Amazon's exclusive allows them to manufacture these discs "on demand" (in other words, as they are ordered). These CDRs are manufactured as part of the order packing process, and it shows. On one copy I received, you can clearly see the wet glue stain from a not-yet-dried CD label on the inserts. The front insert wasn't cut properly and was stuffed into the case, wrinkled... you know, when the paper is too big to fit in the allotted space, but it's shoved in there anyway? Yes.

...and it's a CDR.

We shouldn't stand for this. Send the CDRs back to Amazon. We shouldn't be forced to accept this. Oh yeah, it's up to you if you want to copy the CD before returning it. Obviously there's no copy protection on something crappy like this... we should be glad to know they've realized they aren't that full of themselves!

What do you think? I think it's insulting, but if no one thinks the same, that's fine. It's what Amazon is hoping for with its dominance over the music industry. They can do no wrong when people don't care... and the number of us who do care, well... we take our care to the graves like good little netizens.

I'm just glad they didn't go the iTunes route. What I do worry about though is the durability of the discs. CD-Rs in my experiece scratch very easly and can have more playabilty problems than factory pressed dics. They also have a shorter life span before they start to decay.
Of coarse if I had my way I'd make everything high resolution SACDs. I'm just glad they are not an MP3 only release.

So if we were serious about this, what can we do? Do you think sending the CDRs back will help? DO you think they will refund us and consider fututr exclusive complete score releases scrapped from the planning room floor?

Tim, Peter's probably been busy with orders and hasn't seen those threads

And the CD medium, by its nature it meant to be taken care of, not tossed around. I have never had a CD-R decay on me. I might have gotten a few bad batches, but that's expected. What kinds of CD-Rs do you use if yours are decaying?

-Brian

-Brian<HR size=1></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well I can't name alot because I don't keep many CDRs for 10 years, but there was one brand called DataLife I think. Its started chipping away on surface after about 2 years. Then I had a memorex one before that that started warping after about 8 years.
I've also ran into some that had no visible damage, but had problems playing in some CD players, but not others.

[Message edited by TimT on 06-17-2008]

I'm sure Peter was aware of the two threads devoted to this and I'm sure he just wanted to rant.

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Originally posted by Demetris Christodoulides:
Ah, why bother. The score isn't worth it anyway.

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Well the score has its moments, but it isn't worth the "special treatment".
It will be interesting to see what happens when the score falls out of production, and go on eBay. Think of how many negative feedback ratings will be served from people thinking they just got jipped when they see that they received CD-Rs. LOL

I understand what people see, and have added some background on why it is this way; information that I've not seen anyone else post yet... and then commented that this process is cheap, it shows, and we shouldn't eat it like good little puppies.

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Originally posted by Quill:
Happy to report that I had no issues with my copy...enjoying the score as well.

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Originally posted by John Steel:
At Amazon, the description of the Hulk cd has the line "This product is manufactured on demand using CD-R recordable media. Amazon.com's standard return policy will apply."

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Originally posted by Frank V:
They added it later, if I read it correctly.

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Originally posted by rolltide1017:
I want to purchase this but, I will not until there is proof that the CD-Rs are NOT being burned from lossy MP3s (or any other compressed format of the music that isn't lossless).

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Um I thought about that, but I don't think they are since the content of the CDR version and MP3 version would have been the same. The MP3 version has less tracks and different sequencing.

But anyway I did a test. All MP3 regardless of quality have a frequeny cut off of 20kHz. Knowing this I ripped a track to WAV from the CDR and decoded a 320kbps MP3 to WAV of the same track (The Arctic) and took a look in a WAV editor (Audicty's Frequency Analysis). Just as I supected the MP3 decoded WAV cut off a 20kHz, but the WAV from the CDR extened way beyond 21.5kHz.

So the CDRs could not have used MP3s as thier source.
But considering sound quality I do think the score sounds a bit flat, and there is some obvious distortion in a couple places.

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Originally posted by BigT1981:
Maybe this is a new trend. I hope though it won't be...someone reported on FSM that Star Trek III's recent re-release they're on CD-R as well and the one I've got is definitely the CD-R. I am going to have to hunt the original down sometime.

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