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SACD-CD Hybrids -- A Way Out For Us Both?
"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."
As long as I can use my speakers, I can make a copy. Its not that difficult to understand. Maybe they should stop wasting money on futile "protection" schemes and spend it on adapting to a new business model.
But no, that would make sense.
no
I imagine the record industry, if such a format was accepted, would put a very low quality version on the redbook CD part. They could, in effect, slowly phase out the redbook CD (due to low quality) and end up forcing people to only use the heavily protected version that would be unplayable in many players (due to copy prevention).
Yes, this COULD "re-define that relationship for modern times", but people could also stop commiting illegal and immoral copyright violation, companies could also stop abusing legislation to punish people who do believe in fair use.
Face it, this is a technological solution to a moral, social, and legal problem, and I don't think it's going to do much to fix the problem. The problems are that individuals don't consider intellectual property to be actual property, that corperations are willing to do anything to protect their profits (including acting first and thinking later, and encroaching upon the rights of innocent consumers), and that legislaters are largely in the pockets of big business.
Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!
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.
SO, the CD version is completely copiable, meaning it can be ripped into MP3 or whatever format you wish, but there is another "protected" version of the song that is "higher quality" and can only be copied once? What is to stop people from taking the CD layer and ripping it to whatever high-quality format they want? And what happens when the "high quality only copy once" scheme is broken? How does having things exactly as they are now offer the artist/RIAA anymore protection than uncopyprotected CDs?
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
that may be, but there just isn't much way around it. the recording industry wants to be able to cut piracy back. i say if they are willing to continue letting people have things at current cd quality, that's not to shabby. sure, it would be nice to have access to the higher quality stuff, but i just don't see it happening.
if the recording industry starts using this standard and allows unlimited usage of the (currently) regular cd quality, that is pretty fair.
they also give a reason for buying the drm encumbered discs. higher quality! it's a trade-ff.
we won't be able to copy everything easily forever. at least this still allows the customer to have some fair use.
you probably shouldn't have read this.
Okay, let me see if I get this. It somehow makes sense that a lower quality version of something should be able to be copied as much as you want, while the high quality version of something is strongly protected?
How, exactly, does this help anyone? IP is property or it is not. This is like saying it is illegal for someone to punch you, but only if they do it where it really hurts.
Or, conversely, like saying we are selling you something, but you only own the broken version.
This strikes me as a solution that is sure to just piss everyone off, as opposed to some of the people.
7. What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.
the problem with DRM is that it never helps the consumer. it can only make things difficult for them.
take macrovision encoding for example. (i think its macrovision i'm talking about, either way, whatever they use on DVD's)
if you try to run your DVD player through your VCR (for instance, if you don't have enough inputs on your TV, and you just want to use the pass-through on the VCR) at this point you either have to go buy an aux box for your TV, or if you have an older TV, you have to buy an RF modulator.
the part that sucks is that all of this inconvenience doesn't give you, the consumer, anything. in no way does macrovision encoding help you. at all.
this "one copy for archival purposes" doesn't cut it. what happens if you accidentally break your backup? what happens if you lose the original? can you magically make another archival copy to replace the lost one, or are you fucked?
i like high quality audio and all, but i also like being able to make copies of whatever i want, whenever i want.
-c
NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!
These idiots keep trying to replace the wheel with a more and more complex regular polygon.
And contrary to Dante, the lowest level of Hell is reserved for audiophiles and wine connoisseurs.
The quality of recorded music is not determined by how accurately it reproduces the sound at the microphone. It's determined by how well it reproduces the experience of the concert hall. And that has more to do with the primitive nature of all point source microphones and speaker systems. Where is the advanced research in that field? The music industry has the same level of openness to change as most dentists, i.e, zero.
Hic iacet Arthurus, rex quondam rexque futurus.
As others have said here, it's very likely that the dual-layer disk being contemplated would have a very poor quality version of the recording -- maybe even with voice-over ads at the start and end of each track -- who knows?
It's also a shame to see the RIAA trying to charge more for what is effectively the same material. Even if it's being offered at a higher digital resolution, it shouldn't cost them that much more to provide it -- besides which, does the average music listener really want to pay more for higher quality?
Hell, the quality of CD music sounds just fine for my heavy-metal-abused ears anyway - all those extra bits (and the money I'd pay for them) would just be wasted.
And here's an interesting article which provides some rather nice evidence to support allegations that Sony is being hypocritical in respect to CD ripping and downloading music from the Net.
The determining factor is the quality of audio recorded in the studio. There are many factors involved, and to make a long story short, the recording studio is the bottleneck -- they contribute a minimal level of noise to the recording -- not the CD.
(Please browse at -1 to read this comment.)
Who will buy this? Let's look at these one at a time.
better sound
Nobody (except audiophiles who spend $10K on a set of speakers) cares about sound quality enough to switch formats. Nobody. MP3 sounds much worse than CD - and it's the standard we all use! (Except ogg fans, who are in their own special circle of reality.) So this will not lead to adoption.
strong copyright security
It will be cracked ... and nobody but nobody will buy any new equipment to play these, because nobody will accept the loss of the ability to play, rip, etc. on PCs.
reasonable fair-use rights
HA HA HA HA HA HA
Since current fair use rights include the ability to rip, mix, burn, and use MP3s for whatever we damn well please, and any copy protection scheme at all will take these away, I don't see any way that people will buy this.
So: 0 for 3. Failure. Next!
sulli
RTFJ.
Unless the non-protected version is below current CD quality, it will sound no different than the "high-quality" version.
CD's were designed to sound perfect. They are 16-bits...the human ear and only tell differences up to 13 or 14 bits. Of course the industry would like you to believe that a 'better' format exists, it does not. Recording studios actually worry about picking up the sound of air moving in a recording booth.
CD's could be made more durable, hold more music, or support more channels of sound, but the quality of sound is already perfect.
And let's face it...people don't want to think about copy-protection when they but a product.
-Matt
That's part of the point of this new disc. It has both a lower-quality cd layer (by lower-quality, I mean current cd-quality) and a high-quality layer (higher quality than is possible with a standard cd). Thus, if you want to, it will play in a standard cd player, and copy to mp3, at current cd-quality. However, if you want to use the higher audio quality, or special features such as lyrics or videos, you have to use the new layer, which might feature copy-protection.
So there is an added benefit for consumers, and if you don't think it's worth it, just continue using it as a standard cd.
1. RIAA doesn't care if the artists get paid...RIAA only cares that the production companies get paid...how the musicians fare is their problem.2. RIAA doesn't believe you have this right. If you want the music on more than one machine or in more than one format, buy it again.3. Less than 10% of the music buying population want or care about higher quality audio...you can't tell the difference over the road noise anyway...4. If it can be read, it can be copied...plain and simple. Copy CONTROL (protection is a prophylactic) does not work. Music will continue to be pirated by the same percentage of listeners who pirate it today.5. So music production companies will actually LOWER the sound quality of this layer to something worse than cassette tapes, effectively eliminating its use.6. Chances of getting all of those groups to agree is somewhere around
And #9, the main reason it won't work: MP3 is the new format. All the other attempts at introducing new formats are pointless. People like MP3s, MP3s are the new way. Audio players now support MP3s, car sterios are already supporting MP3s. The music industry, or RIAA, cannot change this. If they want to jump on the bandwagon, fine. If they want to push it over and knock everyone else off, they are too late.
But, as Dennis Miller might say: "That's just my opinion. I could be wrong."
Which almost no one cares about. Most eople are willing to settle for MP3 quality.
Yes, we will. It's called digital technology and it's not going to go away, even if the government attempts oppressive tactics like the SSSCA. The sooner we realize that the genie is out of the bootle and get past useless copy-protection schemes, the sooner we can move on to figuring out how to get artists paid without a pay-per-copy model.Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
There's a white rhinoceros in this whole debate. Copyright law -- fair use in particular -- is too subtle and too contextual to implement in software. It is impossible to create rights management software which implements the law; such software will always err in favor of the consumer or the copyright holder (or both).
Let me repeat that: It is IMPOSSIBLE to implement copyright law in software.
Period.
worst analogy ever
This looks to me like a transition strategy. The basic idea is that CDs are a format that the music industry does not like for the reason that they have no control over the content (but Disney did not like the VCR initially for the same reason). Their solution to dealing with the opposition is as follows, suspect:
1: Release a hybrid CD-SACD
2: Push SACD hardware, with built in DRM.
3: Eventually drop the CD format as obsolete.
I say this does present a way out-- these hybrids will be initially costly, but as long as the demand exists for redbook hardware, the plan cannot succeed.
The way to win here is to ensure that the demand remain high for redbook only hardware and hardware without DRM.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
The Internet sharing networks will be filled with half-ass attempts at this process using a crappy speakers and a crappy microphone.
I made CDs of my audio tape collection. I used a double-ended autio cable, not a mic and some speakers. The quality loss was not noticable at all. I just ran cables from my stereo into my G4 and used simple audio recording software. Then I created a CD from those tracks. I also made MP3s for listening on my computer.
What will stop someone from doing exactly what I did using CD audio for input instead of a tape?
There is NO technological solution to piracy
t'nera semordnilap
Amen. To paraphrase Wendy: "Fuck the industry. Fuck them right in the ear."
NitsujTPU, you're absolutely right. They key here is to offer customers an incentive to BUY - give them something for their money.
Take television and the whole TiVo row. I'm a big fan of Smallville. Now if I can't make it home in time to watch it, you bet your ass TiVo is going to get it. Am I gonna skip commercials? You bet, aside from a few I find genuinely entertaining (e.g. the Mountain Dew commercial with the dude and ram butting heads).
But I digress. After the season is over, a smart studio would put out the whole damned season on DVD in wide-screen and pan-and-scan, chock full of goodies. I'd pay for a really good show, provided it was higher-quality than broadcast and there were some 'extra' goodies. Studios get their 'lost' revenue for commercial skippers and then some. Or take a clue from the UK and video-on-demand technology and let me subscribe to the show commercial-free - and let me record it or burn it without hassling me.
I'm sick of this anti-piracy bullshit. If I buy a CD, vinyl, audio tape, or DVD then I'll watch and listen whereever the hell I please, whenever I please.
I've spent a lot of time carefully ripping my CD collection to get the best sound quality I can. I make mix CDs of my own, and load up my mp3 player. I'm no paying for music twice or thrice, that's for damned sure.
[/rant]
Nathan's blog
You forgot to mention that a CD sample size is 16 bits while the SACD sample size is 1 bit. So in reality there is only 2x as many bits... but because of the peculiar way in which SACD works you dont end up with 2x as much quality.
SACD offers only incremental benefits over CD for consumers. The main attraction is its difficult to copy since SACD is not a PCM format. Instead its a bit stream format, which means all those cool things like DSP volume control and modulation, etc is impossible with SACD.
SACD is just another cash grab, don't buy into it.
better sound
strong copyright security
reasonable fair-use rights
Pick 2.
Digitac
Don't fool yourself - the entertainment industry is no friend of the consumer, and never has been. Sometimes consumers win (Sony v. Universal), but more often we lose (AHRA, DMCA, etc.).