Usb standard delivery - should have been an easy thing to create - the DVD standard is hugely more complex in its encompassing creation and original documentation....but therein lies the heart of the problem. Having a small floppy disc standard of delivery would be comparable to the issue to create a USB delivery standard. It just won't happen ever, and I'll just let the reader surmise why that is - hint it is just not one single reason.

Now, I am going to reiterate that in the last 30 years of development - there have been a number of optical disc standards - count them on less than 10 fingers - and it just goes to prove that from the CD-ROM to a mixed mode Blu-ray of today - there is no better modern standard sets in the consumer's hands. Bar none!

Musicians not using CD's make sense though: CD audio is 44khz/16-bit stereo. Non-CD Audio can go much higher quality. We're not talking about editing or acquisition formats though, just delivery methods. I still buy more CD's then digital audio downloads. They're higher quality.

The only two things I believe Apple did good with their non-standard stuff is the power connector for the iPod 5 & their magnetic connector for their laptops. Both genius: iPod 5 (maybe phone, don't know, only used an ipod 5 & 3) has no up/down, no need to worry about it not fitting, no giant plug to worry about snapping off (like the previous ones), fits any way not only one direction like USB. I've had a couple USB micro ends break off (from inside the plastic "mold" around where the plug & wire meet), I've had USB plugs get dented and needed fixed to work (same with older iPod cables). The iPod 5 one is vastly superior.

The magnetic connector is genius. Like the USB cables, I've seen a bunch of those little round plugs broken easily. The inside one on the tablet/laptop broken easily. A magnetic plug that doesn't actually go inside the computer and if it gets pulled doesn't break anything is awesome. Really, everything should switch to those two types of connections.

Those are the limit of my positive apple experience. :)

Back to mpeg-2. If the Mpeg-2 standard group doesn't make changes codec makers can improve how well their software encodes. Take advantage of more CPU speed, more cores/CPU's, more RAM, 64-bit, etc. That's how they can improve. I would hope that the mpeg-2 encoder in Vegas 3 doesn't go as fast or as good as the Vegas 13 encoder. That should be a given. But it could be Mainconcept doesn't bother updating it any more, and like previously pointed out, MC makes the encoder not SCS.

[I]"DVD and Blu-ray's are NOT Digital Delivery"
And a length of cable or an antenna is ?[/I]

Man, arguing over semantics... how middle school. :) It's like we're in 1980 arguing the difference between "video tape" and "film" when we say we're "filming" a movie.

"You quite often hear musicians saying that they don't bother with CDs any more, they only do digital."

LOL! well... except for Taylor Swift. Apparently she's pulled all her stuff from itunes and alike and you have to buy the cd. She's big enough to get away with that though. That stunt would be suicide for many other artists.

I saw an advertisement for something the other day saying that it was available in DVD or digital. In this context "digital" would appear to be a marketing term, and we know marketers were never fussed too much about literal truth.

Do you remember when manufacturers used to quote the peak power rating of their audio amplifiers and then they switched to "maximum RMS power" to denote "maximum long term average power for a continuous sine wave"? RMS should only be used in reference to amplitude, not power.

> "Android reads a stick right "out of the box". just plug it in. If your stick is the older type with regular usb then yes, you will need an adapter. If your stick is the newer dual plug as the above photo then you just plug it in."

So are you saying that micro-usb sicks are the new standard that will replace the DVD? I'm confused as to what your argument is in relation to the topic of this thread?

~jr