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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."
I just realized that I couldn't care less!
The simple solution is already being used by some people (not Sony tho'). Of course then we can't use cover art (no loss) and must protect the product better to preserve it (industry gain!).
:).
BTW IMHO SACD rox
How does this protect fair use? It is like, "okay, instead of kidnapping your baby, I will kidnap your baby but leave you with this picture of him." Thanks, RIAA, but no thanks.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
The industry shouldn't treat its customers like criminals in the first place... They should produce the BEST product available rather than downgrade what they COULD produce in favor of making sure that their will destroy their computers if they try to listen to the cd they bought. Rather than pushing users into a new format, merely so they can be charged AGAIN, they should offer a new format that has an advantage for the customer.
The SACD standard, published by Philips and Sony in March 1999, defines three possible disc types (shown above). The first two types are discs containing only DSD data; the single layer disc can contain 4.7 GB of data, while the dual layer disc contains slightly less than 9 GB. The third version - the SACD Hybrid - cleverly combines a single 4.7 GB layer with a conventional CD that can be played back on over 700 million cd player world wide. This concept is the essential link between the new SACD format and the well-established CD.
From the outside, the SACD Hybrid Disc looks like any other 12 cm diameter and 1.2 mm thick optical disc. A closer look reveals that the disc is a bonded combination of two 0.6 mm data carriers: one containing the SACD data, the other the CD data. The reflective coating on the SACD carrier has the optical characteristic to be reflective for the light used in the SACD pick-up (650 nm), but to be transparent for the light used in a CD pick-up (780 nm). To a CD pick-up, the SACD layer is virtually invisible, as a result, the CD layer contained within the SACD Hybrid Disc is fully compatible with the "Red Book" CD standard, and can, therefore, be played on all "Red Book" compliant players.
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).
1.The high quality recording allows only one copy of itself to be made for archival purposes.
This is a great move. That way the only pirated copies will be crappy third generation digital copies or worse.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
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!
Now No Doubt is jumping on the RIAA bandwagon TOO??
Sheesh, and I really liked their music. Guess it's boycott time.
I always thought the best way for the damn labels to justify the high prices and fight mp3 pirating is by offering a better product to the people. SACD is it. After hearing 2 channel SACD, any audiophile will gladly pay $20 or more for such a recording. Let the kids on the internet trade their mp3s, but if you want the uncompressed joy that is high-res audio, you will buy the SACD. This is of course until technology and bandwidth progresses to the point where sharing gig size files as commonly as we share mp3s becomes common place.
I thought they had already unveiled a new Piracy-Proof format.
daed si luap
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"
Sharpie is simultaneously developing their Fine Point SACD Permanent Marker.
Best Windows Freeware
We tried this once with DAT (remember SCMS?) and MD, and look where that got us.
It got us special piracy taxes.
Way to go. Lets see history repeating!
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
And, besides, any DRM scheme WILL BE CRACKED eventually. But unlike a house lock-picker set, once the digital tool is out, it will be instantly all over the known universe, sending DRM scheme designers back to their drawing boards...
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
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
Then how exactly is it copy-proof? I have several CD-ROM drives laying around that can be used as stand-alone audio CD players. So if the Red Book complient disc can be read by the Red Book complient CD-ROM drive and fed directly down the audio path I choose, such as into my stereo or (wait for it)right into my sound card, how is this copy proof?
I understand the industry's position in all this, but I would think they employed a few people with enough wits to know that copy restricting an audio product is never gonna work.
And as far as the added capabilities go, who's gonna buy new hardware? We STILL haven't standardize DVD burners yet. I don't need any new media formats, I already have enough obsolete junk in my house.
... and as we have seen repeatedly-- DVD, WMA, SDMI, etc, etc, etc... it WILL be broken. Sure, you can have the redbook audio, which will probably be pretty poor quality, or you can have the hi-res stuff. If there is a DeSACD app available-- and you can bet there will be in very short order-- which would you rather have, the 2 channel redbook or the multi-channel hi-res audio? Which do you think will be turning up on alt.binaries.mp3, 2 channel mp3's or multi-channel ogg format encodings?
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Mind you, those players and discs are still way to expensive for me.
Beware TPB
I don't understand why quality is tied to fair use. If I own a copy of a copyrighted book, and offer a poor-quality OCR scan of it on a website, I am infringing the copyright on the work, despite the OCR errors that make it a low-fidelity, inexact copy. However if I read my OCR version on my PDA, I haven't infringed a thing. What does fidelity to the original have to do with whether infringement has occurred? I am sure that the digital copies of AOTC that were shot with a haldheld camera are considered to be infringing copies, even though the fidelity is quite poor. Can anyone explain this, even if it is a lame explanation?
Edith Keeler Must Die
Repeat after me: there are no technical fixes for social problems, there are no technical fixes for social problems, there are no technical fixes for social problems.
I don't care what code you put on the SACD, or what rights management comes with the software: until we get a consistency of governance, with the same clear law implemented uniformly, protecting both fair use, individual rights, and copyright law (what's left of it after Eldred Vs. Ashcroft all of this is just screwing around: people will hack around it, of course, and it'll be DeCSS all over again.
That's not progress, or a solution.
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
I have an SACD player, and it wouldn't be that hard to copy it, given you have the right tools. Currently, you must use the analog outs on the player (sorry, no digital outs...yet), but all you would really have to do is run it either to a 6-channel input on an audio card (they make some good 8-channel ones for mixing) or switch the SACD to 2-channel mode (it allows you to do that), and record the file to a WAV on your PC. If you wanted the surround version, just run it through a DTS encoder (check out SurCode DTS) and play it on most any DVD player / Reciever that can decode DTS. The quailty won't be *as great* as SACD, but it will be damn good.
Just as an FYI, a CD's sampling rate is 44.1Khz (44,100 samples per second), SACD by comparison is 1.2Mhz (1,200,000 samples per second) talk about some serious data, this thing looks almost exactly like an analog wave!
------
"And may your days be long upon the earth."
The media giants are under no obligation to produce media that is copyable. The only reason thay haven't used a closed version so far is that (thankfully) the market presented a better alternative, which consumers naturally flocked to. Also thankfully, Sony vs. Betamax permitted such alternatives to be legal, much to the ire of meida conglomerates, even though they still made mountains of cash.
But the Supreme Court's decision is not protection from new technology that disallows fair-use copying. With the advent of the DMCA, and the conglomeration of the RIAA and MPAA, a single new format is poised to emerge which will literally be "forced" upon consumers. It is only a matter of time.
One can only hope consumers *really* boycott this, but I don't see apathetic losers who won't even vote for the presidency of their country giving a rat's ass.
---------rhad the informed cynic
Slashdot needs to interview Natalie Portman.
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.
So you want to marginally increase the quality of the recording, and use that as an excuse to tack a bunch of restrictions on to what I can do with the product I bought, on my own equipment, in my own home. Great. Where do I sign up.
DRM adds cost, while removing consumer-perceived value.
How about this: use the law to deal with legal problems, and quit trying to pollute the electronics and computing industries with this DRM 'solution'. The problem of data that can be copied infinitely is something that the law and economics are just going to have to deal with eventually - and, for god's sake - in a better manner than just crippling/regulating all of the devices.
The 'way out' for the music industry is to stop lobbying and give the public what they want. Which includes the ability to duplicate their recordings in an open format. Always has, always will.
Perhaps we can get the artists, publishing companies, electronics manufacturers and the federal trade commision to all agree on this compromise:
;^)
Right. Hillary Rosen and Bill Gates in the same room might bring together a critical mass of ego + arrogance, cause a thermal-nuclearesque meltdown, explode and take out the whole lot. Saaaayyyy.....
1.The high quality recording allows only one copy of itself to be made for archival purposes.
HOW??? AI? Hunh? How is a file supposed to know it's copy unless you tell it? Even then, it might not accept that it's a copy (Like Christine "I AM NOT A BRITTNEY CLONE!" Aguli-whatsherface) And just WHO is this artist that puts out high quality stuff?
2.The lower quality recordings are available for personal copying.
Soooo, we can trade Brittney and N'Stync "songs" all we want, but not (insert artist of actual value here)? Can we have it the other way, please - bandwidth is valuable, and Kaaza is hurting my link that does productive stuff.
Soko
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
(I use UHT == "User Hostile Technology" instead of "DRM" because I refuse to buy into the doublespeak.)
I get troubled when I read stuff like this from well meaning people who talk about the possibility of reasonable UHT because it implies an acceptance of something that, if wish to remain free, we can never ever accept: that our hardware and software should be telling us what we can and cannot do.
UHT is evil even when you agree with what it does, and even when it serves a clear utilitarian service. Good UHT is as much contradiction in terms as good dictatorship and just like with dictatorship the intention does not matter.
As we move further into the information age, we will grow more and more dependent on our computers as part of our lives, and as part of ourselves. We use them to communicate, to speak, and to be heard, and in many ways they must be seen as extentions of ourselves into cyberspace. In that context, we must recognize the immense power that the programs we run exercise over ourselves, and the incredible danger that is posed if those programs ultimately serve not to enable us but to control us.
Just like your lawyer cannot turn you in for the good of society, and your doctor cannot kill you to save two others, programmers and programs must act primarily in the interest of you, the user, and not society. Nobody should ever be compelled to run a program that acts against them, be it "reasonable" or not!
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.
The sad truth is that before Joe and Joan Public will stand up for their fair use rights they have to loose them. Until their consumer lives are inconvienced, to a point of frustration, they won't case. In the meantime it is only the informed minority who screams.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
the fact that if I play one of these new fangled CDs through a system with digital output I can always just pipe the output (lets say optical) to the input on another system and copy the CD with digital quality.
What exactly are they trying to prove?
Uma cabaca, un arane, un pedaco de pau!
Fly Fish? Participate in our forum
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
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."
I just recently bought a SACD player. I was all excited to test out the new capabilities. So I hooked up my the player with digital output to my reciever. And nothing. Nothing at all. I tried a CD and it worked fine. I poked around then net for a bit to find out why and then I realized that for some reason or nothey they (whoever they are), decided that it would not be a good idea for high-quality digital output. So to prevent theft they have not released a specification for the digital encoding (much like the Redbook Cd uses PCM encoding) for whatever format SACD uses (DSD or DSM or something like that). So I now I have to use analog outputs which seems to totally beat the point of having a high quality CD format.
Sounds like SACD is good solid technology.
It may even rival the success of Digital Audio Tape.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
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
Well, if the diagram is correct (i.e. the data is cheesecloth encoded, and the protection lies in the fact that the encoding layer is semi-reflective, the only thing you'de need to do to build an evil, satan-worshipping CIRCUMVENTION DEVICE would be to mark or "paint" the CD on the reverse side so that it can be sensed in a reader, and read the disc in two passes. Something like a a clean mylar sheet shaped like a flat donut, used for each side. Once youve got the data, simply a matter of doing the math, and whammo, youve got both the "new" high-resolution side and the "old" normal audio side. Looks like we'll have a "frying pan" for our burners soon.
Don't they think about this crap beforehand?
Bowie J. Poag
sacd's sound fantastic. dont get me wrong, they are incredible.. Listening to them a year ago in best buy was fun... but baing someone that was 18 when CD's hit the market, regular CD's sounded incredible.. and they still do, the ones mastered back in 1986-1987 are phenomonial, I have a supertramp CD that people swear is a SACD today. the problem is that almost ALL music you buy on cd is mastered crappily, they are speed produced and pushed out the door as fast as they physically can. Equipment is not calibrated before every session, and testing is few and far between anymore. THEY DONT CARE about making an album with the lowest noise floor and best use of the dynamic range. SACD's if they become mainstream and replace CD, will become crap, SACD's will start to sound as crappy as today's CD's.
the superior sound will go away, as it costs a ton of money to record and master a cd correctly.. that's why they dont do it now.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
because copyrights last too long. I don't care what "rights" I have, if the copyright lasts 95 years then the system is not worth anything to me. Copyrights shouldn't last anymore than 25 years now. Software copyrights for no more than 5 years.
Copyrights are not property. They are a state-enforced monopoly and thus in order to be moral they have to have a limited scope and duration. This is one area where IMO where one individual's "good" cannot be put on even the same level with the sum total of all individuals' rights. Copyrighted goods can only exist with state-intervention into the market place. That intervention violates a lot of people's natural rights. They give them up with the expectation they will gain something useful and have property rights of some kind. The current system absolutely does none of that in any way, shape or form. Consumers don't own the software they buy, have no right to duplicate music or movies they buy for friends with their own materials and many scientific pursuits are now outlawed.
So where are the double blind listening tests showing that more than 1% of the population can tell the difference anyway?
Why buy something that is worse than useless?
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
Does the average consumer notice the difference between the current fidelity of a CD versus say a 192Kbps MP3? No. Most don't notice the difference between the CD and 128Kbps MP3's. So does it really make sense to develop a higher fidelity audio format? I mean, sure, audophiles will enjoy it, I'm sure, but as a mass market item for consumers, what's the point?
The point, of course, is to make up some excuse for a new format that the recording companies can lock down and make "secure". The one problem they face is that nobody's going to invest in these new players except for the high-end audiophiles. So, unless they are going to try to push players by releasing big name performers exclusively on this new format, this is not going to last long. I don't know about you, but if I was Britney Spears or N'Sync or some other big name performer, there's no way I'd risk my sales to some corporate power play (assuming I still had the rights to my own musical performances).
The only way a new audio format is going to come to be is if the recording industry can figure out a way to make a substantial difference in the listening experience for the new media. It has to provide noticeable differences to the average consumer or it's not going to get past being a niche product for audio geeks.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
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.
Most eople are willing to settle for MP3 quality.
most people do not know there is much of a sound quality difference.
It's called digital technology and it's not going to go away
and we are not the only ones trying to find new ways to use it. the recording industry will also.
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
this i agree with. i just don't see the industry doing that soon. in the mean time i see them using drm. eventually the studios or the artists will find a Better Way, but i don't think it will be the next step.
you probably shouldn't have read this.
They should concentrate on figuring out how to distribute music over the Internet instead of coming up with new formats to temporarily store data. I mean, the CD is just a way to get the music from the studio to me and it's not a very clever way is it ?
The whole idea of burning CD and putting them in cases and them putting them on a truck and then out to a millions stores on a million trucks so that millions of people have to go to the store to pick it up.... it's so 20th century. Buying CDs online makes this process a bit easier, but still cumbersome.
Problem is, the RIAA are so afraid of music ending up on a hd that they rather would go back to old LPs than being innovative about this.
Oh, I can't help quoting you because everything that you said rings true
This is not a way out. It is another format for us to buy in order to wean us off of the open CD format.
The "protected higher quality layer" is easily ripped via analog out to any device willing to record it. Afraid of a computer? Try stereo VHS. 6 hours on one tape with very good quality.
All they are really trying to do is find a reason why they can ask $20.00 for a CD! DVD is often less than that! They are realizing that the average ticket price on a new CD sale is dropping now that their price fixing has been outed. I am surprised that they don't start selling a lot more singles to make up the cost per tune!
All they have to do is get a critical number of devices out there that can read this and start releasing SACD-CD only productions. You know they will do it. They are doing it with DVD vs VHS right now!
The MPAA *wants* their annuity revenue badly. They get it from media re-purchase, people backfilling their collection from the catalog. With the high durability of the CD, used buyers get the same experience as the first one does. The more CD media they press, the less they sell out of the back catalog over time.
A few years from now a high percentage of us will only be buying the select pieces of new media that we are interested in. That is what drives them -we can't forget that because they won't.
New media fixes this, pay per stream fixes this, and copy restricted hardware fixes this.
This also marginalizes indie production as well. MPAA dupe asks seller: "What, no high definition layer with extras and such?" Puts all independent productions on the defensive.
Fair use does not mean "ok you can make shitty copies -we don't care." It means we get to make copies for personal reasons period.
We need to keep things simple. No new formats, unless we have to have them period.
Blogging because I can...
Why play stereo music (2-channel) when you could have surround (5.1-channel)?
I always tell my friends that I'll get a 5.1 surround sound system when I grow an extra three ears.
The thing is that right now, any shmoe can rip and distribute songs en masse at high quality with only minimal computer skills. It takes no effort, no skill and costs nothing. Now, true, you could set up a high quality microphone, and listen to your nice speakers, and probably get a DECENT recording out of it. It would take you upwards of an hour (depending on CD length) to make this copy because you'd have to play it at regular speed.
:). Just like they always did.
So, are you really going to bother? I'm sure a few people will, just to be annoying, but most people won't. The Internet sharing networks will be filled with half-ass attempts at this process using a crappy speakers and a crappy microphone. So they don't really need to control everything, they just need to make it inconvenient for people to do it.
It's just like computer security. No system is 100% secure, but there are systems where the resource expense and risk of getting into it are so overwhelming that it's not worth it. If they can push it far enough, the only people that'll be pirating will be... pirates
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
It's a good thing that Sony is stepping up to the plate.
I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
The great truth of recorded music is: The life and death of any format is in the software, not the players, not the technology, not the marketing. How much music is there? The biggest problem SACD has is that there's less than, oh about 400 discs available, mostly classical and jazz, and mostly older recordings, at that. One great advantage for SACD is that Sony has begun all mastering in DSD, the one-bit technology behind SACD. That recently-released CD you bought from a Sony label was probably recorded using DSD and downsampled for the CD master.
MP3 and other compressed formats have lots of software available.
One other note: I have a two channel system (i.e., Stereo) but SACD supports a 5.1 channel layer, too. So a fully-loaded hybrid SACD has a 2-channel Red book CD layer, a 2 channel SACD layer, and a 5.1 channel SACD layer. Only the 2 channel SACD is required.The Secure Microwave is actually TWO microwaves in one! One "regular" 200W microwave that can make popcorn and heat coffee, and a "premium" 800W microwave that can cook full meals.
Please note: if there is more than one adult in the kitchen, ONLY the "regular" mode can be used. If your friends and family would like to enjoy food heated by the premium Secure Microwave, they should buy their own!
No, really this new format is crap. First of all, for home users, CD quality, length, and form factor are all just fine. Even if you're an "audiophile" who likes to pretend that your hearing goes past 20kHz, most CDs aren't recorded to their full potential in the studio anyway. No value-add here.
And let me guess, the record labels won't sue you for distributing high-quality rips of the "regular CD" portion? WRONG! Now they'll just have TWO possible excuses to sue you. Copyright law doesn't go away if there are two copies of the music on the CD.
The current CD format (unbroken) is fine for mainstream music. Portable, big enough for good artwork, easily copied, and high quality.
Found: r3mix.net
In a very limited fashion; the current copyright regime may very well be unconstitutional.
Certainly the technological measures required by e.g. CBDTPA go far, far beyond the effects of what is allowed for by the constitutional wording.
DNA just wants to be free...
Over on rec.audio.pro, when SACD was first being discussed in 2000, there were some misgivings about SACD. Basically, SACD is trying to directly record to a high density compact disc an intermediate format, which older AD converters used before converting the data to PCM; the format in question is not used by current state of the art AD converters.
I don't think SACD will catch on; RedBook audio is good enough for the majority of consumers out there and it is very hard, if not impossible, to hear the difference between a high resolution converter and a 16/44.1 converter in a double blind test.
As for any form of DRM, the failure of DAT shows that people will not stand for that kind of nonsense.
- Sam
The secret to enjoying Slashdot is to realize that it should not be taken too seriously.
Perhaps the time has come to reconsider whether sharing music ought to be labelled as a crime.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Actually dual-layer (non-hybrid) SACDs have exactly the same capacity as DVDs. I believe they are the same physical technology. Only the hybrid SACDs differ physically from DVDs, since one layer is high-density DVD-like and the other layer is audio CD.
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For the most part, music is not constrained by CD capacity, but that's not always true. I own many classical pieces that run longer than the roughly 80 minutes that a single CD provides. For example the slowest versions of the Goldberg variations I own run 90 minutes, and require 2 CDs, eg Rosalyn Tureck's 1999 recording. It's fine with me when I listen to it at home on my changer. In the car it's painful to change discs while driving. And yes sometimes I'm in the car for longer than 80 minutes, bay area traffic can be very painful even in these recession times
As far as being able to burn my own discs to solve the problem, I don't really find that a good solution. The time I would spend doing my own disc is worth a lot more than the $20 I would pay for a single-disc SACD version of the recording. I would rather buy one already made. But I respect your right to be able to do that if you have time to kill, and I don't think they should enforce DRMs with SACD discs, the way they are currently doing by issuing some SACD-only (non-hybrid) discs that are only playable in SACD players.
Also I do not like compressed MP3 audio, it has a very bad and noticeable effect on classical music that reduces dynamic range, which I can tell instantly. Call me an audiophile
The main difference between DVD and SACD in how the high capacity is used on the SACD disc.
1) SACD does not have video, unlike DVD or DVD-audio. It only has audio. Many DVD-audios have a video menu and are thus not very fit for playing in portable or car players, but SACDs are (except for the lack of existence of any such player yet
2) audio is never compressed on SACD, just like on CDs or on DVDs PCM tracks . But it is better than on DVD Dolby Digital or DTS tracks which are compressed
3) audio is not in 16-bit 44.1 kHz stereo PCM format on SACD, but rather in DSD format. This is actually 2.8 MHz 1-bit on 2 or 6 channels.
Overall I think SACD is a very good idea, but Sony has not been pushing it at all, surprisingly. They could do so by issuing all their new discs as hybrid CD/SACDs, but they have not at this point...
-- Julien Pierre http://www.madbrain.com/blog
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
Come and meet me. I have never illegally downloaded a single tune. I have, however, converted many of my CDs to mp3 format and burned CD-Rs of those files for my mp3 capable CD player.
That said, I hate what the recording and movie industry are trying to do. I haven't given a single such copy to another party. Ever. At all. I have broken no law in the US (at least no pre DMCA law) and I do not see why I should lose this perfectly non-infringing freedom. I have broken no law, so why do they want to punish me? For paying them for every movie and album I own?
So, just because I agree with the recording industry that stealing copyrighted material is wrong DOES NOT mean that I agree with anything they propose to stop it. Everything they propose is, IMHO, prior restraint because I could very legitimately want to copy or format convert the material for my own use.
The law will, as usual, take years to catch up with the technology. And I hope this hotbutton issue makes it clear to "generation Y" or whatever sociologists are calling people under 30 these days that law and politics are of vital interest to us all.
Another thing: Based on my understanding of the capabilities of the human ear, any improvement in quality over "CD quality" couldn't be discerned anyways, so what is the advantage of this proposed "improved" format? The only thing I can imagine is more than 2 channels of audio so you can use your suuround speakers. Of course, nobody is recording music in more than 2 channels right now, so would even that make a big difference? I'm not trying to be a Luddite here -- someone enlighten me!
For those, like me, interested in the encoding/decoding technology used in the DSD (digital stream data) that the SACD is encoded with here is a short, useful paper on 1-bit Sigma-Delta Modulation . Those remotely familiar with digital signal processing shouldn't have any difficulty with it, but it isn't an introductory piece or tutorial either.
-Adam
The solution for copy protection is simple: if content creators are worried about illegal copies, then don't release anything you don't want copied.
They could say, "Well, we've got some great new CDs ready to go. But you won't hear them. Trust us, though, they're great."
This would drastically cut down on the crap that inundates the marketplace,
BTW. It would be a win-win solution for everyone: the RIAA wouldn't have to worry about a CD being copied, consumers would be saved from having to listen to crap, and there'd be less choices that pop up when I search on KazaaLite.
The reason CD's (IMO) took off in the late '80's was NOT because of the higher quality, but because of their convenience.
Instant access, portability, etc. were the main reasons the mainstream bought into the format. Higher quality was a bonus, but not the main reason. I recall digital audio tapes (DATs) advertised as being of a higher audio quality. But who cared? Nobody. Nobody wants to rewind or fast forward when you can have it instantly.
Now mp3's are the rage. Why? Convenience. Smaller footprint than CD's, instance access (again), and the ability to archive an entire music collection on 1 portable device, harddrive, etc. The quality loss of mp3? Who cares? Not the mainstream.
It's all about convenience.
Until something else becomes more convenient, there will be no new formats that will be accepted by the mainstream.
Praying for the end of your wide-awake nightmare.
The SACD uses a different sampling technique from a CD. Both of them stare with a sigma delta modulator, which breaks the analog signal from the mic into a series of pulses, the denser the pulses the higher the amplitude. A normal recording counts the pulses over about 45 microseconds (for 44.1 kHz) to get a 16-or 24-bit wide number IIRC. when the music is played back, it is converted back to 1-bit by, say, varying the duty cycle of a pulse-width modulator.
The SACD just records the pulses from the SD modulator to disc, which is responsible for the huge number of samples.
So instead of being 44.1 kHz*16 or 24 bits per sample, it is 1.2 MHz at one bit per sample. Therefore, it looks *less* like an analog wave than a CD recording. Essentially, Sony regards counting the pulses as a very effective but slightly lossy compression method that they wish to eschew. BTW I can barely tell the difference. Even a good MP3 is good enough for me.
I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
such software will always err in favor of the consumer or the copyright holder (or both).
And since the copyright holders pays to get the software written (with money they will later recoup tenfold from us), guess who the software will err in favour of...
I think the soution isn't technical, but legal. Make copyright non transferable, and limit it to at most life+10. Preferably a lot less.
This would make the field a bit more even between creators, consumers and the (now previous) copyright holders.
Lets face it, the current system has survived it's usefullness. It was created to protect creators from big business, but has through the years been perverted to the total opposite.
The fact that nothing falls into the public domain any more will create huge problems in the future. It will be really hard to create without infringing on anyones copyright. (most creative works draws heavily from the public domain, and in a few years you will have to look a century or more back to find stuff. It will be a poorer society for everyone.)
All this for a bloody mouse.
"First lesson," Jon said. "Stick them with the pointy end."
More interestingly, they are not using a blue laser to get 4.7GB per disc - 650nm is reddish-orange - they're doing it using multiple layers.
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
I hear Sony is working on a Super Audio CD format that can played on my quadra-phonic eight-track. Now that'll be impressive.
-josh
Almost all DVD-Audio disks are 6 channel 24bit/96Khz. They're not releasing 2 channel 24bit/192Khz DVD-Audio disks because they are trying to push multi-channel as the selling point rather than higher quality sound which most people don't care worth jack for.
SACD came out as a 2 channel only format which has significantly higher bitrate than 24/96 - it's 1 bit at (not sure here, but something like) 2.8Mbps - the bit size is not relevant with SACD. Multi-channel was later added as an option to the second layer.
Personally I could care little for multi-channel music and saddened that SACD never took off. If Sony had stuck to their guns by making all their new releases hybrid (CD quality + 2channel SACD) this format could've avoided the blood stained floor it's face down in now. There's not a single SACD that I'm interested in and Sony has scaled back new releases by an order of magnitude - so they too seem to be giving up with the format.
DVD-Audio is probably the best bet for a succeeding format. But they made the royally stupid mistake in requiring a TV to be hooked up to the player in order to hear music. Who the hell wants to turn on their TV, and then sift through visual menus in order to listen to a song. What the hell do they expect people to do for listening in the car? Random play? Changers on randome/loop? Why don't they give us the option of buying either a 2channel or 6channel release??
It's all screwed up and I hope both formats die off so that it may bring rise to a new format, done properly, that succeeds them both.
"It's not like these people would buy all this music if they couldn't get it free."
OK, so that means that their _customers_ are probably not really the criminals, eh? I'm relatively certain that there are more people downloading MP3s than uploading them. And there are probably more people who just buy the CD and listen to it (or rip MP3s for their own convenience) than people who rip the CD and upload the MP3s to file sharing services.
I really doubt that most people who could actually be considered customers are illegally distributing music. "Everyone [you] know" may do it, but I think that you probably know only a small subset of the population.
(and personally, as someone who knows his way around a recording studio, I would love to have a higher quality distribution format).
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
"In addition, consumers need protection from fraudulent, unauthorized copies."
What, are pirated SACDs going to steal the family silver while you are sleeping?
-jon
Remember Amalek.
You have a new business model that would equal their current revenue streams?
If I had a new business model that would equal their current revenue streams I'd probably be out looking for venture capital right now.
But in any case I certainly wouldn't give it to them for free.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Anyone can polish a turd... and SACD is a turd polisher.
I'm not sure what you mean by "above 44Khz". The absolute limit of CD audio is 22KHz as shown by the sampling theorem that basically states that the sampling rate must be a minimum of twice the maximum frequency sampled. Besides, the goal of high fidelity audio is the faithful reproduction of the original sound. In the frequency domain, that translates into flat response between 20Hz and 20KHz with a smooth rolloff above and below. CD audio does not do that.
A huge problem that plagues CD audio (from the audiophile point of view) is the "brick wall" filter that is employed at 20KHz. This low pass filter is so sharp that it can cause some pretty nasty artifacts if it's implemented improperly (for which you should read "cheaply").
Your point about "mixers, microphones, and other equipment" would be well taken except that Sony's Direct Stream Digital (DSD) recording system doesn't allow for post-recording mixing at all. So, what you record is what you get. Obviously, then, the quality of the recording stream should be correspondingly high. I think that you'd be quite surprised at just how high the standards for DSD recording equipment are.
A significant advantage of SACD over CD is that because of the 1 bit sampling and the dithering that follows, quantization noise is moved way up in the spectrum, well beyond the range of audibility. Further, the noise floor of SACD is substantially lower than that of 16 bit CD. The frustrating part of CD audio is that although it should provide a theoretical 16 bit dynamic range, due to quantization and other digital artifacts, even the best players are limited to perhaps 12 or 13 bits. Sure, you might dismiss that as a mere detail, but it is quite audible.
I've got a Sony SACD player. I've also got a nice Rega turntable and a Musical Fidelity CD player. A well cared for LP certainly outperforms a CD and is on a par with the SACD player. Obviously it's difficult to keep an LP in excellent condition over time, which is why I have a very large CD collection. But, quite frankly, the 30 or so SACDs that I have most definitely sound better than the CDs that they replaced...and I'm no golden-eared audiophile.
I'll certainly agree that my speakers won't reproduce anything above 30KHz, but that's not the point of SACD. The point is that the dynamic range is substantially greater and the digital artifacts that are the domain of multibit sampling (and relatively low sampling rates) are essentially eliminated. Frequency response is not the issue here.
I suppose that the case of SACD being a "turd polisher" could be made if you wanted to stick one in your average boom box and claim superior sound. But then again, I guess you could say that in that regard, CD is just a turd polisher compared to cassettes.
-h-
For most people, 2-channel SACD won't sound any better than plain vanilla CD. It's aimed at audiophiles who are already paying a premium for other components, anyway. And I don't think a whole new format was really necessary for extras like titles, lyrics, notes, cover art, etc. A standard data track/file format on Extended CD would suffice.
Surround will be the big selling point, once somebody produces a "killer app" recording. The only SACD I've heard so far was a Billy Joel studio album at the local Best Buy. I couldn't tell the difference between it and any ol' CD on my home system, with the surround receiver set to "Hall". Of course, the demo stand was close to the chest-pounding-subwoofer/car audio section, so the listening environment wasn't exactly pristine. I can certainly see the benefits for concert recordings. You could recapture some of the ambience of the hall that way.
The only surround recordings I can think of off the top of my head are The Manticore by ELP (in stereo surround) and The Altogether by Orbital (in Dolby Digital 5.1). Last time I checked, however, the 5.1 mix of The Altogether was only available on DVD in Japan and the UK. BTW, does anyone know if they've released it in SACD or Region 1 DVD?
This sig intentionally left blank.
Convert a 256kbps mp3 (lame codec) to wav and burn the that wav and the original onto a cd. Unless you're an audiophile with incredible equipment, I HIGHLY doubt you will be able to do better than random guessing. (eg. get better than a standard dev away from 50-50.)
Before all you audiophiles flame me, go try it and have a friend test you. (And no looking at which song is which before you test. It's easy as hell to bogusly justify a decision if you know the answer beforehand.) Even on nice equipment, I doubt you will be able to tell a difference.
This is a fairly well documented fact :
This is loose reasoning to be sure, but the differences between cd quality and whatever this new standard is are going to be FAR MORE SUBTLE than the differences between cd and 256 kbps mp3. Selling this new standard based upon "higher quality" will be a complete fallacy even IF YOU ARE an insane audiophile.
I don't really see how this is going to fix anything.
First, you've got a standard redbook audio CD layer. I can still rip that and encode it to mp3, just like it was a normal CD. I won't get the super-extra-special-hi-fi SACD tracks, but I'll still get the standard CD Audio. They can't stop that while still allowing the disc to be read in a normal CD-R.
Despite that, they aren't realizing that CD quality audio is good enough for 90% of the population. Hell, 128kbps MP3 encoded with the Xing mp3 compressor seems to be good enough for the majority of consumers.
On top of this, you've got a new player, and I'm sure those won't be nearly as cheap as even a top-end CD player is today. What's the compelling reason to spend more money on this SACD player? I know people buy B&W speakers, but counting myself, I only know of two people personally that have speakers of equal or better quality. I don't think there will be a rush on SACD players.
And, good God, are they going to charge more for the discs? I would imagine so, and I would imagine this is just going to drive more people to pirate. Considering most people won't get the extra benefit of SACD, and of those that do, most back titles will either not benefit from SACD or have to be (fat chance) remastered (see Metallica's "Kill 'em All" on CD -- it's mastering is Fischer-Price level and does not benefit at all from the extra quality of CD, much less SACD).
So, in the end, what have we solved? People will still copy the CD tracks off the hybrids, just like they copied the tracks before, and few people will shell out the extra bucks for a player with few benefits. I would imagine that someone will find a way to crack the SACD, and the "secure" tracks will be distributed just like mp3s and DVD rips are distributed today. I don't doubt that the media will become common, and that's kinda cool if we get better quality (if we choose to pay the premium), but I don't think that it's going to solve any of the record companies' problems, and could quite likely create more -- especially if they increase the cost of a CD.
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The Welsh group Super Furry Animals released their latest album (Rings Around The World) simultaneously on CD, and on DVD.
The DVD features videos for every song, bonus tracks, and the original album rememixed in 5.1
It sounds great and is a wonderful album of innovative,psychedelic (for lack of a better word) pop/rock. They don't sound like the Beatles per se, but the variety and depth of the album reminds me of great Beatles albums.
OtakuBooty.com: Smart, funny, sexy nerds.
The SACD specs were originally written with regular CD tracks in mind. So both have been there from the beginning.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
But according to Fremer in Stereophile he _actually_ thinks SACD sounds as good as vinyl, which if you read his columns is a BIG call. That guy is seriously analog.
/. is so polarized on the Music quality vs' 'it doesn't matter' debate?
PS: Notice how
[Please type your sig here.]
better sound
strong copyright security
reasonable fair-use rights
Pick 2.
Digitac
I have; 1 Discman, 3 games consoles with CD drives, a PC with a CD drive, 2 solid state MP3 players and one 8cm CD-based MP3/WMA player. I'm already embarassed at how much I've spent on this stuff, and I don't have a DVD player yet. Damned if I'm going to put yet another entertainment device on my shopping list.
All I'm asking for is a little evidence here, people. If you are claiming that sacd actually sounds better than a cd to a human being and not a dog, post some sort of actual science to back it up. Show me a study that shows that 'audiophiles', let alone the rest of us, can tell any difference when listening to a recording.
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
Notice it says they hope to get the price below $23.
Hello?
CD's cost double what they should, its a primary cause of piracy, and the record company's response is to raise prices another 50%?
The shareholders show skewer the guys who run these companies.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Uh, the number of bits has nothing to do with aliasing. Aliasing depends on the sampling rate and the maximum frequencies present in your original signal.
Actually you are sort of right, it would normally be called quantization error. But if you just look at the signal as a 2 dimenational entity it is still aliasing. It doesn't really effect dynamic range, that's just a scale factor. You can increase the dynamic range with more bits, or decrease the digital noise(quantization error), or both.
I'd like more bits per sample, slightly higher sampling rate (to avoid the distortion of the high frequencies.), but most of all I want unmixed sound on my CD with a mix program. And I'd like the mix program to be open so that I can download creative mix files from DJ's for my favorite CD's
For all the good current protection methods are doing them, the Big Media companies should just include condoms with their CDs. That alone would probably stump about 90% of the people who have the technical know-how to break their other copy-protection schemes in the first place. . .
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
proposal: it should should allow artists to get paid, and the citizens to have archived and portable copies of the recording they have purchased.
So you think a proprietary technology would allow artists to get paid more?! Will unsigned bands or hobby musicians be able to produce these new SACD's without being sued to death for not licensing the encryption keys? Nope. Will record labels stop gouging consumers and raping artists? Nope. Will music pirates stop pirating? Nope.
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.
So you mean I'll only be able to play this "superior audio product" format with an officially licensed player? Forget it. That's no better than CDBTPA!
Folks, do NOT. I repeat: do NOT buy into ANY media format that does not allow you access to the full unadulterated plaintext stream.
As for the "better audio quality", that's just nonsense. You can record all you want, people's ears just aren't getting better. Vinyl was already pretty close to what even discriminating audiophiles could hear. CD is a little better and a lot more convenient. From the end-user's point of view, new audio disc formats add almost nothing when it comes to quality.
SACDs contain a second layer. This layer is invisible (non-reflective) to any normal CD player laser. The only layer your CD player will see is 100% Red Book-compliant, not copyprotected.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
When audiophiles find CDs and 256k CBR mp3s to be of similar quality [r3mix.net], despite all the FUD coming from the audiophile-wannabes here, can I get some real evidence that SACD is better please?
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Too bad it's too late to boycott the original CD. You know, the medium just as likely, if not more so, as the vinyl phonograph record to suffer degradation from difficult to avoid fingerprints and scratches because they didn't bother to encase it in a protective shell such as the one on the 3.5" floppy. But then, if they'd done that, people wouldn't have to spend nearly as much on replacing damaged discs to regain access to content for which they'd already paid a licensing and usage fee.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Right, but the boycot should be against ANY new SACD-only devices.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Oh, malarkey! The oversampling rate and the application of filter caps on the analog outputs makes discernable distortion practically non-existent. Sure, if you look at the raw analog output of the D/A converter, you see all sorts of harmonics introduced by the "squaring" of the wave, but these are all odd multiples of the fundamental, and well beyond the pass band of my admittedly aging ears. Also, this distortion is nothing compared to analog recording methods in which such high frequency signals cannot be discerned through the incredible amounts of noise (whether the imperfect surface of the lp producing random white noise all over the place, or the familiar "tape hiss").
So I would agree with you that distortion is audible at above 16kHz. Probably fewer that 10% of males over the age of 30 can hear anything above 16kHz (I bet you could do a quick Google search and get the exact number). I can't hear any distortion in anything below that. I certainly can't hear any when compared to any analog recording method.
Before the RIAA become reviled for asking people to pay for music and then going beyond that to assuming everyone is a criminal, they did some things like the standard RIAA recording curves for LPs and various tape formats to compensate for these noises (and so record grooves would not become a quarter of an inch wide when the music gets loud). You know our old friends Dolby? Their big thing was pre-emphasis of signals that are in the noisy frequencies of the media, so they could "turn down" those frequencies on playback to cut the noise.
So, while I can and do believe that I will hear some improvement in audio quality in, say, recordings of soft cymbals, I can't believe that any new format will make as big a difference as the coming of digital music itself was.
I spent hundreds of dollars on things to get every little bit more fidelity out of my stereo. Not all of it added together improved my music listening experience as much as my first CD player did. I simply can't conceive how any technological improvement short of a direct brain interface could make as great an improvement.