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

Oh man...

[EdmondDantes]

I just realized that I couldn't care less!

sounds terrible

[tps12]

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.

How about this?

[NitsujTPU]

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.

Re:How about this?

[StenD]

Oddly enough, I don't remember there being much talk of CD copy-protection schemes before P2P mp3 trading services became popular

Then you weren't paying attention. When Digital Audio Tapes were being introduced, the music industry was concerned about people copying CDs to DATs. As a result, the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 was passed. This 1987 technofile even points out the implications for computers as well. Of course, this effectively killed DAT, since rather than purchasing recorders which couldn't record, consumers continued to purchase analog tape decks which could - at least until CD-Rs became affordable.
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.).

Re:How about this?

[cpt kangarooski]

That isn't acceptable. Fair use rights exist for ANY copy of a work which you can otherwise legally access. Not just some.

For example, the RIAA cannot claim that ripping CDs for mp3s is illegal b/c ripping audio tapes is possible, or even endorsed. Likewise, the MPAA cannot claim -- though they have -- that VHS copying is a substitute for DVD copying.

If a work is published, it's subject to unauthorized copying, and that's that. Not all copying is legal or illegal, but it depends on the circumstances and should not be prevented unless it is absolutely certain that legal copying, which includes copying anything once the work falls out of term, even if the source is a copy produced during term, is not impaired.

The Three Types of the SACD Disc

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

uh

[bludstone]

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.

Re:uh

[TRACK-YOUR-POSITION]

But wouldn't recording the super resolution sound from your speakers be a waste? Some downgrade in signal will occur, and you wouldn't want to use lossy compression, because then why bother with high resolution?

This makes a lot of sense to me--except why have copy protection at all? No one's going to try to get the gigabyte sized lossless high resolution songfile from P2P networks--just sell the high resolution copy to audiophiles, use advertizing to brainwash everyone into thinking they're an audiophile and need the high resolution copy, bang, boom, money made, fair use rights retained, internet freedoms protected, everyone wins except the lawyers.

Re:uh

[EllisDees]

'Audiophiles' are hilarious. A regular old cd already produces more sound than the human ear can detect, so let's all go out and buy a new format that can produce *twice* as many sounds than the human ear can detect. Ooh!

Re:uh

[billtom]

Companies don't have some inalienable right to have the same revenue streams forever. Just because the big 5 earned $X billion last year doesn't mean that they have some right to earn $X billion next year or five years from now.

And they sure as hell shouldn't have the right to buy legislation that uses the government's monopoly on force to maintain their revenue stream.

Markets change, and the revenue stream that company's gain from those markets changes.

The canonical example would be if the buggy whip manufacturers bought a law that required you to buy a new whip with every new car. It would maintain the revenue stream for the buggy whip manufacturing companys, but would it make any sense?

Re:uh

[Bearpaw]

You have a new business model that would equal their current revenue streams?

Not having an alternate suggestion doesn't mean that one has to pretend that the current model isn't seriously flawed. Just because I don't know how to build a warp drive doesn't mean that it's not worth pointing out that somebody's scheme to do it by strapping JATOs to an old 57 Chevy probably won't do the trick.

Coming up with a workable business model is their business -- or should be, if they want to continue making money. The universe doesn't owe them any revenue stream, equal to their current one or not.

And these companies are not making the art. They're just delivering it.

Re:uh

[NanoGator]

"Please - have at it, I haven't heard any proposals yet that hold water..."

If there were a magic 'instant return on investment' business plan, the Record Industry wouldn't have waited until MP3s got popular to switch to it.

They could make just about any business model profitably if they'd try it. There are two reasons they aren't, though:

1.) They assume that the consumer will not pay for anything. We are all thieves, therefore they cannot provide anything 'free'.

2.) They'll have to price themselves fairly, vs. screwing the consumer at every turn.

The RIAA is in a unique position because it's settled nicely into a virtual monopoly without getting much attention from the government. Mp3s are causing them to have to behave competitively, but they dun wanna cos they dun wanna lose their margins.

Pity. I expect that what'll happen is a new, internet friendly organization will come along and dethrone the RIAA. They may not make such ridiculous profits, but I imagine they'll easily make a comfortable living as long as they come up with a business model that considers our needs.

"$2 per MP3, or $7 for the whole album"

Re:uh

[Telastyn]

Why? CDr makers, computer makers, and ultimately people want music. If the music industry stops providing music, either people will pay for the music, or get it from people who will offer the music.

People still want to go to concerts. Artists will likely make nowhere near what they currently are, but so what? It's just simple supply and demand. Currently the demand is over-inflated because of market manipulation, and technical limitations.

Now the technical limitations are gone, and people are realising the market manipulation. Basically their current revenue streams will likely diminish like the Tech stock market. And just like the Tech market, the good stuff will still be around, closer to what it really is worth. And in the end, the artists themselves will probably end up making more out of the deal.

Re:uh

[ivan256]

The way most CDs are mastered uses only a small fraction of the resolution available on the disc in order to make the tracks sound as 'loud' as possible. One can only assume that the same would happen with the new format. Studios and producers don't care about quality, they care about marketing. What you'll end up with is a new format that costs more, with the same (poor) quality sound, and a bunch of self proclaimed 'audiophiles' running around telling you how much better the first Brittany album sounds now, even though it doesn't.

It's unfortunate, because it makes life unplesant for those of us that really care about the quality of audio we listen to. Yes, 'Audiophiles' are hilarious, but actual audiophiles who aren't spouting second hand opinion have some valid complaints about CDs.

Re:uh

[jgerry]

A regular old cd already produces more sound than the human ear can detect...

This claim is absolutely false.

Go into any recording studio, record an analog source (acoustic guitar or a grand piano, for example) at 16bit/44.1KHz, then at a much higher resolution (say, 24bit/96KHz). Then play those back through a studio monitor sound system.

You can ABSOLUTELY hear the difference. Well, maybe you can't, but some people can.

I can tell the difference just recording vinyl through a DJ Mixer into my sound card... The quality difference between 16/44.1 and 24/96 is really staggering, especially in the very high and very low end... Of course, I can't burn a CD at that quality, and dithering the sound back down to 16/44.1 makes the sound worse than just recording it at 16/44.1 in the first place.

But the point is, there IS a difference, and it's noticeable.

Re:uh

[Chris Burke]

I'd lay real money on you never having given this a shot yourself.

I can tell the difference between a 128K mp3 and a 256K mp3. I can tell the difference between a 256K mp3 and a CD. I can tell the difference between CD and vinyl. I can tell the difference between a CD and a CD that's been spun over a demagnitizer just prior to playing. I can tell the difference between my CD player and my father's DAT player. And I don't claim to be an audiophile.

Of course the study has never been done. Enough people already see CDs as a step backward in audio quality from vinyl that the need for increased quality doesn't need to be proven. Was there a double-blind study done to show people could tell the difference between VHS and DVD? Why bother? Obviously we can do better. We can do better than DVD, so hopefully you won't be decrying the need for any future advancements in video quality.

Result...

[LightningTH]

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).

Re:Result...

[elmegil]

Force? What "forces" me to run out and buy the latest Britney Crap? All this will do is slowly eliminate people willing to buy their products. Anyone who *cares* about being able to copy their music around won't go for such a scheme, and those who don't are sheep who'll buy whatever comes out anyway.

Me, I'll continue to support artists who don't use distributors who cripple their music, and go see those I like live.

haha

[GigsVT]

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.

wishful thinking

[Gerad]

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.

Re:wishful thinking

[EllisDees]

The problems are that individuals don't consider intellectual property to be actual property

The whole concept of intellectual property is just an example of telling people a lie often enough that they begin to believe it. Legal fictions aside, once you have shared an idea with someone else, it ceases to be yours.

No Doubt?

[tweakt]

No doubt frustrated with the utter failure of every attempt to copy protect Compact Discs.

Now No Doubt is jumping on the RIAA bandwagon TOO??

Sheesh, and I really liked their music. Guess it's boycott time.

Fair Compromise

[MrCaseyB]

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.

that is protection?

[dirk]

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?

That's okay...

[L. VeGas]

Sharpie is simultaneously developing their Fine Point SACD Permanent Marker.

Re:not likely

[subgeek]

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.

This makes sense?

[JudasBlue]

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.

Um, it's Red Book complient?

[st0rmshad0w]

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.

Why is quality tied to fair use?

[kindbud]

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?

No help for copy protection woes...

[vkg]

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.

I have SACD

[jeffy210]

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!

Re:I have SACD

[synx]

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.

NO!

[Steve Franklin]

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.

There is no such thing as reasonable UHT.

[Hobbex]

(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!

Re:There is no such thing as reasonable UHT.

[Kanasta]

Isn't UHT a term copyrighted by milk producers?

Sony are hypocrites - here's the evidence

[NewtonsLaw]

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.

No Better Sound Than CD quality?

[Karma Sucks]

Sorry, but CD quality is pretty much the perfect optimised quality at this point, and any claims that a new format has "better" stereo quality is dubious.

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.

Re:No Better Sound Than CD quality?

[cporter]

Have you listened to SACD?

I can attest that the format sounds absolutely stunning. I have a pretty good system, but certainly not anywhere near the "$10,000 pair of speakers" a poster above mentioned as a requirement to hear the difference.

You are right about the studio, and I would add that the skill and technology used in mastering make even more difference. CD promised that the format would be "transparent" - that the limiting factor would be the recording and the mastering. I think SACD delivers on that promise.

Re:No Better Sound Than CD quality?

[Visigothe]

What you said in your post is correct. The studios are the bottleneck... but ya know what? Studios usually [if modern] are recording at higher-than-CD-quality, then down-mixing to 16bit/44.1Khz.

Being a bit of an audiophile, I've tested both the SACD as well as the DVDA [DVD-Audio] and I must admit, I like the DVDA version better. On paper, the specs for DVDA are also much better. Check it out here. There is a DVDA FAQ here

I highly suggest that you check out some of the recordings.... *much* better than standard CD!

.

Re:No Better Sound Than CD quality?

[Yunzil]

I highly suggest that you check out some of the recordings.... *much* better than standard CD!

Much better than a *standard* CD, maybe, but that's probably because the music samples on any new format are deliberately done very carefully so that they will sound impressive. If SACD or DVDA became the new standard, do you think the average quality would remain the same?

As another post said, the CD format is already good enough to perfectly reproduce any sound the average human can hear.

Sometimes I wish it was required for people to take a signal processing class before buying a stereo. :-/

Re:No Better Sound Than CD quality?

[Tim Browse]

Spoken like somebody who couldn't tell the difference between a live performance and a CD if you were blindfolded. Or a vinyl record and a CD.

Or possibly like an average consumer?

That's the point - I don't mind if audiophiles or whatever you want to call them will endlessly pursue the perfect sound, but they're in the minority. Quite a small minority.

And the only reason CDs won out is because they sound better after many listenings, not because they sound better.

Wrong, they won because they sound better. On the average Joe's equipment. I used to get very frustrated at the noise, clicks, pops, cracks, rumbles and rustles of LPs. Since switching to CD, I've almost never noticed such a problem. Also, as a vinyl loving friend of mine used to be fond of saying: "CDs are 15% convenience."

Sure if you buy a Linn Axis Nutter Bastard or whatever, you might be able to get LPs to sound better than CDs (although I'm in the cynics' camp here), but you won't get the average consumer to spend £500+ on a turntable. Aint gonna happen. Therefore CDs sound better, on the average consumer's equipment, to the average consumer. And surely that's one of the main goals of a mass market consumer format.

And, IIRC, that's why DVD Audio never splashed onto the scene, because when they did consumer listening tests, something like 9/10 people said "Huh? I can't tell the difference."

That's the inertia that a new format has to fight, rightly or wrongly.

Tim

forget it kid

[sulli]

better sound, strong copyright security and reasonable fair-use rights

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!

Why this won't work...

[killmenow]

Here's my proposal: it should should allow artists to get paid,

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.

and the citizens to have archived and portable copies of the recording they have purchased.

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.

The record companies should produce a superior audio product

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...

and get to protect it from serial copying.

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.

The CD layer should be freely available for personal copying such as to a computer or portable digital player.

5. So music production companies will actually LOWER the sound quality of this layer to something worse than cassette tapes, effectively eliminating its use.

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:

6. Chances of getting all of those groups to agree is somewhere around .3%

1.The high quality recording allows only one copy of itself to be made for archival purposes.

7. So this copy will be ripped to MP3, thereby making the whole point moot. Pirates will just have MP3s of the better quality layer.

2.The lower quality recordings are available for personal copying.

8. I reiterate, RIAA does not believe in fair use. I don't think they'll ever agree to any scheme in which you can copy decent quality audio even once.

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."

New tech...

[Alsee]

Sounds like SACD is good solid technology.
It may even rival the success of Digital Audio Tape.

-

How to build an SACD ripper...

[Bowie J. Poag]

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?

better sound = Bullcrap

[Lumpy]

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.

Re:Use both sides

[SanLouBlues]

They can be manufactured using current methods. Redbook on one side, SACD on the other. No need for fancy layers.

Re:This is great...

[EllisDees]

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?

This format will die quickly...

[sterno]

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.

Here's the fundamental problem

[melquiades]

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.

Re:Use both sides

[ncc74656]

They can be manufactured using current methods. Redbook on one side, SACD on the other. No need for fancy layers.

You could only do that if you're willing to bend some of the rules WRT the construction of a CD. The CDDA layer is on one side of the disc, while the SACD layer would be placed somewhere in the middle. If you tried making a "flippy" disc with both CDDA and SACD layers in the middle, either (1) the disc would be too thick to be handled by some CD players (1.2+x mm) or (2) some CD players might be unable to focus on the CDDA layer since it would be too close to the pickup. ("Flippy" discs work for DVD because that standard was developed with double-sided discs in mind...the data layer(s) in a DVD is/are in the middle.)

Sony is way ahead of you.

[Kozz]

It's a good thing that Sony is stepping up to the plate.

Personal Experiences With SACD

[cporter]

I have a Sony SACD player and a fairly good system to listen to it on - but much less than the "$10,000" mentioned by a poster above. I have some 30 discs that i've paid $12.99 - $22.99 for. The sound is phenomenal. Anyone who has sat for a listen agrees. It is better than CD, even though the recording and mastering of CDs has gotten much, much better over the last few years.

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.

I don't like it. The problem is...

[einhverfr]

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.

1-bit Sigma Delta Modulation

[stienman]

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

Simple, Unbreakable Copy Protection

[KelsoLundeen]

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.

Analog waves

[wirelessbuzzers]

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.

Amen

[Sean Clifford]

[rant]

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]

This is pointless . . .

[npsimons]

. . . and here's why:

Trying to make bits uncopyable is like trying to make water not wet. The sooner people accept this, and build business models that take this into account, the sooner people will start making money again.
-- Bruce Schneier

I have SACD, too.

[HardCase]

sorry, but unless they have mixers, microphones, and other equipment that is before the encoder (and the encoder it's self) that will pick up and handle above 44Khz (Note: they DON'T) it's worthless. Let alone the fact that your speakers CANT reproduce anything above 30Khz equals abilities that mean nothing and offer nothing...

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-

Re:I have SACD, too.

[cjs]

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").

This has not been a problem for years. You just interpolate the signal up to a nice high sampling rate (say, 264.6 KHz), use a digital filter that gives you a very sharp slope and no phase shift, and then at the analogue output stage you can use a very gently sloping analogue filter with minimal phase shift to get rid of the remaining very high harmonics.

cjs

This isn't new!

[acoustix]

The SACD specs were originally written with regular CD tracks in mind. So both have been there from the beginning.