In a message dated 5/3/2000 1:22:25 AM Pacific Daylight Time, 
goemon@sasami.anime.net writes:

<< Wrong.

        I love when that's the first thing I see in a response, it fills me 
with glee!  Seriously.
 
 CDs are a *giant* leap over vinyl and tape. CDs are *far* less prone to
 damage, and *far* easier to repair. You get a scratch on vinyl, you are
 screwed. You stretch or break tape, you are screwed. >>

        What I was referring to was the casing, which, yes, LPs did not have, 
but audiotape did, and quite easily CD could have had.  Actually, there are, 
if you go back to when CDs were primarily for scientific use, encased CDs, 
their bloody brilliant, and you'd actually have to try to break it to manage 
ruining it (unless something totally unlikely but truly marvelously bizzare 
were to occur [these things happen more often than is sane]).  My info comes 
mostly from people I've met that had a hand in the development of these 
products back inna day, as well as fairly substantial trade mags for tech and 
whatnot.  The precise mix used for the CDs' physical composition varies from 
company to company anyway.  And you can find some CDs with a physical 
composition (including the chemical breakdowns, and the density of matter 
pressed into shape [yes, some are just more material smooshed down to make 
them stronger) far superior to the average CD.  Fun way to test this, 
frisbee-throw CDs from different companies, or even better, different 
countries at a good, firm, solid wall, and watch them shatter, some go to 
damn near dust, others to big hunks of shiny shrapnel (first, remember, use 
worthless CDs, not something good and worth money, i.e. working).
        Far as Macrovision goes, I didn't mean to imply names being the 
problem, merely the technique utilized to do the job (I can think of a few, 
but am uncertain as to the method which is used).  Also, it does blank the 
screen, there are also methods which merely warp the image, these are used on 
most VHS tapes as well.  They are not used on tapes a company is fairly 
certain will be copied (hence, why much anime and smaller films are not 
warped thusly [on tape, I hear DVD, depending on region, is different]).