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An Overview Of Present, Future of Music Technology
prostoalex writes "IEEE Spectrum magazine is running a feature article on the state of music and current digital formats. They point to an interesting phenomenon in the digital music world that Steve Jobs emphasized as well: for the first time in music history, the next big format was not about better quality (SACD and such) but about better portability (MP3). 'It was only five years ago that the music industry was facing a civil war over the next-generation disc-based music format -- the successor to the wildly successful CD. At that time, hardly anybody doubted that the music would be encoded optically on a round plastic disc the size of a CD.'"
All the future formats will be about replacing CDDA with "DRM".
Oh, it will be marketed as being about increased audio-fidelity, but it's all about getting rid of those horrible "insecure" CDs.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
...lots of telcos payd huge license fees for 3G because that would be the next big thing... Thats why I have such unshakeable confidence in Gartner and such, when they predict the future in, say, 10 years :-)
Whilst working for a UK Hi-Fi outlet in their engineering department, I have come across a number of players, particularly Sony, which are capable of playing SACD, but I have not noticed any growth in the number of SACD discs available to purchase, it is to all intents and purposes a dead format. MP3 on the other hand is big and getting bigger, in the past four months the number of MP3 players we see passing through our hands has quadroupled. As the article points out, the demand for wifi connections to these devices is also increasing. I fully expect to see the most flexible devices take the lions share of the market, but no doubt the crippled Sony player will have its share of adherents too.
Economic Left/Right: -0.62
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.69
128kbps outta be enough for anybody....
5 years ago mp3 was already an avalanche and making the same to movies was just around the corner.
cd is good enough for store sold, holds an unit of music riaa is willing to sell and on just about any consumer system cd itself isn't at fault but the crappy speaker/amplifier used to play it.
it's going to be hard to convince people to switch to a 'better' format when cd really sounds good enough, is already widely spread, and people have cd players everywhere.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
You're thinking in terms of Mp3. 128 bit AAC is equivilent to 192 bit MP3.
So I end up wondering... With the business they want, and with self-destructing DVD's already a common thing, plus time-limited DRM's, how long until we are reduced to the age of "renting" everything... even that which we purchase fully?
And then, on another front, how long before people start realizing that if people just want to hear the music, Digital-Analog-Digital conversion completely strips DRM... Then how long before some crazy laws come out that make that illegal, and anything that can "Facilitate" such functions illegal... so no computers will have line in anymore, and posession of microphones will result in a still fine and jail term?
@Whee
Um... Wasn't that the point of cassette tapes? They were a dominant format for a while and the reason they replaced vinyl was their portability and robustness (maybe play-time, too.) Certainly it wasn't about sound quality.
On another note, why does MP3 have to replace CD? For my money, I really don't think that there's any likelihood that'll happen. CDs are simple to use, store enough data, are lossless, and come with pretty packaging. All good things. I can't see why there can't be two parallel distribution systems.
128 bit AAC is equivilent to 192 bit MP3.
Really? I didn't know that. Thanks for the info, I will revisit itunes/ipod.
But then I want isolinear chips from startreck, so feel free to ignore me :)
As a technical matter, I just wanted to clarify the error in the article, when the author states: "When people say "AAC" they usually really mean AC-2. Based primarily on adaptive delta modulation technology as refined by Dolby Laboratories, AC-2 was developed for professional audio transmission..." AAC and AC-2 are completely different algorithms. Dolby did develop AC-2 on it's own. Dolby later worked jointly with AT&T/Sony/FhG on developing AAC, which shares some similarities to MP3, but uses improved filterbanks and entropy codes (among other improvements).
" Last but certainly not least, the compression format will have to support digital rights management, or technical protection--that is, it must include technology that limits unauthorized copying and distribution."
I wonder how he justifies that considering one of the strong points of the leader, MP3 is no DRM.
"At that time, hardly anybody doubted that the music would be encoded optically on a round plastic disc the size of a CD.'"
Thanks for putting the nail in that coffin, Apple! Surely a key factor in the iPod's success is in its size.
"Derp de derp."
Filesize: But when a new computer comes with a 200Gb harddrive do most people these days even care that MP3 maybe isn't the most effective compression algorithm? I mean, you've got plenty for space so who cares if the typical music collection is 5Gb or 10Gb?
Quality: Most people are happy with CD quality. 192Kb MP3 pretty much gives you that quality. Most people are more than happy with MP3, especially on a portable device where listen conditions are 'suboptimal' shall we say.
Portablity vs DRM: This is the killer feature of digital music. The music industry wants to stop it, for everyone else it is all about being able to move music around. This is the one 'feature' that people do not want to see go.
What I've trying to say here is that people are more than happy with MP3 and the 'problems' with MP3 really aren't an issue for the majority of people, while these replacement formats kill the one feature that people really care about.
Good luck marketing your new formats, music industry. You'll need it!
--
Simon
The premise that we can't do without DRM is based on a couple of unfounded assumptions. One is that people will always avoid paying if they can. This has already been proven wrong by the success of iTunes Store (and to a lesser extent competiting offering), despite the fact that there are plenty of sources of free music on the internet (especially P2P software like Kazaa and eMule). The second is that DRM actually works; actually there have been convincing arguments that this will never work, especially considering the fact that a D->A->D conversion will produce very good results (probably as good as 128 bit MP3) and is basically impossible to prevent.
Then consider how much of a turnoff DRM is for customers. I think a good analogy is the early software industry. It used to be that floppy disks were crippled with "copy protection" technology, and a lot of software required the use of a hardware dongle. Nowadays these approaches have gone the way of the dinosaur and software companies tend to rely on much, much lighter weight protection like a simple license code. The reason is that copy protection was more likely to deter well-meaning novice users than hardened hackers, resulting in reduced sales. The software industry eventually realized that the right price points and distribution mechanisms were going to raise their revenues and profits a lot more than these "protections".
To me it seems logical that the music industry will eventually go the same route, even if it means that today's leading players will be dethroned by more forward-looking challengers. They're only clinging to DRM now because they are terrified of cannibalizing their existing revenue streams. This might work for a while but history suggests that they can't hold back the tide of technology forever.
Peer Pressure
Anyways, look out for many of the DRM features lying around to be activated in the near future. The biggest concern will be in memory cards, as most of them have built in features to erase the file after a certain number of plays.
Also in the near future: DVD players having their playing rights revoked (a code on the disc only allows keys stored on approved players to access the content. Both of these are not "coming-up" technologies, they exist at this very moment in hardware, it is just a matter of time before manufacturers activate them.Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
O'WONDERWe're working on it.
At 64kbit/s, MP3pro files "sound" better than a 128 MP3. It is a great improvement, as now my tiny 64 Megabytes is the equivalent of a measley 128 Megabytes. check out the MP3pro technology at: http://mp3prozone.com/
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
Argh. Yeah, and they keep repeating that mistake, too - really bothersome in an otherwise well-written article.
Apple never mentioned AC-2 anywhere. In fact, they usually expand AAC to Advanced Audio Coding in their explanations. I wonder where the author got that wrong idea.
Let's see how long it takes for this myth to spread across the internet...
I dunno, I'd say the jump from vinyl to tape was about portability over quality, too.
...is important stuff. I could give you countless examples of how good PR overcame better technology. I guess the thing we techies have a problem with is that we can't understand how a superior technology or better way of doing things doesn't become the standard.
Alas, the world doesn't work that way and doesn't look like it will change anytime soon. Most people are not technical in nature and rely on a balance of information - mostly given to them by the mass media. Don't blame them - they simply don't know. After all, how much do you know about scrapbooking or landscaping? Most people have a focus in life on only a few things - not a flaw, just a fact. Ciphering the details on new tech or formats just isn't something most people will engage in.
I think in the case of electronics formats, quality has ALWAYS taken a back seat to cost, marketability, and the 'it's good enough' factor. Case in point: Beta Vs. VHS. VHS's costs were lower, had more manufacturers to market, and was good enough for home recording/playback. Was it better than Beta? Not in the least. And that's why MP3's are winning also. Low cost, great portability, and it's simply good enough.
You do get a '+1 Insightful' for your use of 'thick haired golf players'. Amazing how a short stereotypical statement like that illustrates things.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
MP3pro sucks ass. Plain and simple. How do I know? I tried it. Here's the issue: I can hear MP3 compression artificats clearly to 192kb on most sources, and to 224kb on some of my "favorite" music. Certain Boston sequences are particulary difficult to encode well even at 256kb when played over decent headphones*.
x
The problem is that even the registered version of an MP3pro converter would max out at 128kB, with 192kB "quality". Nice, but not really "enough". Everyone seems to be racing to the 96-128kb SIZE point, without realizing that it's not really all the great to listen to unless there's a lot of background noise, or the equipment you're playing it on comes in a heat-sealed clamshell. And 64kn in every format I've listened to sounds somewhere between AM and FM radio, with digital artifacting added as a bonus. I'll take 48 or 64 for spoken spoken word, but please don't say you use it for audio unless you are listening to it while mowing the lawn.
I finally gave up on lossy formats and started re-ripping everything in FLAC. Now I can transcode through foobar2000 to whatever the format dujour is, or to a format which will fit in the space I have on my portable player.
* Sony MDR-V6 in my case...quite the bargain IMHO, but get the Beyerdynamic 250/290 replacement pads - they're much more comfortable. See http://www.audioreview.com/PRD_118127_2750crx.asp
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Well I THOUGHT the music industry was heading in the right direction with their CD one side DVD other side discs, but I guess I was wrong.
I don't want portability. I'm not going to store 15,000 songs on an MP3 player. Heck, most of them will sit there unused for months. I want quality, DVD quality specifically. The difference between DVD and CD audio is just amazing. People might say there isn't much of a difference between the two, but chances are they're either deaf or have never heard the two compared to each other. It's just sooooo much better than past technologies. The problem is that no companies are putting their music out in DVD format.
Any of you who have audigy 2s, go get your discs and search for your DVD audio sampler disc. You'll have to install creative's junky music player to get it to work(I haven't found a DVD audio plugin for winamp that works with it), but it's worth it to hear the difference. Go on, do it, you can uninstall everything when you're done. You'll be amazed.
for sufficiently small values of "history".
After all, the phonograph record was a step down in quality from live music, but ever more portable tha a full band or orchestra.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
There was a Slashdot story earlier about an interview with MPAA's Jack Valenti, who said: "I really do believe we can stuff enough algorithms in a movie that only the dedicated hackers can spend the time and effort to try to plumb through those 1,000 algorithms to try to find a way to beat it". He really doesn't have a clue, does he? A consumer gets the content, has a decoder, and gets decoding keys where needed (somehow), and to prevent interception, decoding will have to be done at the endpoint, the consumers' equipment. And then you expect to be able to ensure that content never leaves the device once decoded? Get real.
Consumers are faced with extra hassle, limitations resulting from DRM features, and building those features into equipment and software makes everything more complicated and expensive. Hackers on the other hand (both black hat & white hat), will have circumvented DRM features in no-time.
The interesting point here: the barrier it presents to hackers is removed quickly, and isn't an issue after that, but all disadvantages it presents to consumers, REMAIN. If, in 10 years from now, you want to write a software DVD player, chances are at some point you'll still have to deal with region codes, CSS and other useless crap, and DVD-enabled equipment will always be more complicated and expensive than it has to be because of the included DRM features.
Concluding: DRM just adds useless overhead, extra cost, and doesn't do squat to prevent unintentional copying (aside from whether you think it should). I wrote a rant titled "CONTROL versus FREEDOM" some time ago, that isn't of much interest anymore, but its conclusion still holds. For me, it means that I won't invest any money in products that have significant DRM features built in. CD's with copy protection? Game consoles that you're not allowed to mod, or run your own software on? Stick it up your .....
If they do, then that could be a big plus for the Open Source OS's.
And if it does wind up a government mandated thing, then would the Open Source OS's be forced into following suit? (ie, will Open Source OS distros have to come from outside the US?)
On the other hand, if the DRM'd formats *aren't* forced on us, then they'll never take over.
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
There is no doubt that it is important in that its activities drive technical developments in certain directions, especially in the electronics and computer industries, but it isn't as important as it thinks it is. Its products are ephemeral and one day it will be of interest only to historians. Anybody who doubts this should look at the history of music; music is no longer driven by competing cathedrals, protestant churches or local rulers. When Bach was a superstar composer, he was part of a musico-industrial complex that no longer exists. Bach survives because he was also a great musician, but most of the composers of that era are completely forgotten. When Mozart was a kid, cathedrals tried to enforce copyright by excommunicating anyone who tried to memorise and reproduce the tunes of their new settings. This business model no longer works very well.
And my point? That many people already may be seriously pissed off with the "Music Industry" but their activities, because they are small scale and local, are under the radar. Just like rock music was, once, when its performers couldn't afford proper instruments. We don't actually know where the next groundswell will come from, but we can be fairly sure that DRM-crippled reproduction equipment and the like will mean that the next new thing will come from left field. Rather than read about "Record execs pay research organisation to talk up their latest revenue protection concept" or whatever, I would like to know more about what might be happening in genuine grassroots music, and whether recording,transmission and reproduction technologies are aiding it, impeding it or are irrelevant.
WAV isn't compressed format at all (check filesize against audio data rate), IS fully (not virtually) lossless, and although the format wasn't designed for it, being raw audio data, ofcourse you could stream it.
...for most consumers.
Quality is one factor, portability is another, but convenience of use is probably the most important selling point for a format. That includes both the actual features of the format as well as simply obtaining the hardware (cost, backwards compatability, etc.).
The idea that people stampeded to CDs primarily because of better fidelity is mainly P.R. B.S. It was also about moving toward the portability of cassettes, merged with the direct track access of vinyl (remember cassette decks with that pain-in-the-ass silence-sensing to skip tracks?) and a new leap forward in durability.
A higher sampling rate or 5.1 sound or whatever will never trump portability, durability, convenience for the masses.
After all, it wasn't stereo sound and less static that allowed FM to supercede AM (it was largely due to unique content).
This is why the push by the music industry for DVD-A and SACD (largely fueled by piracy fears) will undoubtedly go the way of DAT, MiniDisc, and the Digital Compact Cassette (remember those?) for the masses...
You are talking about digital format technology, not "music" technology. By the title, I'd expect to see something about how instruments and such are changing.
It also doesn't help equipment manufactuers.
Region coding that is difficult to change means that the manufactuer effectively has multiple production and distribution lines. (one for each region).
In an ideal world, the sales in each area will be constant, but, as Apple found with the multi-coloured iMacs, Joe Public preferred some colours over others.
The same applies with the players. If, say, Europe has a sudden surge, at the expense of Japan, then all the players made for Japan sit on the warehouse shelves.
With margins for players really low (I could pick one up here in the UK for under £30), a manufacturer needs to be able to sell all the players they make, so increasingly, the "box shifter" manufacturers (as opposed to the big names like Sony), are increasingly relying on really easy to change region coding, to maximise their sales.
So, the consumers don't like it, the manufacturers don't like it...
"She's furniture with a pulse"
Well, I think if this 'myth' does spread, it'll likely take the form of "Thomas Dolby invented the iPod, thereby BLINDING us with SCIENCE!"
--Kimota!
Who moderates the meta-moderators?
What troubles me about this article is that no mention appears to have been made about what happens when an audiophile with an extensive collection of music located ONLY in one place, on a hard disk, loses that hard drive to a hardware failure, and if he / she doesn't have any back-ups? I wonder how informed are the masses which buy new computer systems, or new high-capacity music players, about the role that backups play in their lives. With vinyl, tapes, CDs, and DVDs, music collectors always had the possession of the physical media, but with digital, Internet-based, distribution of music, and eventually movies, this ownership seems, less real, and more ephemeral. This comes from a person
(me), who preaches backups to other people, yet who is too lazy to even perform them himself.
Yes, increased portability is behind the success of the iPod and other portable players. However take a look around you the next time you're riding the train, taking the bus or walking down a busy street: count how many people who are actually listening to ANYTHING, be it a MP3 player or even a portable CD player (excluding cell phones). Chances are it will be less than 1 in 10 (even for here in NYC).
The portability market is finite, and it has just about reached the saturation point. People in general only listen to recorded music in 3 places: home, the office, and the car. The first two of which do not benefit from increased portability. Who cares if the listening device+media is as big as a brick or as small as a postage stamp in their home/office?
This brings me to the car. The only portability that benefits the car listener is the ease of transferring and listening to one's music (which for the overwhelming majority of the population is on CD or cassette) from the home/office to the car and vice versa in the least steps possible. Right now the simplest way is a two step process: #1:take CD from home/office unit, #2:place in car stereo. In all the different portability solutions available, none comes close to rivaling the ease of use of the CD solution.
Well actually, one solution comes close: those people that download ALL their music, place it directly to a memory card and then plug it into a car stereo that accepts that memory card/compression format. This is very unlikely to take off as it requires a fundamental shift in the physical media used to distribute recorded music to the "non-connected people" aka "the buying public". Why? Because if the original source of the music is on a CD, that automatically adds another (time-consuming) step to the process (converting from CDDA to whatever file format becomes the next big thing).
Other than the glaringly obvious advantage of getting something for free (that isn't), MP3 succeeded because it brought us greater ACCESSIBILITY to our music. Mr. Home/Office/Car Listener could now get (timely) access to exactly the music he wants without having to leave his home/office. It wasn't (and still is not) because he could carry his whole collection in a nifty little device that fits in his shirt pocket, he just burns the music (uncompressed) to CD anyway.
The majority of the public does not need increased portability (the MiniDisc fiasco should have tipped the industry off to that). We need increased ACCESSIBILITY: getting the music I want, where I want (which for most of us is just the home/office/car), when I want (which is NOW).
The compression/the device/the size/the method of transmission/the protection is insignificant to me, just MAKE IT HAPPEN in as few steps as possible. Right now their is only one ubiquitous digital device (other than the CD player) that could serve as a point of access to OUR music, and you probably already know what it is:
The cell phone.
Anyone listening?
The only reason why people used MP3 at all was because it shortened download time back when most people still used dialup. It's actually a big pain to have to rip and then encode the music. Now that lots of people have broadband, we could all just share cd rips using a non lossless format. The only reason why Jobs is talking about encoding formats at all is a self serving one: In order to make money, he needs to assure the music companies that the downloaded music has strong DRM. Also, it makes it less likely people will try to get around the DRM by re-encoding from an analog source, such as the analog out on your Mac, since the compressed music is lower in quality to begin with.
Peace, or Not?
Tapes were a case of portability winning over superior sound quality.
Some argue that the CD was the same.
So this is nothing new.
Remember that Sony is essentially just rebadging players made in a comparatively few factories. A factory making Sony players one month may be making ones branded differently the next. (The same sort of thing goes on with laptops - essentially made in 5 factories, and guitars - many brands, few actual manufacturers).
Last Post!
With all this talk always going on about small handheld music players such as the ipod, etc, I wonder why companies haven't done the same thing to home/car stereo systems.
Sure, I know that people always say that compressed 128kbps mp3 sounds crappy in the car. But with compactness being less important for your car, you can afford to put more storage and higher quality audio equipment as well.
Okay, I'm sure somebody will point out that there are companies (like PhatBox) that do something like this already, but they are very few compared to the number of portables.
The second is that DRM actually works; actually there have been convincing arguments that this will never work, especially considering the fact that a D->A->D conversion will produce very good results (probably as good as 128 bit MP3) and is basically impossible to prevent.
This is a particularly good point for audio/music files (as compared to software or video). Music has to be converted to a pretty simple analog signal to be "used" and this signal is very cheap to convert back to bits (without DRM) with very high fidelity (much better than 128 kbps MP3). One of the things I really like about digital is that it's made higher quality recording equipment relatively inexpensive and available to smaller artists. If you look at the quality of the recordings that people trade, it's very low (as mentioned in many posts)-- you can hear the difference between a CD and an MP3 even with pretty crummy headphones.
The music industry is trying to fix a business problem with technology. They've gotten focussed on producing larger runs of fewer artists and demanding that we like it. Now that music is essentially free to distribute, they don't know how to make money on it (hint: think about a radio with a nearly infinite number of channels) There's just not much coming out of the major labels these days that I want to listen to. I still buy a fair number of CDs, but generally of artists that self-produce them and sell them on their own websites, on CDBaby, or at their shows (and the occasional back-catalog disc from a major).
There's a lot of great stuff that the majors will never bring to you, but that you can get from the artists while giving them a few bucks.
The move from vinyl to CD was entirely a matter of convenience - not having to handle CDs as carefully and keep them clean were the motivating factors. Anyone who owned an early CD player would tell you that, compared to LP playback (assuming records in good condition) through a good quality turntable, the CD sucked: the CD was screechy, glary and thin, with much less emotional connection and feeling to the music. One could argue the same is still true today, although digital has made significant progress. But then analog hasn't stood still.
The biggest problem I see is people today have less appreciation for what live music sounds like. I'm not talking about heavily amplified concerts, especially those where earplugs are a good idea. Because people don't "get it" they grow accustomed to the appliance aspect of listening to music. If it doesn't fit in their backpacks they're not interested. Doesn't that seem kind of shortsighted?
SACD and DVD-A are about quality, although the jury's still out about whether they'll succeed. Some audiophiles maintain they still prefer standard redbook CDs over SACDs. Minidisc is mostly dead except for professional use. MP3 is a disaster from the standpoint of fidelity - it has none, and I find them unlistenable.
Until the recording industry finds a format a greater majority of people like and are willing to buy into, CDs will remain the dominant format. Smaller and more convenient almost always wins. VHS vs. Beta was an exception - Beta was far better quality *and* smaller, but it had Sony behind it, not too unlike Apple with the early Macintosh.
I find the reference to Steve Jobs amusing. His personal speakers at home are quite large and cost $125k the pair. But then I've never liked those speakers because they don't sound like music, the company that makes them is too busy marketing them as jewelry, with a great deal of effort devoted to talking about their paint finishes. If they sound bad and are ugly in the first place, who cares?
What about tapes and records? I don't see many car record players around.
2*31*37*263
Go the route of DVD movies and offer not only the album, but the music videos, interviews, making-of documentaries, and so on, all on the same disc.
Finally fufill the dream of making an album of music more than just an album of music but an entire creative package.
I think this article has it completely wrong. It's not portability that is making MP3 so popular. Who doesn't have a cheap portable CD player?
The popularity of MP3s is directly due to their cheapness. Either buying through legal means via an online music service, or ripping off of Kazaa. Instead of having to go down to the store and pay $20, now people can pay $5...or if they're a freeloader in a dorm room with lots of bandwidth, entire album discographies without paying a cent.
*That's* why MP3s became popular. Their quality sucks ass, and everyone has known it forever. The reason they exploded is because of how easy it was to get music without paying $20 for it.
In some cases it's the source material, not the encoding, that sucks.
DVD-A and SACD have a particularl advantage that could well make them more resilient than you give them credit for: the discs are the same size as CDs, and the players are backwards-compatible with CDs (and DVDs). Which means that once the costs come down, SACD and DVD-A playing capability could become standard in players, laying the basis for a market for the discs. Unless you believe in the imminent death of the CD, I'd call SACD "dormant", not "dead"-- it could wake up easily on a dime.
Are you adequate?
Responding to the post, not the article:
Portability has been an important feature of audio formats for years.
1. 45 RPM records. Relatively durable with a hole big enough to stick a thumb through for ease of carrying.
2. 8-track and casette tapes. Made car and portable audio practical.
The 8-track cartridge was designed for portability over quality. It was intended as a way to listen to recorded music (which was, at the time, only available on LPs) in the car, and there were no home players available until years after its introduction. But, as Wikipedia says, "Despite mediocre audio quality and the problems of fitting a standard vinyl LP album onto a four-program cartridge, the format gained steady popularity due to its convenience and portability."
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
The WAV file format is commonly used to store PCM audio (effectively, uncompressed). But it supports encapsulation of other formats, too; I have seen WAV files with GSM audio (same compression as used by GSM cellphones), ADPCM (a very low-CPU codec), and even MP3 compressed audio in them. The Linux software PABX, Asterisk, sends voicemail-as-email to people as GSM within WAV files, IIRC.
Pretend that something especially witty is here. Thanks.
Not if you have a lazy bone in your body, as it should be as simple as dropping the cd into the drive of the pc and then click a button to rip.
How cool would it be if each member of a band played in their own sound-proof studio, hearing each other and themselves through headphones, with each of their performances being recorded separately. You, the end-user, could then remove individual instruments, or all but one for your own personal solo. On top of the cool end-user features, this would make it far easier to sample the music and probably expose more patterns, etc to be used in compression techniques.
Of course, first we have to get the record companies to embrace sampling and end-user control. I'm not in a band -- I'm lucky if I can keep a beat on my knee -- but I would wager the band "chemistry" would suffer as well.
SACD is certainly not "dead", or "dormant" (That would be DVD-A). Nearly every manufacturer has either a DVD player or HTiB that supports the SACD format. There are well more than 2000 titles available, but interestingly, the company that supports it the best is Universal, not Sony. Most SACDs these days are hybrid, meaning they have a standard CD-Audio layer, that you can rip in a CD-ROM or CD-RW drive, so for $14 you get a disc that has SACD stereo, SACD surround, CD stereo, and the ability to rip those tracks to AAC or MP3. Sounds like a bargain to me!
"I'm not a cool person in real life, but I play one on the Internet". Galley
IMHO mp3pro is good for Internet radio only.