Slashdot Mirror
Columbia Japan Music On Demand, On CD-R
jwlidtnet writes "It seems as if Columbia Records Japan has instituted a series of 'albums on demand' -- written on CDR media (warning: page in Japanese). Granted, most of the items currently offered are Japanese in origin, but this is indicative of a record label that realizes how to embrace *some* aspect of the technological revolution! Various industry types have been espousing this method for years as an antidote to artificial concepts of media supply and demand (e.g. that Big Record Label cannot support small acts as it must press x copies of the album), and as Columbia seems to be offering mostly old catalogue items, this is an encouraging solution to the problem of the control of out-of-print recordings. One final note: of course, a system like this is only as useful as its retailer support, and it appears as if both Tower Records Japan and HMV Japan carry these CDR releases."
http://www.mykaraokecdg.com/xcart/customer/
Soundchoice has been offering custom CDG karaoke cd's for about 1.5 years now. Go online, select your tracks, plop in a credit card number and a magical CD comes to your house from this magical guy named the fed ex man.
From their About/FAQ page (in Japanese, of course):
"The instruction booklet has been scanned from their original printings and reproduced."
However..
"3. Regarding the Instruction Booklets
Q: Are the designs the same from the original?
A: The cover, liner notes, labels, etc. have been newly designed for the R-Ban series, respecting the original design."
Japanese as a first language comes in handy..
The about/FAQ page of the site:
Product Specification
- This product contains audio reproduced from the original CD source to a CD-R, and as a result, the quality remains identical.
- The labels on the product are newly designed for the R-Ban series.
- The instruction manuals (covers, liner notes, etc) have been newly designed, based on scanned copies of the originals.
- The instruction manuals, as a result of the scanning process, may be difficult to read due to errors in font size, printing, etc.
Warnings
[usual warnings, same as CD]
- It is recommended that you use a regular CD Player when playing the R-Ban. Certain models of car stereos and DVD-players may have trouble playing back the media.
(Copy protection? Meh..)
FAQ
1. Regarding purchase
Q: Can I purchase R-Bans of other titles not available in the catalog?
A: Not at this time.
Q: Where can I purchase R-Bans?
A: Through specialty Internet merchants and music stores that support the R-Ban series.
Q: How long will it take to receive the media after ordering?
A: They are created after the order, so it may take up to 2-3 weeks, in addition to other delays.
2. Regarding sound quality
Q: Is there any difference from the original CD?
A: Since the R-Bans are duplicated from the original CD source, there is no difference.
3. Regarding the instruction manual
Q: Are the designs the same from the original?
A: The covers, liner notes, labels, etc. have been newly designed for the R-Ban series, respecting the original design.
4. Regarding playback
Q: Is special equipment needed for playback?
A: It is recommended that you use a regular CD Player when playing the R-Ban. Certain models of car stereos and DVD-players may have trouble playing back the media.
Q: Are there any precautions for playback?
[usual CD warnings]
I read the FAQ and it seems as if there's some kind of copy protection:
"Will R-Ban require special players? R-Ban is designed for playback with ordinary CD players. It may be impossible to play them on some car stereos, DVD players, etc. that our customers may have."
Actually, I think that refers to the fact that some car stereos and DVD players (not to mention portable players) won't read CDR discs. Though this is more true about older players than current ones, there are certainly going to be players out there that can't read these discs.
Now, if it had said that they couldn't be played in computers, for example, we'd have to worry more about copy "protection."
I rememebr a few years back pepsi did something like this, you could trade in 'pepsi points' for tracks on a custom cd, 20 pts for a 5 track cd, 50 for 15 or something. They had a listing of the tracks you could pick, and not all of it was super-mainstream stuff. I'm not sure of the format though, i never bothered to collect enough points.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
About 9 years ago I went to Japan to do the final testing on a VMEbus OSI/MAP (TokenBus) card we were buying for some SGI workstations that were being used for Process COntrol in our steelworks in Australia. The company that we commissioned to do the work, CTC in Kanagawa prefecture in Tokyo, were also developing software to allow Karaoke bars to download music on demand via ISDN. Not sure if it was just a single 128K BRI line, but I guess this would not be quite enough for high quality recordings. (Near CD quality MP3 is 128Kbps so downloading 1 hour of music would take an hour).
Anyway I guess, as we all know, the technology of using digital comms to transfer music is not new. It's just the marketeers haven't quite got the guts to deploy it.