the expected maximum years…. then my muisc, video etc collection has cost me in the neighbourhood of $27,400 just to store it.
… and the music industry wants to know why we want to go digital…….. MEH – Fail music guys…. but then I guess if you guys all live in huge Hollywood mansions, you probably don’t realise the price of a high rise apartment in downtown Sydney… that’s only 109 m2!
In 2006, I purchased a hard-disk and a digital capture card. I then spent a few weeks queuing up content to be ripped and digitally catalogued.
Last year I purchased a 32 GB USB stick. (Well more like an SD-Card, but then there are no 32 GB SD cards…..)
I now have a wonderful collection of my entire life’s musical and video interests on a 32 GB stick (not all the videos……)
My phone can read it, my computer read it, it fits in my pocket and it weighs just 25 grams.
Anyone who wanted to know me would just have to look at the content on the stick and understand instantly my interests, desires and dreams.
Of course, now that it’s digital, complete with my computers digital footprint all over it (hash file identifier) – anyone could profile me rather easily.
Likes Santana, Led Zeppelin, Bruce Willis and Stargate. Hmmmmm – obviously this is someone we could sell “Red Bull” too.
So whilst I enjoy the fruits of labour in digitizing my collection and being able to play all of the content I purchased, DRM free, I am concerned about its security.
…. and if you don’t think this is happening to you…. why does the new version of iTunes examine every track you have and offer to clean it up for you ?
Why do streaming music and video services want all your personal details?
Why has Facebook opened up the personal aspects of your profile for everyone (read advertisers) to review?
Years ago, in the ISP business, the value of an Internet customer was based on the annual subscriptions and the estimated life of a subscriber to the service (based on subscriber churn).
Today, Google, Facebook and a plethora of internet sites collect every bit of data about each and every visitor.
Cookies, IP numbers, ohone, friends phones, friends email addresses, location,music preferences, each facebook profile update and tweet is scanned for “interest and brand recognition” signals.
So whilst we are all enjoying the new found freedom of carrying our 2 cubic metres of physical medai collection on an iPhone or USB stick, the downside is that our lives are no longer private.
Back to my music ccollection……
Now my only question is, what shall I do with my aging, dust covered originals?
I guess I’ll keep them. Besides, I only ripped the music at 192 kbps and the movies at 1024 kbps.
Maybe one day I will want a higher quality digital rendition.
I look with envy at the current generation. They will never have the storage problem.
P2P is here to stay, and illegal file sharing will one day be made legal. (Although no-one from the Music industry has called me yet to find out how…….)
So today’s generation will just download the higher quality version over the top of the lo-fi version and they wont have to dust their CD racks once a month, or run their VHS tapes on fast forward through the VCR once a year to make sure they arn’t gummed up.
And they will be able to live in smaller houses without the need for all those ugly CD racks.
Gee, this digital stuff is pretty neat huh?
This is partially a reprint of an earlier published article – however is relevant as a stub artuicle for future reference too.
Tom Koltai, Sydney, April, 2010