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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.
So what? Unless they have some sort of legal grounds against it condemning will be old news in hours. It is as if they are admitting being dealt a blow.
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In other news.....
Apple Released a 100 GB iPod, to much fanfare
The music division of Sony has sued the consumer electronics division multiple times. The CE division is no longer allowed to make MP3 devices (like an iPod).
"Owning a computer is like having your very own TV -- with a built in radio!" - Ed Helms
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?
Japanese companies seem to have a thing for conglomerates. I suppose it helps to diversify, but how can something as scattered as Sony be said to have a coherent vision? The only unifying theme I can think of is tech - Sony makes just about anything that holds a computer chip, but they don't do snacks, and they don't do textiles. Strangely, they do make thermoses.
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I just find it totally amazing what neat little gadget come out that are actually usefull... Just to be squashed by by media companies or crippled so they become useless. All in the name of copyright protection. Give me a break... Unless I can listen to music on my terms and where I want, I am not interested. And I am not talking about stealing music but using what I purchased when I want and where I want.
""It's a no-brainer. Anything which lets people pirate more music like this has to be very bad news for the music industry," says a spokesman for Britain's record industry trade association, the BPI."
...even if you've bought the original music you're transferring.
:)
Because consumer copying, now equals piracy...
AOL (yes I use AOL and I don't care what you have to say on that subject) has on their exit screen an advert for the MusicNet thing.
It says:
"MusicNet on AOL: Burn CDs safely and legally with satisfaction guaranteed."
Erm... since when was burning a CD illegal... or risky (assuming low burn speeds?)
I mean... safely... is that a threat?
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
Mini-DVDs. Like the small format mini-CDRs you can burn with ~200 megs of MP3s. I love my Memorex mini-CDR/MP3 player, for the portability of the discs, which I can easily carry 4 or 5 of in my jacket pocket when I go skiing. If they made mini DVD-R/MP3 players, I could fit my entire music collection on one mini DVD-R. And that would convince me to finally buy a DVD burner.
This article claims they can fit 30 hours of music on a CD using MiniDisc compression, which from what I've read only provides a 5:1 compression ratio, or about 6.7 hours on an 80 minute disc. In order to compress 30 hours of music into 700MB you'd need to compress it at about 53kbps, 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.
Y'know, like WalkMan and DiscMan. Give me a DVD-Man with 7 or so CDs worth of MP3s. Now yer talkin. Cheap and reliable (in theory).
Indeed... and it in fact makes great corporate sense. If you see the opportunities, attack/compete with your own company - if you don't, someone else will and you will lose all.
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Compression is, by definition, dropping the kbps..
Lossy compression works by dropping the file size in a way that's meant to be difficult to perceive.
I have no idea what you're trying to say : )
Philips has come out strongly so far against "crippled" copy protected CDs.
:)
That only applies to the existing RedBook audio CD format (or Orange book? Whatever). I'm sure they wouldn't care -- and may even support -- new standards supporting DRM techniques.
What they disapproved of was companies bastardizing a format that Philips helped invent, breaking the established standards and then putting the logo on the disc as though it were compliant.
This would be like the W3C telling Microsoft that they can't put the term "CSS" on their browser. Microsoft would of course be free to invent a new, similar standard, and the W3C would likely even support it as a new standard. Just so they aren't claiming that it is CSS (not the best analogy, full of holes, but it let me get a jab in at MSIE
Anyway, I don't think Philips is in any way against DRM. As you said, they have no direct interest in it, in either direction, but they *do* have an interest in making money. If that means creating/supporting a new technology that provides for the recording companies' needs (and their support would certainly help the format to take off), then I'm sure they'd be in full support of it.
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Its just got to happen:
Sony sue's itself due to percieved copyright infringement
Sony uses the DMCA against itself in America.
StarTux
A single DVD can contain 57 hours of 192kbps mp3, as you can imagine you could just hear the yells from the RIAA 20 blocks away when this beauty was released.
My computer has been connected to my stereo for... Well, ever since I had a stereo to hook it up to. Granted, I'm only 16, but still... I can spend a buck on a mini plug-to-RCA cable at Radio Shack and have everything playing through the stereo no problem. And why must it even be hooked up to the stereo? Nowadays with soundcards getting better and better and people going out and buy Klipsch (sp?) 5.1 audio systems just for their PCs, the PC becomes the Hi-Fi. Don't tell me the RIAA is going to go after mini plug-to-RCA cables now...
[Trojan.]
It's a good site if you're into MP3. It's out of date now, as the author stopped updating last year sometime, but it's still a valuable resource and a great start on learning how to encode superior-quality MP3s.
I have the Sony MZ-N707, which is one of the newer models that has MDLP.
I don't know much of the technical specs of the technology, but I do know this much:
There are three compression settings when recording, they all sound exactly the same to me, except that on the highest setting, I can easily get 5 hours of music to a single minidisk, and on the lowest setting I can barely get 1 hour of music to a minidisk.
So, since I can't hear the difference, 1 minidisk == 5 CDs, for me.
you people whine way too much about having to buy an album when you only want one track.
...
can i buy a titanium ibook case alone, to use as a legal pad holder?
can i subscribe to cable one channel at a time?
can i pay for only the interesting lectures at defcon?
half a serving of fries at mcdonald's?
half-shot of expresso at starbucks?
it's a fact of life that not every product is distributed in the way you prefer. it's not a divine mandated right that products must be delivered in the form you demand.
some claim to be willing to pay more for distribution in ways that they prefer. that's a start, but are you willing to pay *enough*?
if bill gates offered $1 million a track to get his music one track at a time, would the riaa not jump at the opportunity and embrace single-track distribution? if not them, then someone else.
but when some slashdot drone offers a whopping fifty cents a track, how can we be shocked when nobody bites?
paying more is not enough. you have to pay enough extra to make it worth their while.
some guy said he'd gladly pay a whopping FIFTY DOLLARS to buy all the greatest rolling stone hits ever on one uber-compressed cd.
right. and we still wonder why the riaa see's no reason to embrace this new technology.
I'm a singer in an original band. If you ask me, this would be a great way to get music to the masses. We're already savvy enough to deal with the RIAA, and we also feel that P2P filesharing is a great way to get our music out.
Yes, we own all the copyrights. But we don't mind the music being spread around for free. Four words: Word Of Mouth Advertising. Works wonders for any business. The more people hear it, the more people show up at gigs and buy CDs, T's, etc.
A device like this is a musician's dream. When you want to move music around, you're limited to the capacity of CD-Rs and RW's. Well, us po' musicians, anyway. LOL. But I digress. A device like this would save us a WORLD of trouble. All band members record whatever they work on, passing it back and forth via handheld devices such as this, and their computers at home.
The format to record and compress should be open standard, DRM-free codecs, like anything Vorbis. Since I'm the singer, but also something of a geek, I would much prefer Open Source options. Linux-based onboard OS? We know Sony's at least halfway Linux-friendly. They did put out a PS2 kit...
That'd most certainly be something I'd use. Screw DRM. Oh no, I'm going to pirate my own music! Better stop me before I can! I don't want a whole bunch of encryption crap in my music, just the music codec itself. That's just being a pain in the ass, and you know Microsoft is going to lobby for proprietary control. No, no, a hundred times no. Open Source, DRM-Free.
Oh wait. I'm sorry. Everything I stand for isn't what the RIAA/MPAA/MS want. This technology gives me more freedom, allows me to absorb some of the cost of getting a break, and makes things easier all-around. It lessens their involvment, and thus lessens the amount of bucks they deserve. That's bad, isn't it.
I'm just a dumb, awe-struck-by-the-business musician, what do I know...
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Yes: alt-preset-standard uses better psychoacoustic models. It should be transparent on the very large majority of samples. There is it's cousin alt-preset-extreme, with an average of about 256kbs. I haven't heard any artifacts with extreme yet.
About 8 months ago I was out shopping for a portable recording system. I had access to a laptop, and to coax spdif. I was looking at minidisc (the quality mikes I was able to borrow generally was mediocre), but noticed that 1) Most decks short of the big stereo console lacked digital outs, and 2) The USB interface was one-way and seriously DRM disabled.
My solution? I bought an Eiderol UA-5. 96 khz, 24-bit audio. Very nice mic pre's, balanced inputs, optical and coax digital I/Os, phantom power, for about the same price of a new minidisc deck. Coupled with a good mic, superior recording quality, and the 24-bit gives some headroom while setting recording levels.
"'Tis great confidence in a friend to tell him your faults, greater to tell him his." --Poor Richard's Almanac
What kind of sounds did you encode? That actualy makes a big difference right there. And while many of your friends might not be able to tell which is which probably at least half would be able to tell there was a difference if they listened close enough (the problem of course, is that most people don't know what an artificat actualy sounds like...)
Any half serious Audiophile probably won't be using PC equipment anyways. (Not unless it's a fairly customized system.) Many are either still stuck on Vinyl or SACDs.