Standard For MP3 CD Players Planned For March

udif writes: "OSTA, the Optical Storage Teechnology Association, (a standards body whose members include HP, Sony, Ricoh and others, and among other things, has defined the UDF filesytem for DVD's), is proposing a standard format for storing MP3's on CD, called CDA. Here is a quote from their press release: 'Many recently produced DVD players now have the ability to play back MP3 or WMA files. However, these players sometimes lack the ease of use of an audio CD when playing CD-R or CD-RW discs with MP3 or WMA files. Due to lack of standard format, discs containing MP3 or WMA files made in today's PCs with standard CD recording software often exhibit long initialization times and lead to a poor user experience ... CD-Text capable CD/DVD players will be able to display the names of artists and song titles and navigate the hundreds of MP3 or WMA files easily by selecting play lists or other criteria.'" CDA, by the way, stands for Compressed Data Audio. Seems like a good step toward at least good labeling of which players can play your shiny disks, whether they hold MP3s, home video in VCD format, or your digital pictures. Demo units using the spec should be at next month's Comdex.

Comments

huh? no standard?

[hugg]

So an ISO 9660 filesystem is not a standard? I can see organizing it so that the directories load faster, and maybe a manifest, but the only easy way to navigate 500+ filenames is to have a text display & keyboard.

Ogg Vorbis and Firmware

[rufus t firefly]

I'd be interested to know if they are open to other standards... like whether RealMedia can get into the action, or something like Ogg Vorbis could be used.

I understand where they might get into some issues with RealMedia, since it is a proprietary format (as is WMA, come to think of it), but Ogg Vorbis is a perfectly open standard, to which there aren't any licensing drawbacks or problems.

Perhaps some flash-upgradable hardware is the way to go. Throw a USB or serial connection on it and provide firmware updates for it; that's definately something that would convince *me* to buy any product.

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Is this a way to sell more CD burners?

[Mr Neutron]

I wonder if current CD-R/RW drives will be able to produce the CDA format. Otherwise this sounds like a conspiracy to sell CD-R/RW/CDA drives.

Look for my product announcement next week, ahead of Sony and Pioneer.

Neutorn

Name

[e-Motion]

Couldn't they have called it something better? I don't want to have to say "No, not CDDA, CDA. Yes, there is a difference." Let the confusion begin.

Smells fishy...

[b0z]

a standards body whose members include HP, Sony, Ricoh and others

So it sounds good, but what's the security scheme? If it's anything like the DVD region encoding, macrovision, or any other crap I would say that this standard won't be adopted and the RIAA will go crying saying how they tried to use this mp3 technology but the pirates prevented them or some other crybaby excuse. This could be good, but I won't hold my breath as long as companies like Sony are involved.

Falling out of touch with /.ers?

[B14ckH013Sur4]

I feel alienated from this group of negative FPers who have nothing good to say. What happenned to reading the article?
First of all, there are already plenty of CD-players that support playing burned mp3s, they sell for anything between $79 and $199(US).
Secondly, this is a way to set a standard format for burning the CDs so that the next generation of players can easily supply a user-interface such as Author/Song Title; as well as faster access and search-time for the players. It is not going to be forcing any standards on the mp3s themselves. Quit being foolish naysayers and go do something productive.

CDA: Irony Incarnate?

[Effugas]

CDA, known to old school net rats as the Communications Decency Act, being christened the new title for MP3 CDs?

No, worse:

CDA, better known to me as Compress Da' Audio: The first major MP3 ripping group that publically released tracks and (I believe) albums too.

The mind boggles.

Yours Truly,

Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com

Re:Multiplay - consumer, not technical standard.

[bugg]

You're reading the "Playback Compatiblity Specification for CD and DVD Consumer Devices" which merely discusses how a player will be tested before it gains the seal. The format of the disk is not in the scope of that PDF; look for another.

Multiplay - consumer, not technical standard.

[kyz]

Reading the specification is like leafing through a consumer's rights document. All it says is that OSTA will test each player with 5 discs, containing 5 tracks. They will insert the discs, check that all the tracks play in order, and, er, that's it. They then give it a seal of approval.

I always though OSTA was a hardcore technical standards committee. Where's the specification for supported media formats, and how to play them? Where's the filesystem specs (like UDF)? Why are the CD/CD-R/CDRW specs only handwaved?