The major research and development work was done by Phillips and Sony. One of the first compact discs came in market way back in the year 1982 and till date, remains one of the most popular mediums of audio recordings.
In 1979, Phillips and Sony started off a joint working group in order to design a successful digital audio disc. After a year`s work and lot of experiments and discussions, the compact disc was invented. No single person can be said to have invented it, a large group collectively invented the compact disc.
In August, 1982, the first CD for commercial purposes was manufactured in a Phillips factory in Germany. The first music title that was released on a CD was `The Visitors (1981) by ABBA`. Soon after, in October of the same year, the CD players from Sony also reached the markets. The event is often called as `the Big Bang` in the field of digital audio.
The new concept was an immediate hit in the market. Consumers were enthusiastic about the quality of the audio. The price of compact disc players sank really fast, as a result of which, the popularity increased even more.
A compact disc is a 1.2 mm thick polycarbonate plastic disc weighing around 16 grams. To make the surface reflective, a very thin layer of aluminum is applied on one side of the disc. A film of lacquer is also applied to act as a protective shield. The label is printed on the other side using normal printing methods like offset or screen printing. The data is stored on the media in form of an array of tiny indentation called pits that are encoded in a spiral track. A pit is just 500 nm wide and 100 nm deep and the length varies from 850 to 3500 nm. The areas between two pits are called lands.
The compact discs are much more durable than the precious formats of audio storage. However, they can be damaged a little from the environment factors and daily usage. The data is a lot closer to the label side, so more damage occurs if scratches are made of the label. The logical format to store audio data is a 2-channel 16-bit PCM encoded data at a sampling rate frequency of 44.1 KHz. The sampling rate was chosen directly as a result of the sampling rate theorem of double frequency needed in recordings. With some more calculations, the exact sampling rate of 44.1 KHz was decided.
The compact discs are available in a number of different variations. Some of them are:
Text - Compact disc that allows for the storage of information like song name, artist, album name as text along with the standard audio data.
Graphics - These contain additional graphics data. They run normally on a normal CD player, but can output graphics data when played on a CD+G player.
CD ROM - ROMs or Read Only Memory, as the name suggests are for the compact discs from which data can only be read.
Video - Video CDs or VCDs are compact discs with video data.
Photo - it was designed by Kodak for storing photos digitally in a compact disc. They were able to store more than 100 images when first launched.
CD + RW - these are media on which data can be written, erased and re-written more than once.
Usually, we think nothing of throwing away our unusable compact discs. We can always buy new compact discs especially as billions of them are being manufactured yearly, with the result that compact discs will never suffer a shortage. We always have back-ups to compact discs specifically those containing important personal information. We can always convince ourselves that since compact discs are thin and small, they will have no big environmental impact. These are the reasons ordinary compact disc consumers have little or no idea about compact disc recycling and compact disc recycle possibilities.
It is a good thing that there are environmentally-conscious companies that offer compact disc recycling and provide information on compact disc recycle potentials to otherwise ignorant CD users. However, these companies will charge a minimal fee for recycling and you have to travel to their recycling sites, which make compact disc recycling a hassle. Thus, you resort to your own personal compact disc recycle ideas like using the compact discs as beverage coasters, wall decorations, hanging mobiles and other creative uses. Unfortunately, you still have to dispose of them in the end. But what you want is a free of charge and convenient means of compact disc disposal.
Luckily, there is Second Life Disc that suits your criteria of compact disc recycle possibilities. Second Life Disc offers compact disc recycling at no charge to you; the only money you will spend is for mailing the compact discs. It is convenient because you do not have to travel to their recycling office in Ventura, California. You can mail your compact discs to Second Life Disc at 408 College Drive, Ventura, California; you need not even go to the post office or the courier office since you can just put them in the mailbox! Second Life Disc can even pick up large numbers of compact discs if you are within the Southern California area, which makes for greater ease of disposing company CDs that have been molding in the stockroom.
For example, you have compact discs that are of no use to you because they are irreparably damaged (scratched, cracked, or warped), or have obsolete contents, or are defective products, or contain outdated software, or are spam discs, or for any other reason and you want to dispose of them since you are not artistically inclined and do not want additional clutter. You can put the compact discs inside an envelope, or a box if there are many of them, address it to Second Life Disc, and place it in the mailbox. You have done your part in preserving our natural resources and reducing plastic trash.
Second Life Disc even makes it easy for companies and schools to become compact disc recycling drop-off centers. You can contact them via their website or through telephone to discuss arrangements, especially as the company does not offer recycling containers at present. Of course, if you are a concerned community member, you can also become a drop-off center in your neighborhood, again by contacting Second Life Disc and discussing the viability of your proposal. You not only rid your premises of trash and clutter, you are also helping the environment and assuring that future generations will continue to enjoy our planet and enjoy compact discs, too.
Both Roberto Sedycias & Vikram Kuamr are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
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