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Date: Wed, 6 Mar 1996 16:05:49 EST
From: Will Wheeler <WJW2@psuvm.psu.edu>
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Beethoven's 9th and CD's

In article <4hhogc$3io@verdi.nethelp.no>, cindy@nvg.unit.no (Cindy Kandolf) says:

>Steinar the ex-Stereo Freak (he's converted to Pooter Freakdom now, of
>course) raised the issue that as far as he remembers, the physical
>characteristics of the CD were decided quite early on in the design
>process, before they knew the highest practical "density" of
>information on the disk. In other words, someone working on the
>project figured this was a handy size, and later, when they worked out
>how much music there was room for, it was a happy coincidence that
>most symphonies would fit.

Not exactly. According to Ken C. Pohlmann, _The Compact Disc Handbook_, 2nd Ed., 1992 (ISBN 0-89579-301-6), the CD was jointly developed by Sony and Phillips*. Both companies had been independently working on their own CD projects, and collaborated in order to set a standard. The two companies had different technical standards, and in the course of collaboration, both companies compromised.

Phillips originally had an 11.5 cm disc, but increased the sampling frequency and increased the audio signal from 14 bits to 16 bits. I now quote: "To accomodate the extra data, disc diameter was increased to 120 millimeters. Maximum playing time was set at 74 minutes." (p. 11)

This implies to me that playing time was a standard that the companies wanted to meet. Otherwise, why not decrease the playing time and keep the disc size at 11.5 cm?

Why 74 minutes? Pohlmann doesn't know either. He says: "According to one version of history, the 74-minute time was selected because conductor Herbert von Karajan, a Polygram artist**, demanded a 74-minute capacity so his favorite piece, Beethoven's _Ninth Symphony_, would fit on a single disc. The other version claims the wife of Sony chairman Akio Morita insisted that Beethoven's _Ninth Symphony_, her favorite piece, fit on a disc." Neither version is attributed.

Of more interest is an interview by Nancy Herther in the July 1992 _CD-ROM Professional_ ("The Past, Present and Future of the Compact Disc, Multimedia and the Industry: An Interview with Dr. Toshi Doi"). Dr. Doi is a Director of the Sony Corporation, and helped invent the compact disc. On p. 21:

Q. I've heard different stories about the beginnings of the compact disc. Could you please tell us how the compact disc came to be the 12 cm disc that it is.

1. Mr. Oga from Sony decided the size of the compact disc. We had a big debate with Philips on the size of the CD disc. I was pushing 10 cm, because it was a round number and a very small disc. Sony was very interested in having a portable CD player from the very beginning. Philips was pushing for a much larger disc***. Mr. Oga finally made the decision that he wanted something which could hold the entire Beethoven's 9th Symphony on a single disc. That was a very good decision and as good of a reason as any other.

I especially like that last sentence. The article doesn't say who Mr. Oga is, and I haven't been able to find out. I find it more plausible to believe that someone I haven't heard of made a decision to put the size of the disc at 74 min, rather than the chairman of one of the corporations involved in its design. I find it extremely implausible that a conductor who worked for a subsidiary of one of the corporations "demanded" that the disc length be 74 min. Of course, I haven't worked for that many corporations.

Does this stuff help? The brief IEEE quote seems like a weak basis for the T in the FAQ.

*Sony and Phillips collaborated to design what we know of as the CD. Both companies had prototypes before they collaborated.

**Polygram is a subsidiary of Phillips, or was at the time.

***This doesn't exactly jibe with the Pohlmann book. According to him, both companies had originally designed fairly large discs, because audio discs were based on video disc technology. Video discs are big, and the earliest audio discs were a similar size. According to Pohlmann, Phillips was using an 11.5 cm disc when they started collaborating. Maybe this is what Doi meant by "much larger" and I'm reading it wrong.

Will "you'll know you're in Hell when you see ads for Charles Grodin in

_Beethoven's Ninth_" Wheeler