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Music Companies Bemoan New High-Cap Portables
An anonymous reader writes "New Scientist reports: 'The music industry this week condemned the launch of two recording systems that will let people copy between 30 and 100 hours of music onto a single disc.'" The Sony system is supposed to use "ultra-efficient data compression system used in MiniDiscs" to fit "30 hours of MP3 music" on a CD-R. (I thought MD used ATRAC rather than MP3, and that ATRAC's standard bitrate was 285.3 Kbps -- can some MD gurus bring us up to speed?) Philips' system skips CDs, and instead uses a DVD burner, with the resulting disks playable in a to-be-released portable player. I wonder what kind of DRM features the companies will use to cripple each system.
Minidiscs do use Atrac3 but the newer MD players have adjusted the atrac encoding format (called MDLP) to allow for longer play times with marginal quality losses. try minidisco for a great resource and more info.
MDLP recorders use high-density recording to record 2-4x more data on an MD, but it seems unlikely they can adapt something like that to CD-Rs...so you can pretty much rule that out unless they've managed to shoehorn some funky blue-laser to write extra data to existing CD-R media (or they're just lowering the bit-rate and blowing smoke out their asses)
I used to be a huge fan of MD, and shortly after I got out of the medium, a new version of ATRAC came out. I think it allowed for MD-LP. Is this the efficient version of ATRAC mentioned in the article, because for years, ATRAC was heavily criticized in audio publications such as Stereophile.
I'm a big user of minidiscs, however I'm not a profesed "guru", but here's what I understand of ATRAC and MD:
Sony is currently using ATRAC3. It is capable of encoding up to 320 minutes of stereo audio at a bitrate of 36kbps.
To quote from minidisc.org: "[ATRAC3]differs substantially from the original, existing ATRAC system, having twice the transform window size (1024 samples [23.2ms], vs. 512 samples [11.6ms]), encoding tone components separately from other spectra, splitting the input signal into 4 bands instead of 3, and using Huffman coding on the final bit stream to squeeze out redundancy." However, Sony has probably gone to a new version of ATRAC3 for this new application of writing to CDs.
Sony has basically scrapped the idea of using minidiscs as a data storage medium, at least to the genral public. However, Sony did release a digital camera that wrote to MDdata discs, and there are some professional recorders that record multitrack MD data discs. It is interesting that they're only now starting to apply ATRAC technology outside of the MD format.
For more info on MD and ATRAC encoding, i reccomend Minidisc.org
...MiniDisc.org.
Sony's unit will probably use OpenMG for DRM, just like the NetMD enabled MD units do. What this essentially means is that the tracks on the disc will be encrypted in a way that only allows them to play on YOUR player, and "uploading" tracks will only be possible to the desktop machine that they originated on, and then only if there's still an encrypted backup of the track stored on the hard drive there. Even with that much restriction, the NetMD MD players limit the number of times any particular track may be downloaded onto a disc.
Expect as least that much hassle with the Sony unit. Do a search for "OpenMG" for the full horror story.
-P.
Codec is used in Sony's Minidisc recorders and the RealAudio 8 compression format.
Versions used by Minidisc:
There are different implementations, they are called:
They have the same bitstream syntax (ATRAC1), but different quality (like MP3's Xing vs. Lame). ATRAC-1 had many problems (pre-echos, metallic sound, 15 kHz bandwidth). The ATRAC-3 implementation was the first with good quality.
Versions used by RealAudio 8:
Links:
ATRAC3 is pretty much the antithesis of ogg vorbis. :) Ogg is a free, open codec, while ATRAC3 is a closely guarded, definately closed standard. Sony is pretty much the only company that uses ATRAC3 (with good reason, they own it) and they're both used in opposing markets.. ATRAC3 where DRM is needed, ogg where it is not wanted.
which I don't know of any compression format which provides decent audio quality at that rate. Even the claims of 100 hours of music on a DVD (assuming a standard single layer 4.7GB recordable DVD) would only allow for 110kbps which is getting kind of low. Two words: Ogg Vorbis. VERY good quality as low as 45kbps, better than mp3 at 110kbps.
Phillips' MP3/DVD portable may be yet to be released but the Sony MPDAP20U has already been out for a couple of months. It seems like the Holy Grail of Portables: 24X/10X/24X CD-RW, 8X DVD-ROM (plays MP3/DVDs), USB 2.0, LCD remote, no DRM, and oh yeah, it has a Memory Stick slot, too. It's a little spendy at $299. Page 33 of the User Guide confirms that MP3 on DVD-R/RW is a go (and via Memory Stick as well). Here's a review.
As Slashdotters have been saying for a while now, technological advancements like MP3, etc. will eventually force the music labels to change their business models, no matter how hard they kick and scream. They may win concessions that will piss off people like those here, but at some point they simply will not be able to sell nearly as many CDs at the same high prices they've been pushing, no matter what. Now, here are Sony and Philips, who not only sell creative works, but also sell the hardware needed to play the media. While their music publishing arms might suffer, the overall conglomerates still stand to stay in business even if music sales plummet to zero, since they'll still sell the hardware needed to play it. Suppose they decide to just write off the already-dwindling gravy train from publishing, and instead go all out on the hardware, seeing it as where the real money either already lies or eventually will?
Of course, somebody will figure out a way to make money from the music itself (even if it can no longer generate the kinds of revenues it has in the past). Even so, tech changes should ultimately transform the business; tech changes have always signalled changes in business models, and while some will die, others will arise. I just hope the music publishers don't gunk things up too much with the legislation they'll undoubtedly buy in their death throes as they try to stave it off.
Actually, with modern codecs, 110 is plenty for "entertainment quality" listening.
Some formats that sounds great at 96 Kbps:
AAC-LC (from MPEG-4) (the one in QuickTime 6.1 is pretty good, but not the one from 6.0)
WMA9 2-pass VBR
RealAudio 8 Stereo Music
Ogg Vorbis and a tweaked lame --abr can certainly do more than good enough for workout music at 96 Kbps as well.
Some of the next generation stuff, like AAC-SBR, shoot for "sounds like CD quality" at 48 Kbps or lower.
My video compression blog
Is there any centralized coordination? Isn't there a CEO of Sony corporate who keeps his divisions in line with the goals (i.e. bottom line interests) of the company as a whole?
Wired did an article about the fighting within Sony. Basic idea: Sony can keep fighting itself and fail, or it can embrace new technology and win.
.sdrawkcab si gis siht
You don't have to change ID tags, just reimport the song into the software that comes with a NetMD Minidisc player. You can check out 2 copies of each MP3 import copy.
A big drawback of this whole deal is you are essentially taking a lossy compression and compressing it again with another lossy compression. It sounds decent if you start with a pretty good MP3, but low quality MP3s recorded onto a MD player sound like crap. CDs ripped right to the MD player sound tight though.