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How are release formats distributed over Discogs?

In Discogs each release has one or more Format fields, in which a contributor has to indicate what format a device has, or what formats a device has, in case it has multiple formats.

I simply looked at all the releases in the database and simply counted, and this is the list I got (from most releases to fewest releases):
  1. Vinyl: 4,819,258
  2. CD: 2,913,785
  3. File: 917,569
  4. Cassette: 647,604
  5. CDr: 386,541
  6. Shellac: 146,494
  7. DVD: 85,475
  8. Box Set: 52,634
  9. All Media: 29,217
  10. Flexi-disc: 20,814
  11. VHS: 18,674
  12. 8-Track Cartridge: 15,206
  13. Acetate: 9,580
  14. DVDr: 8,581
  15. Lathe Cut: 8,023
  16. SACD: 6,380
  17. Reel-To-Reel: 5,022
  18. Blu-ray: 3,705
  19. Laserdisc: 3,077
  20. Memory Stick: 1,701
  21. Minidisc: 1,613
  22. Edison Disc: 1,308
  23. Cylinder: 1,290
  24. Betacam SP: 1,060
  25. Hybrid: 1,012
  26. Floppy Disk: 1,003
  27. Blu-ray-R: 674
  28. CDV: 601
  29. 4-Track Cartridge: 593
  30. DCC: 397
  31. Pathé Disc: 367
  32. U-matic: 362
  33. Betamax: 263
  34. DAT: 209
  35. PlayTape: 144
  36. Microcassette: 135
  37. HD DVD: 65
  38. MiniDV: 57
  39. UMD: 51
  40. VHD: 40
  41. SelectaVision: 37
  42. Tefifon: 33
  43. Video8: 13
  44. Video 2000: 6
  45. Elcaset: 5
  46. Betacam: 4
  47. HD DVD-R: 4
  48. MVD: 2
  49. 12": 1
  50. DualDisc: 1
  51. Wire Recording: 1

There are a few surprises there: I had thought that Blu-ay would be bigger (since it has been on the market since mid-2006), but also that there would be more DVDs, which are just a fraction of the releases (despite coming in at nr 7!). Could streaming have an impact?

Most of the questions that I have are about trends. These can be extracted from the data that Discogs provides each month, or at least to some extent: the XML dump does not include the date a release was added (that information is only available in the JSON output via the API) and the rate at which releases are added to the database seems to be slightly increasing: it took quite a long time to add the first 1 million releases, namely a few years, while now it is just a matter of months. So this is something that should be kept in mind. So I created a few graphs for various releases that I thought were interesting and see if I could extract something meaningful from it.

Anyway, let's look at the graphs!

Vinyl



Distribution of vinyl releases in the Discogs dataset
What you can see is that slowly but surely the number of vinyl releases becomes a bit less, with a slight recovery in recent times again (possibly because of the resurgence of vinyl?). Nevertheless, vinyl remains king.

CD

Distribution of CDs in the Discogs dataset
CDs seem to be evenly spread across the data.

File

Distribution of File releases in the Discogs dataset
For Files I recommend you to read the separate article about it.

Cassette

Distribution of cassettes in the Discogs dataset

Now this is funny to see. It seems that cassettes are getting a lot more traction and the amount of cassettes added to Discogs is steadily increasing.

CD-r

Distribution of CD-r releases in the Discogs dataset
CD-r seems to be pretty consistent, but with significantly fewer releases in the early days. My guess: there was no distinction between CD and CD-r back then and there are still quite some CD-r releases hiding as CD.

DVD

Distribution of DVD releases in the Discogs dataset
So for DVDs the story isn't quite clear: after an inital start that was a bit slow it then went up to about 7,500 releases per million being added, then it gradually became less and now it is back up again. Why? I have no idea.

8-Track Cartridge

The 8-track is a bit of an ugly duckling (even though some were produced as late as 1988 or 1989) but it has some sort of cult following and a, I suppose, niche collector market as a novelty item.

Distribution of 8 track cartridges in the Discogs dataset

It seems that these releases are added in bursts, but the trend is upwards. If this is because 8 track cartridges have become more collectable, or not I cannot say.

Blu-ray

Coming back to Blu-ray: what is the trend?

Distribution of Blu-ray discs in the Discogs dataset

Very clear: it's going up.

So that's it. I am not sure if there are any logical conclusions to draw from these numbers and I will leave that up to others.
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