What’s the point of digital media?

In the comments to my previous post on ripping a CD collection into digital format, Ken asks some good questions:

Ed, educate me. I use my home computer primarily for e-mail, Internet browsing and research, word processing, the occasional PC game, and CD burning — but not CD ripping for the purpose of listening to music or watching DVDs on my computer (after all, I have a plasma HD television and top line DVD player, excellent stereo equipment in both my house and my car, et. cet. specifically designed for those activities). What, then, is the point of ripping CDs and saving them onto hard drives, other than having one additional copy of all your files in case something happens to your CD collection?

I know people do it, but I have never understood why. Even if I downloaded music from the Interent, I would rather burn it to a CD and then play it on equipment designed primarily to play music or video. What am I missing out on, if anything? TIA.

Let’s start with what I think is the single fundamental (but perfectly natural) misconception in this question, that PC-based equipment is inferior to dedicated audio and video equipment. That was once true, but no more. Today, PC-based equipment can do many of the tasks I once needed dedicated audio equipment for, and it integrates well with home theater components. The quality of audio and video is at the same level of quality as (and in some cases better than) consumer electronics equipment.

My home theater PC outputs 7.1 surround sound via a digital optical connection. In an A-B test, I don’t believe you could distinguish it from consumer-quality audio equipment. It uses component video connections to go straight to my HDTV, again with quality that is indistinguishable from a consumer DVD player and my digital cable connection. (And when I get the HDTV connection working, I expect its quality to be indistinguishable from my cable company’s HDTV signal.) My home theater system now includes an HDTV, two receivers (one for the den, the other for the speakers scattered throughout the house), and a Media Center PC that handles music, standard TV, digital photos, and DVD playback.

With an 800–CD collection, the logistics of managing the CDs as physical objects becomes overwhelming. I had a 300–CD jukebox that was almost impossible to use and couldn’t handle the majority of my collection. The idea of dedicating 20 or 30 feet of shelf space to CDs and then keeping all those CDs filed in some logical way is depressing. And what do I do with my extensive collection of live recordings and downloaded music, which represent the equivalent of another 400+ CDs?

The advantage of having music available in digital format is that I can scroll through the entire collection using a single interface (Media Center) that runs via remote control. I can search for artists and albums, create custom playlists, retrieve saved playlists, and do it all without stacking up jewel boxes and trying to find just the right CD. When we have a dinner party, I can put together a custom playlist for the evening, mixing music that I know will be compatible with our guests. I never fail to get positive remarks on the music and I don’t have to constantly get up to swap CDs (even a 6–CD changer will run out in the course of a long evening).

We still watch DVDs that we rent from Netflix, but all of our TV watching these days is via a DVR — either the cable company’s HD recorder or my Media Center PC, and it is fun to be able to save a particularly enjoyable show and burn it to CD for later viewing. The output from the Media Center PC is indistinguishable from the digital cable signal.

Most people have justifiable skepticism about integrating a PC into the home theater. But when the equipment is well designed and reliable, the benefits are overwhelming. I think you’re going to see an explosion in this category in the next year or two. Just watch!