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New Audio Disc Formats and Copyrights
JollyGoodChase writes "CNN has an article on Super Audio CD digital watermarking and the lack of digital outputs on any SACD or DVD-Audio players. Covers dealer responses, tech issues, and consumer options in a good summation of this technology."
SACD output is 2.8Mbit/s. Toslink cannot support this as it's not just the bitrate but its a completely different way of sampling.
For what it's worth SACD is the one truly innovative format, DVD-Audio just pushes up the sample size/sample rate that AudioCD has, is a completely new way to do things. See here for background
Anyway....
There is no(*) receivers that support decoding this into the 120db dynamic range and 100khz frequency range that the format supports. So the solution is to decode to high bandwidth analog outputs and feed each channel in analog format directly to a discrete amplifier.
(*) actually I just saw one the other day, a pioneer, with IEEE-1384 input for SACD/DVDA type formats, now to find a player with this output.
I can hear the difference, but you aren't going to hear it on a boombox or a set of computer speakers. To me, everything that I didn't like about the sound of CD's is gone with the SACD and all that's left is the music. I find I can get into the music more because there is nothing even slightly annoying about the sound quality to distract my attention.
The watermarking on a SACD disc is done by varying the physical 'pit' sizes, rather than embed some digital code in the data stream. There is a pattern of varying pit sizes in which the watermark is embedded. A SACD player can discern these slightly different sizes and won't play a SACD unless it has the right watermark. The good thing about doing it this way is the audio content is entirely unaffected by the watermark - it doesn't distort the sound in any way. It does make it much more difficult to copy the SACD layer, though. But most SACD discs are hybrid, meaning there is also a regular CD layer which can be read and copied as usual. Only the higher quality SACD layer is copy protected. For me I am willing to accept the copy protection to get the better sound quality.
There are a few major flaws with all these new systems.
- Until you can readily get SACD or watever in the music store, you won't find people jumping to sign up. Plus if there is no significant improvement over a regular CD, then people will stick with CDs. What will the price be? Will they cost more than CDs? That will certainly deter people.
- I don't get this watermarking crap. Yes, watermark will not let you make unauthorized SACD (or insert other format here). So that just means that there will be no independent artists which can use this new format. They will be stuck with the old CDs.
- Also, a watermark won't stop someone copying the disc, it will just stop them making a disc with the same content. Look at the Dreamcast. Why would I need the disc anyway when I can play it on my computer, on an iPod, or throw it on a regular CD.
And they can't try and convince me that putting only Analog outputs will stop copying. Analog to digital is no big deal. Some quality will be lost but whatever people will still do this to be able to listen to their disc elsewhere.
If it does fly, it will probably end up with way of the DVD. Great technology, but not fulfilling its purpose (ie the non-copying).
A format doesn't begin mass market acceptance until the fanatic audiophiles buy into it at the beginning, and those are exactly the types of people who will raise the biggest stink about the copy protection, and the lack of digital audio out.
These are exactly the people who won't care about copy protection, because they don't want a lossy copy on their computer. They want these formats for the superior quality, and if you want superior quality, you don't care as much about maiking a lower quality copy. Audiophiles are the ones who still claim the MP3 is a horrible format even though the average person can't tell the difference between cd audio and MP3. They won't care that they can't make a copy of it, because the copy will invariably be of worse quality, and that is exactly what the audiophile doesn't want.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
One thing that I find very intriguing about P2P is that works from the 1910s and 20s and early 30s are very popular. Although I'm only in my thirties, I'm a huge fan of this stuff and I never had convenient access to it before P2P. One of the reasons you never see it isn't because it's not entertaining, interesting and informative, but because there's no longer any profit in it.
The rediscovery of our archived electronic entertainment history is a bigger challenge to the current entertainment industry than how to protect the latest warmed over reinventions of those old acts. The more I look and listen to the old media, the more astounded I am at how cyclical and repetitive the whole notion of recorded entertainment is.
And to address the topic head on, watching and listeing to those old recordings makes you very aware that quality is extremely relative. When you're really excited about hearing something you'll get up and dance and sing along to something that sounds like hell. The question is how to make people enthusiastic and obviously the entertainment industry if failing to even attempt to address this.
The recorded entertainment industry is like a lover who just didn't get it right one night. The consumer and the industry have been fucking for decades and then something happened and the recording industry says to the consumer --you've changed.
The consumer is like, no way baby. I'm still the same ol' cowboy. You know, let's get it on. But the entertainment industry is pulling this, no it's not the same anymore. You used to care about quality and now you try to get it anywhere you can. It makes me feel so cheap! If you really love me you'd at least spend some money.
And the consumer is like --what? Love you? What are you talking about? Why don't we just fuck like we always did. Nothing changed. It's the same ol deal. You say I changed, but you're the one who changed.
So, they don't fuck no more. But this relationship is special because it's all been recorded. So, the consumer goes back and starts watching the vids from back when things started and the fucking was still good.
Meanwhile, the recording industry joins the church and gets active in conservative politics and slowly starts developing these weird twitches.
Fucked up scenario. I'd hate to be the cop to do a domestic call on a couple like that.
Take an analog player, and remove or bypass the final analog output filter. The output waveform should then show some artifacts from the sampling rate. Split the output, and feed one path through a notch filter for the sampling rate, then into a phase locked loop to recover the clock. Use that clock to control the sampling rate for an A/D with more bits than the D/A in the player. If you can keep the noise level low enough, and can calibrate a correction curve for the player's A/D, you can recover the original.
To calibrate, look for low-frequency waveforms, which will allow you to see all the stairsteps from the D/A.
This assumes classical D/A conversion, and fewer bits than the noise threshold. It's probably possible for 16-bit CD players, but not for 20-24 bits. Telephony only has 8 bits, so 56K modems have an easier job, although they have to compensate for a lousy transmission line.
Now isn't this the perfect way to go about copy-protecting music? You see, if I want to encode to MP3 (and I do, I'm an iPod owner) then, as I read your statement, I'd be able to do it. I wouldn't get the best available quality, but so what? I'm compressing it to a lossy format anyway which is only going to get played over a set of headphones.
Is this the compromise we've been looking for? Non-protected mid-range quality which allows us to rip and encode as we choose, followed by a layer of higher-quality music which can't be ripped? I'd be satisfied with that.
Cheers,
Ian