SACD-CD Hybrids -- A Way Out For Us Both?

net_shaman writes: "As reported in Stereophile Magazine online -- There appear to be some serious moves afoot by the recording industry to move en-mass to another compact audio disc format. No doubt frustrated with the utter failure of every attempt to copy protect Compact Discs. But this could be an opportunity for both better sound, strong copyright security and reasonable fair-use rights. The Hybrid Super Audio Compact Disc contains two layers of encoded information; one for standard 'Red Book' Compact Disc, and another for high resolution audio recordings (SACD). Here is a description."

"An interesting feature of the SACD layer is plenty of room for strong digital rights management code.

Here's my proposal: it should should allow artists to get paid, and the citizens to have archived and portable copies of the recording they have purchased. The record companies should produce a superior audio product and get to protect it from serial copying. The CD layer should be freely available for personal copying such as to a computer or portable digital player. These 2 basic concepts are a model that can be applied in the future, when better formats become available. It may also serve as a model for digital visual recordings. Perhaps we can get the artists, publishing companies, electronics manufacturers and the federal trade commision to all agree on this compromise: 1.The high quality recording allows only one copy of itself to be made for archival purposes. 2.The lower quality recordings are available for personal copying.

Personal digital technology has brought a tremendous change to the realtionship between media publishers & consumers. It's time for a new paridigm that will re-define that relationship for modern times."

Comments

Re:Fair Compromise

[tomstdenis]

Stupid anal audiophiles. Can't you just play music as a background task in your mind? I mean I play my small collection of mp3s [around 3k] all the time, kinda like the radio. I don't really pay much attention to the songs let alone how much gibbs phenonemon I can hear...

For the record, stop whining. Get a life. Or at least learn how to use a decent MP3 codec then stop whining.

At 192kbps most MP3s [re: all I've heard] sound just like the CD on my amplified computer speakers [altec lansing 60w system, sounds cool]. Sure definately if you spend the 150k on a sound studio you can buy a 50$ SACD. For the 99% of the rest of us we will either ignore CD's or just buy cheaper ones.

Tom