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Warner to Sell Music on DVD
Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "Warner Music is planning an aggressive attempt to replace the CD by pushing consumers to buy their music on specially outfitted DVDs, the Wall Street Journal reports. It's music to the ears of some struggling retailers who seek a new physical product to re-capture some of the online (and file-sharing) market. 'As a retailer I'm going to be holding on desperately for any compelling physical product,' said Eric Levin, who owns two independent stores called Criminal Records in the Atlanta area. 'So the introduction of a new format...is cause for excitement.' More from the article: 'But there are some stumbling blocks that may discourage consumers from embracing DVD albums. The new discs would not play on normal CD players, meaning consumers could not simply pop their new discs into their car stereos or other players. And users would not be able to copy the main audio mix onto their computers. On the proposed DVD album, the main audio mix is to be protected by the same software that already protects the content on normal DVDs.'"
Well now, that doesn't sound like too compelling of a physical product at all, now does it?
For those that didn't RTFA, supposedly the DVD would contain pre-ripped, lower quality versions of the song on the disc, but not actually allow you to rip the high quality versions of the song to your computer. Well, not legally, anyway.... And it doesn't say what the format of those pre-ripped songs are, either, though it could very easily be assumed that they are DRM'd as well. If they are, it probably wouldn't be iPod compatible, either, so honestly now - remind me again what the point is in them wasting money on a product that's doomed from the start?
A community-oriented lyrics site
This will either lead to people hooking up their DVD players to their stereos or to the appearance (sp?) of small DVD-audio players to hook up to the stereo. I guess those small, portable DVD players could get slimmer and replace the walkman.
Yeah. Would you choose a neurosurgeon who pokes around people's brains in his spare time? I wouldn't.
Pinky: What are we going to do tomorrow night, Sony? Sony: The same thing we do every night, Pinky. Pinky: What's that? Sony: We are going to take over the World!
echo YOUR_OPINION >
"the main audio mix is to be protected by the same software that already protects the content on normal DVDs"
...
I was not aware that DVDs where protected... hum
And why would I want this?
"If you insist on using Windoze you're on your own."
What really does this offer the consumer? Does he actually include anything extra on the DVDs?
I kinda feel sorry for the guy how owned the two music stores, but he became complacent and should have got out a while ago. If there is any room for small players in the music store business, there won't be soon. How can you compete with the online retailers?
The writing is on the wall.
I remember wanting something like this 5 years ago when it was difficult to have a portable music source that had more then an hour or so of content. Now I can't see anyone adopting this technology because it's not better then what we already have.
The current DVD encryption algorithms are SO EFFECTIVE! How will ANYONE manage to get around this? All teh warez are dooomed!
How to use coral cache: http://slashdot.org.nyud.net:8090/~oscartheduck
The new discs would not play on normal CD players, meaning consumers could not simply pop their new discs into their car stereos or other players. And users would not be able to copy the main audio mix onto their computers.
It's not a bug, it's a feature.
If this were to succeed and CDs were replaced with DVDs, online purchase of music for download would skyrocket because at least those songs can be put on their MP3 player.
Click Click Bloody Click PANCAKES!
And Time Warner is surprised that their stock is a flaming dog turd, and that they were unable to leverage the AOL merger in terms of media distribution?! These guys are so out of touch with reality that it would be laughable if it wasn't so pathetic. They refuse to see any opportunity in new ways of digital distribution, and only look for new ways to screw their consumers.
This sounds like DVD-Audio, yet the article clearly describes this as a new thing from SACD and DVD-A. It seems like a silly thing to create a whole new format when an existing one already exists. The only reason why I'd say "yay go for it" is if they eliminated the encryption and licensing issues with DVD-A, but I highly doubt a media company is going to go there.
Why did it take so long? A folder named AUDIO_TS has always been present and empty on every DVD.
Nuffsaid
________
Don't know about his cat, but Schroedinger is definitely dead.
And thus these discs will not sell. Well, that was easy. Next question?
I just can't see this flying unless they come out with a compelling reason for the general public to buy into it. This looks like a way to milk another run out of the back catalogue rather than anything else.
You may think me a tired, old, cynic. I'd have to disagree about the tired bit.
On the proposed DVD album, the main audio mix is to be protected by the same software that already protects the content on normal DVDs.
No thanks.
-- http://frobnosticate.com
Here, boys and girls are the two reasons why this system is doomed (and why it's obvious that Warner hasn't figured out how the consumer and the pirate think/work)
1) the main audio mix is to be protected by the same software that already protects the content on normal DVDs
So much for stopping piracy.
2) The new discs would not play on normal CD players, meaning consumers could not simply pop their new discs into their car stereos or other players. And users would not be able to copy the main audio mix onto their computers
And there goes consumer interest as well.
If SACD taught us anything, it's that consumers don't want to re-buy their collection, or replace their favorite stereo just for a minor difference in quality. It's just not gonna happen. There may be a small uptake, but the majority of consumers will say "Doesn't work in my stuff? Well then why bother?"
The real litigious bastards...
Who would want to buy some thing that can't be played in thier car stereo, home stereo, disc man, or any other multiple CD players everyone has? Instead you can play it on your laptop (if you have a DVD drive laptop of course), home computer, or DVD player. I really can't see this being the next big thing. And I don't care if this DVD has low quality rips of the songs included for you. Who really wants to buy a product just to have to then burn a CD, or upload to thier MP3 players. You now have to purchase a product, then have all the same hassles if you had downloaded them.
Can't play it in existing CD-players, can't rip it to MP3 players: Do they expect me to carry my laptop around with me? I find that I listen to 80-90 percent of my music while mobile - running, driving, walking to class - places where I don't want to carry another player just for one record company's music.
Not to mention, no mixing, no randomized playlists, and I have to carry a bunch of DVDs around with me?
Now that's a surefire flop.
You don't suppose they'd put more cookie-cutter crap on every DVD, or higher quality sound would they?
Most likely, after the novelty wears off, they'll go back to releasing 35 and 40 minute DVDs that cost $30 each, with one good song and the rest just filler.
The "good" part is that most people have their DVD sets already hooked to their audiophile monsters anyway (for dolby effects and all the other goodies that come with today's DVD movies), so it's only logical that they would accept a DVD as a music medium, too. And with all those DRM-crippled CDs (or rather, non-CDs, since those things do not conform to the CD standard and thus may not be called CDs), the argument that you can't play it in your car-CD or portable CD player doesn't hold much water either, since you can't play the crippled silver discs there either.
The "doomed" part is that it's DRCrippled. So if I already have it in non-crippled form, why bother buying this cripplecrap? If I don't have it already, would I rather buy a CD or a DVD? It does not matter if both contain essentially the same data (i.e. music), the question is, which DRC is easier to get rid of.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
What does this new format do that can't be accomplished w/ DVD Audio?
Thanks, Warner, for dumping yet another competitor into the arena and pushing us further away from a viable multichannel audio format.
So, in other words, they are forcing me to play my music in the livingroom while I have 4 cd players through the entire house?
Or; in more words; they are forcing me to buy 4 DVD drives and screens? What kind of bullshit is that?
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
So basically it's a CD that you can't play in your car. Sounds like a winner.
I haven't gone as far as reading the fucking article, but i would guess they'll add stuff like surround sound for the music and probably include music videos.
Now, since MP3s don't really support more than two channels (as far as i know) this might improve support for other formats (hopefully ogg, probably m4a, hopefully not WMA or whatever MS calls them nowadays.).
So, they'd like to sell me a disk that won't play in my car stereo or my portable CD player, with video content I doubt I'd ever watch and pre-ripped DRM'd tracks I can't use, most likely for more money.
Wow -- where do I sign up?
And what really cracks me up is they think that, not only will I want to buy new music in this format, but that I'm going to rush out and replace my existing CDs.
insert inflammatory anti-microsoft comment here
Because as far as I know, 5.1 Dolby Digital is 492Kbit/s for 6 channels. Not exactly lossless.
Do DVDs support any raw format? Anything lossless?
I sure hope this guy isn't thinking about DVD-Audio format because as we all know these flopped went the way of the dodos.
Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity
I forget which one of these I have, but I was able to create a DVD with 40 albums on a single 4.7GB disc.
See here.
The one I have even lets you put a picture on the main selection screen.
I believe there's another one out there that will allow you to put a picture for each individual song.
Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
Capitalistic Humility is the virtue of selling what the customers want to buy, not what you want to sell. Seems WB forgot that. It is obvious why this format will be better for WB and the music industry in general. The only drawback is that it sucks for the customers, the people whose money the music industry wants.
They seem to be like Ford prior to the attack of the Japanese car manufacturers or Apple before the release of Windows 3.1. Complacent, expensive, and sure there is no other alternative for the customer. It might be a good idea to short their stock.
-- Support a free market in the field of government
On a related note. From the article: The Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem already shows that with the sampling rate on CDs the original signal can be reconstructed perfectly up to frequencies above human hearing. DVDA sounding superior is almost certainly a placebo effect.
do you know squarepusher?
They are going to use CSS to protect audio? Wasn't it cracked like 8 years ago? So, in other words, the format is not out yet, yet the DRM on it has already been cracked? I like this.
Good, now I don't have to wait for the protection to be cracked.
this reminds me so much of the bomb that will be hddvd and blu ray.
Unless there is a signifigant advantage in a new media it will be extremely hard to get the customer to pic it up. DVDs were HUGE over VHS, CDs were equally superior to audio cassettes, who were supperior to LPs (in portability). But what does DVD audio have to ofer over a CD? When you consider how little data on the average 80min cd is actually being used by the music it makes you wonder just how much extra they can fit on the disks they have.
OTOH... if they offered some good extras, videos for every song, artist comintary and whatnot... then it "might" take off. But I sure wouldn't bet the farm on it.
This is a great idea for the music industry, and solves their copy protection problems.
It's a horrible idea for consumers. Sure I have a DVD player at home but not in my car. This is risk that the music industry faces every time they change formats.
It's sure better than suing people who have purchased your product in an unencrypted format for using it appropriately though. It's your fault for not encyrpting it in the first place.
DVD audio will be ripped anyway, so this is really a crutch.
Better not charge me any more money either.
Skot Nelson music is my saviour / i was maimed by rock and roll
When I walk around town, I see people with digital music players everywhere, so I doubt I am the only person who does this. Changing disks every album, and not having a random shuffle mode is simply not a convenient way of listening to music. I didn't listen to nearly as much as I do now when I had to change discs periodically; I would listen to an album and then stop.
This is a step backwards.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
One of the Joys of CDs is that what you hear is almost precisely what the band hears - Vinyl actually has its own sound so really you're not getting a carbon reproduction of the music.
Audiophiles decried the 22khz suggested rate for CDs and what we accept as digitally recorded music played back from a computer. CD audio is instead recorded at 44khz and it's pretty much as faithful a reproduction of what you'd hear 'in the booth' as can be expected.
DVD audio would probably record at 24bit/96khz. To be frank it's faintly ludicrous and almost entirely unnecessary, even for the most vainglorious Audiophile. Consumers can't be lied to and told that there's a difference between the quality because there really isn't. Purists claim they can hear the sizzle on a crash cymbal but since the levels of other tracks are almost always too high for a human to pick that out, it's really just posturing.
99% of music pushed out of the door is Brick Wall Limited anyway so we're not even using 16-bit 44khz sound to its full potential.
The ONLY consumer attraction for Audio DVDs would be the increased storage capacity and hence the ability to include more than one album on a disc and in a world where an MP3 player or iPod holds your entire music collection, short of the Studios making it "good value for money" (don't bet the farm on it) that's unlikely to be a big selling point.
This must be from the same guy that thought that non skippable anti-piracy propaganda at the begining of legitimately purchased dvd's and before movies at the theatre would be a good idea. Sure I'd love to buy my music again, limit my ability to play it even further and pay more for the privilege in exchange for some poorly done drm'ed digital versions that I could have done a better job of myself provided I had the CD.
Id really like to see what kind of money is wasted at crap like this and new methods of DRM, sometimes I think the "war on piracy" is costing companies more than the realistic amount of money lost becasue of it.
Should read:
"Warner to Offer Music on DVD"
"And users would not be able to copy the main audio mix onto their computers. On the proposed DVD album, the main audio mix is to be protected by the same software that already protects the content on normal DVDs." ..
So basically we rip them just like audio CDs?
:)
the subject says it all.
'As a retailer I'm going to be holding on desperately for any compelling physical product,' said Eric Levin, who owns two independent stores called Criminal Records
Now that's funny. A retailer "sanctioned" by the RIAA called Criminal Records who's afraid of "criminal" file sharing. That's more interesting than these DVDs they're talking about.
Developers: We can use your help.
So, if this were to actually happen. And companies were to start selling DVD music players for cars, walkman, stereos, etc. This could become really cool and interesting! Think of the physical size of a DVD vs a CD. Instead of artists spitting out 10 or 12 songs per album, they could produce 100+ if desired! Or, something kinda interesting, with each DVD you buy, the artists could include all the previous songs they ever recorded. Imagine compilation DVDs, they could include Billboard top 100 or something large like that. I don't know how high the prices would sky-rocket, but it would be neat to see that even at the highest quality, they could still pack tons and tons of songs onto one DVD.
So this new and exciting product will
1) Not play on CD players ( given it's a dvd and all )
2) Not be copyable to a computer ( given the same dvd DRM already in place. Stop snickering in the back )
So their target audience must be...uh...hmm.
The young and the gullible? But I don't think they'd be willing to drop this kind of scratch on a whole new music infrastructure ( car, home, portable ). So make that the young, gullible with rich parents.
A remarkably small subset. It would seem these folks are taking a page out of Sony's play book when promoting new formats.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
When will the RIAA finally realize that if they want to start making money again they need to make a product that thier customers like. Customers are not that stupid, who will want to buy a music DVD player (which will be more money) and music DVD's (which will have less functionality) then current CD's.
I am not buisness savy but I always thought the way to make money was to sell a superior product (or atleast convince people that your product is superior) at a better price.
I have yet to see the RIAA do this.
To: RIAA, please treat us like people and not criminals. We want to purchase your product just please produce it in a form that makes it worth purchasing in the first place. From: The World
I really don't see how this will prevent people from stealing music. People have been downloading DVD rips of movies for years so what's to stop them from downloading DVD rips of music albums?
That said, I suppose it will stop a number of people from ripping music directly to the their HDs, but if they're going to a new media for this purpose as well as for more storage, why don't they go with those mini CDs that are used for GC games? They're are a much smaller media and can store a few gigs of info. This way manufacturers could start producing portable audio players for this media that are much smaller and easy to carry than the current CD walkmen and the inevitable DVD players that would come with this "revolution".
There is already working solution called "SACD", Super Audio CD. It allows "Hybrid" thing so on ordinary CD player you play it like CD (16bit) and SACD player 24 bit stereo (5.1 sometimes)
I keep saying if I was in USA, I wouldn't think a second. http://www.sonymusic.com/sacd/
I may bet the DVDs they try to sell will not have DTS which is much better than Dolby Digital too.
I really think there should be some offering to us in 2006, to original CD (plastic) buyers (puppets of RIAA?) but this is not it.
(before someone comes up with "Sony patent" word, CD is also commercial patent product owned by Sony and Philips)
Hmm.. Selling a format that I can't play in my car or import into my iPod. Treading over the same ground of DVD-Audio and HDCD, which failed miserably; but offering lower audio quality (standard compressed DVD audio).
Should be a smashing success.
Any good applications out there that can rip the audio off of a DVD track?
I would love to copy the songs out of some of my daughter's DVDs to play in the car. I can handle the editing once I get the rip onto my PC.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
Lots of CD players can now play mp3s. So, what I think would be cool, is if the car stereos and portable players would start playing DVDs with mp3s on them. That way, instead of 700MB of mp3s on one disc, you could have 4.7GB on one disc, maybe even 8.5GB with dual layer discs.
Am I the only one who thinks this would be a good idea?
-joltman
that they just don't get it. This will sell exactly as well as DVD-A (which is probably what it is) and SACD. There isn't a big enough improvement to justify having to buy new players and probably have to buy the CD twice so that normal people can listen in thier cars and such. I have 4 devices that can play DVD-A, and 0 that can play SACD. Well, maybe 2 for SACD if it works in computers, I don't remember on that one. I have a dozzen or so that can play CD-A. Even those I don't use much, preffering my iPod.
.50 for 64K MP3, to $1 for 160K MP3/AAC, to maybe $1.50 for FLAC, I know I would be all over that. But the files have to be in the format I need, MP3 or FLAC so I can convert to whatever I want, and they need to be unencrypted. That's the online service I would use, and it's the online service people WANT. You could even set it up so that the user could say "I have an iPod" and it would default to AAC. A legal service like that would get slashdotted in minutes with people wanting to give you thier money.
Not to mention, that most bands seem incapable of putting out a GOOD CD, so I end up only listening to 30% or less of the music I paid for in the first place. So now I can't just rip the songs I like onto my computer for burning to MP3-CD mixes and my iPod. That interests me how? Oh yeah, it doesn't.
I mean really, who wants this? The 1% of music listeners that we call "audiophiles"? MP3 is good enough for most people, so better sound isn't going to sell more shiney plastic things. Think about it, what do people clammor to pay for? Easy, convience. Make it EASY TO DO WHAT THEY WANT IT TO. This is so amazingly simple. Apple is the closest of the legal providers to "getting it". iTMS is fast, easy, and the restrictions aren't bad enough that it bothers most people. I still don't use them for the same reason I don't use DVD-A and SACD, I have a dozzen devices that can play MP3, I have 4 that can play AAC, encrypted or not. The point is, I recognize I may be a minority in that case and see the value for users.
Personally, the best I have seen is AllOfMP3. Yes, they may not be legal, however, thier system that allows you to choose the encoding format and bitrate is "the way it ought to be" (tm). Those who are happy with MP3 can have it, those who want FLAC have to pay a little more, but they have have it. You OGG lovers can have yours as well. I think the music industry should buy AOMP3, charge a little more, and call it a day. If I could have a legal download in any format I want starting at, say,
Yes, some people would share some music. Reality check, people do that now and they aren't going to stop. If you make it fast, easy, and reasonably cheap, it's eaiser for me to just get on the site and download from you directly. Perhaps the files could be wattermarked? I don't know. I do know that if I were using AOMP3 a lot, I wouldn't bother to ask friends and family if they had a song, I would just go get it myself.
As for physical retailers, have a setup where people can come in and download songs to thier devices. People don't want to have to go to the store all the time to get things like music. Deal with it. But if you have something like this, people can drop in and grab a song they just heard on the radio or something. Or perhaps retail music is dead, will anyone really miss it?
Oh yeah, it doesn't have DRM...
Seriously, minus the limited storage capacity (although for audio, 74 minutes seems to be TOO much for most artists these days), what's wrong with the CD? The quality is great, I can rip it to my PC (uh oh, there's a problem), and it's inexpensive (again, uh oh).
This new format will probably be $20 or more, and that's just not gonna fly. Not to mention, I need to upgrade my car stereo.
Starmen.net
The only way to make DVD's viable as a music platform IMHO would be to increase the amount of real content (i.e. music) which was on the thing.
As someone mentioned, you can cram up to 40 albums on a DVD without even getting to the higher capacity setups.
Of course studios would never do this because then you could buy , for instance, every Beatles album on one dvd. PERIOD. Either they would have to charge both arms and a leg for it (how much is the Beatles CD collection complete again?) which people wouldn't normally pay in one drop. Or they'd have to admit that larger collections of media aren't proportionally worth more than single new albums.
Not to mention several artists would struggle to put together a DVD worth of real solid content without videos.
Now, on the other hand a DVDA car stereo which could play DVD's I cram full of music? I'm on that. But easier to just get a 30g ipod with a car hookup. So no reason to push that technology either.
End result, music companies are struggling because they don't want to accept that the consumer is deciding the path of the industry and they aren't.
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
And here I thought the point with a profitable music industry in today's social climate would be to move *away* from these so called "physical products". These DVD's will supposedly contain low quality versions rippable to CD's. Now they just need to answer the question of why people would rather rip low quality music than full quality music for CD's and various portable devices. I suspect the audio masochist community is rather small.
I'll pirate music and just assume this will flop while I wait for your answer, Warner Music.
Some say "but come on, it's impossible to compete with illegal piracy since it's free", but the whole idea would be about giving more than piracy. That's how to beat it, and how to make people pay. People do tend to pay for things not better than free stuff. For example, how about using on the fly encoding like that shady Russian music store? While their business may be shady, their technical solution and idea is excellent.
P2P networks rarely give too much of a choice in quality, especially with more rare/old albums. They're often not too organizes and easily searchable either, and quite chaotic. And then these media companies sit on more than likely huge high quality archives of music since the dawn of their copyrights came into effect, and they don't have the brains to figure out that beating piracy is using this immense advantage of theirs.
There's also the aspect of music fans that want to support their artists financially, but they barely even can anymore, unless they want to be severly restricted in how to listen to the music, or even worse, in how high quality they're allowed to hear it in.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
This idea of selling music on DVD sounds more dumb than the Jump to Conclusions floor mat on Office Space. What are these guys thinking! WAFJ!
They are also considering an even more beneficial revised version that won't play on any device, Wontplayforsure.
Ah, right. So it's absolutely nothing to do with the fact that (here in the UK) HMV and Virgin can charge anything up to £17.99 (approximately $30) for some of their single CDs then? Likewise, the fact that record companies/stores price-fix CDs of 30+ year old recordings (say those by The Beatles) at the same (or higher) prices than new releases is irrelevant, is it?
The CD is getting old and tired
No, what you really mean is that the likes of Sony keep making a total "pigs ear" of trying to apply DRM to the open CD format so now you want we consumers to buy all of our music again on a new format that also takes away our "fair use" of the music we buy.
As a retailer I'm going to be holding on desperately for any compelling physical product.
As a consumer, a "compelling physical product" is one which offers good value for money. Perhaps you should consider some price reductions as part of your business strategy?
offer content through a breadth of products to meet consumer needs.
Ah, so consumers *NEED* more restrictive products, do they? Correct me if I'm worng but I don't see too many consumers hammering at the doors of Sony demanding more DRM...
But the capacity of both the CD and DVD sides of DualDiscs is limited compared to normal CDs and DVDs.
Fantastic! So on the *new* format, I can have twice as many Jessica Simpson videos, twice as many out-takes from a bunch of self-indulgent musicians or albums which are twice as long filled with double the amount of boring filler tracks! Brilliant!
Warner is not proposing any generic name for the new format, beyond simply "DVD album".
Can I suggest "Get Our New Audio Disc, Suckers!"? Or GONADS for short?
But there are some stumbling blocks that may discourage consumers from embracing DVD albums.
No shit, Sherlock! And those stumbling blocks are the price, the price and the price.
The DVD album would include "preripped" digital tracks of the entire album
Ah, now I see. So instead of my dowloading free software to rip my CDs myself at an encoding level to what I deem appropriate for my playing device and my listening pleasure, you're going to do it for me, are you? And presumably you'll reflect the fact that you've done this for me in the price of the product also. Wow, life gets better...
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
The market is begging for more convenience (e.g. mp3), not better quality physical media. Especially some drm "protected" junk. Not to mention the incredible inertia they would have to overcome just in the number of players that would have to be replaced. They are just setting themselves up for a painful lesson.
Do you have ESP?
The music industry doesn't seem to have realized that the Compact Disc is just too good a (physical) format. Consumers are happy with the quality of the sound reproduction (even though the dynamic range being used is fractional thanks to today's editing style), and there's a MASSIVE infrastructre built around the medium.
There is no future in physical media. The movie business might be realizing this with the whole Blu Ray/HD-DVD debacle, and the music industry should be watching those download vs. physical purchase statistics, because they're tilting further and further towards digital distrubution.
I expect my next car stereo to have a Type A USB socket on it, so I can plug in a flash drive, or an iPod, or whatever else the TECH industry (not the music industry) comes up with.
I see great commercial success of this new product, because from the quadraphonic LP we learned that consumers are happy to buy new equipment and brand new media for their collection to get additional channels of audio...
This reminds me of the "upgrade" from VHS to DVD. Yes, DVD's provide higher quality audio and video. But when's the last time you've had to smack your VHS player because the video and audio were off by a split second? Or how bout the last time you had to go and get your VHS tape cleaned because someone put it on the table instead of back in the box? But wait, we have all those oh-so useful "extras" included on the DVDs. Because everyone loves to sit down and watch 4 hours of useless crap. I could accept it when it was just filling in blank space at the end of the DVD. But adding in an extra disc full of stuff about the director, and charging me an extra $5.00 for it? F*ck that. I just want to sit down, watch my movie, and walk away when it's done.
But enough of my tangential tirade against DVD movies. On to DVD music. To put it simply, why? So they can suck an extra $5.00 for 30 cents worth of content, and claim that "we're just giving the people what they want"? I'm sick of it. All I want is a disc with music on it, that can be transferred into different forms at my whim. Is that so much to ask?
Cynical Idealist
I'll get my coat.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Yeah, because it's not possible to copy DVDs currently... Even my friend's dad, who is basically a neophyte, knows how to copy DVDs..
not like I care.. I don't see myself buying too many audio DVDs that aren't live concerts..
So basically the audio quality will be somewhere between CD and DVD-Audio quality (so it's less good than a product which has, for the most part, been a complete failure among the general music purchasing population), but we're promised the possibility of extra features, like pre-ripped, iTunes compatible tracks (which wouldn't work with non-iPod players) and ringtones (WOW! we should be so lucky to get annoying ringtones with our music!) and videos which are probably available elsewhere on the internet anyhow.
No Thanks.
The article keeps referring to pre-ripped tracks that are separate from the "dvd-audio" tracks. However I would expect that there are no DVD-Audio format (higher than cd quality) on the disc, only regular cd audio on that has been stored on a DVD. Consumers didn't want the higher quality DVD audio even though it had tracks that could be played on a a regular DVD player. Why would they want a DVD with lower quality tracks that won't play in the cd player. This makes no sense on so many levels. It's so complicated that even knowledgable audio people will have to stare at the stupid package and read the fine print just figure out what they are supposed to be buying. If I can't rip the disc to lossess flac for playing on the home system, then I don't want it... although I'm sure I could rip it if I really wanted to...
I'll not buy them. Simple.
This will push up online sales, not lower them.
I still remember buying LPs rather than cassettes because of the quality of the album cover ( early genesis fans will know what I mean ). I'm sad those days are gone
Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
OK, so no one's buying SACDs or DVD-As. Bearing in mind that DVD-As can store sound in an uncompressed or losslessly compressed format, and DVD videos store it in a lossy format, why would someone who hasn't bought a DVD-A buy music on a DVD video, without as much video footage as a DVD video showing a concert recording?
Warner Brothers should just face it: two formats are already trying to outdo CDs, and both are failing. This one will also fail. Most people don't want a better sounding format - CDs are adequate. If anything, MP3 sharing as proven that what people want is convenience, the kind you can't get from a physical disc.
Personally, I'll stick to true CDs. They have no "digital restriction management" as RMS fondly calls it, and you can still sell them second hand.
You can make unprotected AACs right now. And if they make protected AACs (Apple's exclusive), they're going to have to use a single set of keys, which will be pointless anyhow, because they'll have to give the keys out to anyone who buys the DVD. And if you have the key to one, you'll probably have the key to all of them. So why bother? Just use MP3s, which most consumers understand, now.
(Paraphrasing slightly): The new discs would not play on normal CD players, and thus these discs will not sell.
That's not the reason they won't sell. You can't play CDs in a tape player or record player, but they eventually took off enough to replace both those formats. The reason these won't sell is that CDs are good enough. There's no reason to replace your entire record collection again with something that may sound slightly better (then again, if it's a lossy format, it may actually sound worse in some ways).
This format isn't significantly better than CDs, is in some way worse, isn't as convenient as CDs (which you can copy for fair use), and isn't anywhere near as convenient as downloaded music. It's completely redundant.
with all the crap that is being produced today, Ill just make sure I fill any holes in my CD collection from the USED CD shop and they can do what they want with the format... they will look lovely in that coffin
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
My mom on the other hand does not yet have a computer and there is no way in hell you are going to convince her to replace her car stereo. If it doesn't play in the car, ITS BROKEN.
Music DVDs are great - but they already have them - AC/DC Live at Donnington - Pink Floyd's Pulse, etc - Stuff the extra features on those! We don't need a "new" format!
Someone else said it very well: CDs are just too good.
There has always been a trade-off between convenience, reliability, and quality. For many decades, records (in one form or another) were the consumer cusp of this triad, although not as convenient as some (cassette and 8-track) nor as good as others (reel-to-reel). CDs came along, and provided truly superior quality, a high degree of reliability, and were very convenient. The CD was and still is a very nearly perfect physical format for consumers.[1] Really, there's no need to replace it with anything, and that's what really worries the recording industry. The only format that will successfully supplant CDs is a non-physical format, and they still haven't figured out how to sustain an entire industry on that. Thus, they keep coming out with new physical formats to delay the inevitable.
The sad thing is that they're looking for sales hooks, and know that they're not getting them. The sound quality is already flawless, the convenience is as good as it practically gets, and so they're adding 'features.' Two-channel classic recordings remastered to 5.1, video clips, and now bloody RING TONES? I don't think they're really that stupid, just desperate.
Ah well. Good riddance to yet another crappy format.
[1] Yes, I know, the CD format has a ton of little flaws: Flawless sound is difficult to achieve in 44kHz/16bit, the plastic scratches too easily, some CDs rot, the cover art isn't big enough, the CDs aren't small enough, etc. etc. But it's close.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
You know what would be a "compelling physical product?" CD's for $5.00. Seriously.
Agreed.
I just bought 18 CDs a week or so ago. Most of them are new releases, but I only paid (including shipping) around $6.00 per CD. And this is generally how I've bought my music -- I wait for a good deal then I buy a bunch of CDs I want. I think I've only bought 4 other CDs this year outside of this batch. I find this approach significantly cheaper than iTunes, there's no DRM, the quality is higher, and I have physical backups. For new or hard to find bands, I'll shell out more for a CD. But this is because I'm interested in financially supporting the band.
What amazes me is how slowly record companies drop prices on music. It's not hard to find cheap DVDs of a movie out a couple years ago, cheap as in half price. But try and do the same for albums. The CD will still be over $10.
Who said Freedom was Fair?
When this gets widely adopted (which I sure hope not so; because it's NOT a portable format) they'll be forcing us just like they forced to buy VHS instead of Betamax.
...
I wonder if their brain is in their head or lost on one or another tape ?
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
I've got the last Steely Dan record, Everything Must Go, released DVD-Audio in 2003. It's good (for an after the gold rush album), but I'm not that familiar with it because it plays only in my DVD player. Not in my many CD players, including my car. The enclosed video of Becker/Fagen rolling in a taxi, picking up Vegas latenighters, was hilarious, but I'm not sure that it was worth the ghetto the format forced the disc into.
--
make install -not war
Well, it's still protected from those of us that do know how to circumvent CSS . . .
Not unless you also avoid using P2P software to download music, which is the claimed purpose of DRM in the first place: to stop casual piracy.
So, it won't stop P2P (DMCA notwithstanding-- copyright infringement is also currently illegal). It won't stop people from downloading software to copy it to their iPods. It basically just won't change anything at all.
I can see WB and other music folks offering entire back catalogs of musicians, or monster anthologies, on DVD. I'd pay big bucks for high-quality, unencumbered collections of all the old soul classics, or a comprehensive anthology of psychodelia, or even an overview of all of a label's current top artists. It'd be cool to get one DVD filled with all that old '70s music you never hear and can't find: Paperlace, Starbuck, War, Jigsaw, 10cc, etc. I'd pay $20 for a DVD of all those old bad one-hit wonders.
That'd be cool, but it ain't happening, because music companies don't give a damn what people *want*, they push what they want to *sell*. And no matter what they do, they won't stop on-line downloads from being the next big distribution mechanism.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Even if a new format came out that was somehow better than the classic CD format, my investment is such that a new format is probably not worth converting to. The conversion to CDs from LPs and tapes made sense -- no more crackling from dust, and no more linear-access media. But CDs are already digital, random-access, small, and reliable. All a DVD offers is more space, something a classic album doesn't need (and something which I can already provide with several of my CD players using data CDs with MP3 files).
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
20 years of raping profits from CDs. Now any person on the planet can get a CDplayer for 10bucks, a CD/MP3 player for 20.
They want to change the format. WTF, Ahem
Memo to Warner Music Division.
We want the physical media.
We will pay a REASONABLE price for it.
We do not want to be forced to upgrade all of our equipment.
We have no desire to re buy all of our music all over again.
We do not want Restriction on the use of OUR media other than copy resale.
We want access to our music and choice of purchase Web/CD/Satelite
To acommplish all of these, you can either:
Release your DRM-less music on the web itunes/napster/WBStore whatever, Reduce the price of CDs to less than $10 and Be the alternative to the Sony Empire. Reaping profits and customers lowering R&D/liscensing costs across the board.
or
Follow through with this profit killing, customer betraying, Stock tanking, disastrous, nefarious, expensive plan, Risking Being made irrelevant in the music industry.
Never let it be said that I didn't try to help out the big guys.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
So a new format that will not play in my car, stereo or DVD player- but they will provide a low-quality version that I can access on my computer and will only work on an ipod... I think Warner needs to fire their entire marketing and techical staff (or who-ever suggested this) and start over from scratch as this is one of the dumbest ideas I have ever heard...
remember Eric Levin, has a Criminal Record or two stop thief. (humour)
Kind of randomly picked from among the several dozen posts saying this same thing to reply to. As I thought about this, I realized it's very likely the record labels are planning to stop producing CDs, period. They will only offer DRM-ed music, so that they have the option of sueing anybody who exercizes their fair use rights which are denied them by the DMCA. This is something that could convince me to become a pirate.
Yes, who wouldn't want to jump at the opportunity to pay who knows what for:
- a DVD that won't play in your car
- a low-quality digital version to put on your iPod (just how low will they go? 32-kbps encoding? after all, we wouldn't wan it to be useful)
- a video clip or two
- a few remixes
All this for what, $18, $20? Wow.. I don't feel compelled yet.
I can already get low quality encoding from Apple's iTunes at $.99 a pop. Videos aren't all that interesting anymore. The innovation is gone. It's all rehash of the same concepts.
I generally don't use my originals for actual daily use. I'll burn a duplicate CD for the car because it is easily scratched up. And you're going to DRM the low-quality encoded versions as well, to give me an extra headache? Joy, oh joy!!
I guess the devil lies in the details. Once again, the recording industry is going about the same ol' same ol' without much regard to their customers.
DVD players also play CDs. So you can buy a fancy DVD-audio rig and play your 1000 cds in it, plus any new DVD audio discs you buy. In fact, I blu-ray/HD-DVD players (the next thing after DVD) will play audio CDs just fine. I suspect that any new format after the HD stuff will also play audio CDs, probably for decades.
It's not like vinyl at all, where there is no backward compatibility.
Me? I'm staying far far away from this crap. I've got enough DRM in my life.
Man, you really need that seminar!
The vinyl -> CD transition did generate a huge uptick in sales as everyone bought the White Album (and the rest of their collection) all over again. But the industry flaks, in true traditional fashion, see the data but not the information: Why was everyone willing to shell out that money again?
Ironically, this new format would have the net effect of driving more people to casual "piracy", since they probably won't shell out for the format no CD player can handle. I know I have little interest in these "features" that will be used to justify a MSRP of $30 or $40 for an album.
But of course, the purpose isn't to sell more discs. It's to bring audio back into the safe corral of the DCMA.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
I have a Led Zepplin DVD (actually a 2 DVD set) of live performances, I have The Cramps playing in an insane asylum, I have a Rob Zombie DVD of videos. I bought the Zepplin DVD used, two years ago!
The Wall Street Journal is also woefully lacking in nerd cred: "And users would not be able to copy the main audio mix onto their computers." HAH! I've already ripped the Zepplin DVDs to audio CD for the car. And no, I didn't have to circumvent the copy protection; I sampled it.
This is sure to be a loser. Thay COULD have actually tempted me with this; a true high fidelity recording that would beat vinyl, sampled at ten times the sample rate of CDs and at four times CD's 16 bit bitrate.
Stupid music industry. They're dying, but that's a GOOD thing; they don't even know their own business. My 75 year old dad stopped listening to the radio, because today's country music "sounds like rock and roll", and he's right. If Lynard Skynard came out today rather than 1974, you'd never hear them on a rock station. They'd be country. I've heard country songs on bar jukeboxes with violins. Not fiddles, VIOLINS! In a "country" song! WTF?
Meanwhile, if you want rock you're out of luck. The "rock" stations are playing whiney minor key shit like "staynd". Meanwhile, go to about any bar on the weekend and you'll hear a live band of guys in their twenties playing old 70s and 80s rock to a twentysomething audience. And usually selling CDs of their own original rock and roll to boot.
And the established industry blames loss of sales on "piracy."
The established industry is dying, and good riddance to it when it finally does.
"called Criminal Records in the Atlanta area."
This brings something to mind... listen to alot of the music out right now, atleast the harder stuff, its all about drugs, or gangs, or stealing, but the RIAA just has no idea why people are stealing. uhhhhhhh would you like to buy a clue?
We have seen that living things are too improbable and too beautifully "designed" to have come into existence by chance.
...and I'm sure it didn't enter the music industry's mind to charge way more for the same music on DVD than on CD. When CD's first came out, their prices were about triple compared to the same album on record or cassette (at least in the UK).
They'll probably do the same again with the same excuses: that the sound quality is better and it costs more to make DVD's than CDs in volume (which is bullshit. They'll use the (say)10 cents per item extra cost to them to justify a sales price of an extra significant number of bucks).
.. is if it is singnificantly cheaper than iTunes.
Forget all the DRM-this protected-content that bullshit. Consumers don't care about DRM. iTunes' huge success is proof of that - as long as they can do what they like with the music (listen, burn), they don't care about DRM.
The real barrier to entry for this format, is the same barrier that normal CD retailers are facing now - the price. If a CD is the same price, or more than iTunes downloads, consumers will choose iTunes. "Oh but the quality is inferior!!!" the tecnophile slashdot junkies scream. Guess what - normal people don't give a shit. They can't hear the difference on their factory car stereos blaring 50 Cent at 200 DB, rattling their cheap plastic doorjambs to bits. They can't hear the differene on their $20 wal-mart PC speakers. And they sure can't hear the difference on their iPod with the volume down low enough they can carry on a heated conversation with their pre-teen buddy bragging up the latest Jessica Simpson album.
People don't care about quality or DRM. They care about convenience and price. That is why iTunes has taken off so much - it is simple, it is convenient, and it is cheap. Much cheaper than CDs if you don't care about the whole album, but only the singles.
If Warner wants to get teenagers back into the store to buy music, they need to make the medium *cheaper* than iTunes, because driving to the mall to buy music is a huge pain in the ass waste of time in 2006 compared to buying online. Buying a CD in a B+M store should be about 25% *less* than buying online, not 25% *more*, because I had to drive all the way down there to get it.
I thought the main point of DVD-A was that it supported the higher bitrates needed for high-quality audio (the newer encryption is the #2 point). DVD Dolby Digital even at a high (for DVD video) rate isn't all that great for surround hi-fi. DTS is pretty decent since it can use a full-speed CD bitstream (1.5 megabits/sec?) on DVD, but that works just fine without getting DVD into the picture. (though they do leave off one or two of the high-order bits on CD-DTS to avoid blowing speakers out with maximum volume white noise when accidentally played on a regluar CD player)
There's a good reason why a lot of music DVDs have a PCM audio track. (which with a little work, by the way, can be ripped and converted to your favorite audio format)
Or are they actually using DVD-A and just calling it another name because of the "pre-ripped" tracks?
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
Doesn't anyone see this? If Warner can't beat Apple, Warner will join Apple. Low quality iPod music files on the DVDs and hey, if you want the high quality ones for your iPod, just hop over to iTunes.
These DVDs are nothing more than a marketing scam from Warner for iTunes. They know from which way the wind blows.
Here will be an old abusing of God's patience and the king's English.
They should put the tracks on the disc as high-bitrate MP3s. Then everybody would be able to use them easily, no matter what music player they own. Oh, wait. . . But that would mean giving buyers more value for their money, rather than trying to strangle them. What was I thinking?
Record companies -- and this applies to movie studios too -- need to think less about restraining their customers and more about competing. They need to wake up and realize they're competing against books. . . beer and pizza. . . golf and bowling. . . a trip to the art gallery. . . a trip to the beach. . . a ticket to a sporting event. . . and every other form of entertainment that people pay money for. It's a competition they are capable of losing if they try hard enough.
The dual-discs currently on the market. Those are great. I wouldn't buy DVD music alone, however. Especially since many of the dual-discs aren't that impressive in 5+1 surround.
One side is a completely DRM free "normal" cd that plays in all my cd players and can be ripped to any quality I want for my iPod.
The flipside is the sweet DVD in high quality 5.1. I play it in my home theatre system all the time. I love how the surround is mixed. You pick up a lot more with this than listening to stereo.
This is the perfect format, already implemented, so why would I care about WB's new format?
FWIW... I had a Rockford Fosgate in-dash dvd player in my last car that played movies in surround sound thru the car speakers (and obviously Dual Discs with the tracks mastered in 5.1). It DID make a nice difference to listen in 5.1 compared to stereo, unless you were a passenger in the back seat. Then the sound was kinda off.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_disc
Future ruler of a small Asian-Pacific island
OK, so let me see if I'm understanding this correctly...
Warner wants to promote a new format which will cost more and do less.
Brilliant! Sign me up!
I bet they sell dozens of albums.
If the "main-audio" tracks are high-quality DVD-Audio tracks (5.1 surround sound, PCM), playable on any player capable of playing the current format DVD-Audio discs (my Acura has a DVD-Audio player in it). If the "pre-ripped" tracks are DRM-free, MP3, "Lower quality" would basically mean that is it a 2-channel version of the music, the bit rate should still be of higher quality (I'd accept 128K, but higher is better, and a lossless format would be better). The sound difference between CD and DVD-audio is incredible, so you'd be getting a better version of the album, and with the ripped tracks it would be easy to burn a normal audio CD to play in the plain vanilla CD players we all have.
You think the ONLY cost involved with your CD is the actual printing of the CD?
That's like saying you want to only pay for the cost of materials of a car but not for teh actual cost of putting it together, shipping it and etc.
It's a shame that there isn't more use of DualDisc. I thought it was a very cool idea. Unlike this proposed new format, the "music" side of a DualDisc works in any CD player. I saw it as an added bonus that you'd get a few videos and other junk if you popped it into your DVD or computer.
The notion, however, that there isn't enough storage capacity is lame. I've never seen more than a handful of low-resolution videos (at 3-5 minutes each) on a DualDisc. Today they're probably only using 25% of the capacity offered. If they have 4x as much room on the new format, how will that change anything?
-David
OK, so how does this magic unrippable dvd works ?
So what exactly prevents the audio tracks from being ripped ?
Say hello to a lot more homebrew DTS-CD albums !!
All they have to do is strike a deal with BMW or someone to install dual CD/AudioDVD players in all cars. The car company can advertise that they have the best quality sound system of all auto manufacturers, so they are happy. The other car companies will want to be able to make that claim, too, so they install the CD/AudioDVD players in new models. Without anyone noticing, everyone has the ability to play AudioDVDs.
All of a sudden there is a market for the actual discs.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Warner to sell recordings on DVD. Audio. Recorded music.
and NO, i'm not upgrading the f'ing radio just so I can listen to the same thing available on CD. My "newer" car may play MP3's, but Its just as easy to create a mix on the computer and burn it to a music CD.
7 36569-7252810?v=glance&n=172282
My mom on the other hand does not yet have a computer and there is no way in hell you are going to convince her to replace her car stereo. If it doesn't play in the car, ITS BROKEN.
All you need to get a portable MP3 player to work in the car is an FM transmitter like this:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000AAAPF/002-9
They are very inexpensive and work like a charm.
So tell me now how is bringing all of your CD's with you in the car where they can be broken/stolen better than having your whole music collection on an MP3 player that you can bring with you when you get out of the car??
My mom on the other hand does not yet have a computer
My 92 year old grandmother even has a computer, get your mom out of the stone age. My grandma got hers for free and yes it is dated but it does the job of letting her check her e-mail and play solitaire so it's just fine. There has to be someone around giving away an old system that you could setup for your mom, you just have to look around a bit.
Hey, there is only one Return and it's not of the King, it's of the Jedi.
The car companies aren't exactly rolling in dough these days, and a DVD player isn't likely to appear soon anywhere but high-end vehicles. On your standard production automobile, adding a $5 part is a Big Deal, so adding mebbe $50-100 in DVD player hardware will be a tough sell; it just won't push car sales enough to be worth the trouble for the automakers. Car players won't be the killer-app that pushes adoption of this (IMHO pointless for users) format.
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
Okay, same protection as video DVD? Good. That means dvdbackup should work on these, too. In order to work in normal DVD players, the soundtrack would have to be DTS, AC3 or PCM, all of which can be software decoded (or simply played back in the case of PCM) with existing open-source tools. I'd wager they're going to go with AC3, because it has the biggest supported hardware base.
www.wavefront-av.com
this is retarded. you're gonna push a format that isn't supported by most standalone CD players in existence? so, i go and buy the new atreyu audio dvd, right, then i take it home. shit, can't put it in the stereo inthe living room. guess i'll hafta put it in my computer...and rip it. and put everything on my ipod so i can listen to it in the living room. i'm fucking confused, do they or do they not want us to copy music?
Oh, that's not at all redundant. Let's use the OTHER shiny plastic disc. It's much better. Plus, you'll have to buy all new stuff to play it in! It's good for the economy. Do it. ...Or the terroists win.
Why, in the name of whatever God or Goddess you choose to (not) believe in, do we need something the size of a DVD to hold 12 apparently pre-compressed tracks when most modern day releases take up barely 2/3 of a normal CD? To justify a higher price point, perhaps?
The idea of a physical medium is as antiquated as the internal combustion engine and is being kept around for the exact same reason: corporate greed. Don't get me wrong, I like buying CD's. I appreciate the value of the package along with the art . . . but as far as this idea goes, sliced bread was better.
Putting the 33k in G33k.
Oh no, it's protected by the same format as regular video DVDs! That means we won't be able to copy the DVD audio portions for sure! We all know it's impossible to rip a DVD, right?
Seriously, though, surround sound format for music? That's a capability that's sure to only ever be used by cheesy, short lived bands. Real musicians don't think of their audio in three dimensions. When have you ever seen an orchestra setup where the audience was in the center of the musicians. There aren't enough band members for this in a rock band, but the speakers are still always set in stereo, even when the band is Metallica with the stage in the center of the audience. Maybe some cheesy rap and techno bands will use this to help make up for their lack of talent, but it'll never catch it. It won't take long for the gee-whiz make the instrument sound like it's rotating in a circle around you effect to annoy you. If it were actually a good thing, the DVD music videos from the bands people like would use it.
Spending a lot of money on yet one more high def audio format? When will these people understand that the vast majority of people don't have speakers and amps capable of reproducing music with a high enough quality for the difference to be audible. No, some tweaked out car stereo isn't good enough. You need studio monitors to hear the difference. Even if everyone had studio monitors, most people still wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Women comprise roughly half the market, and look how they complain about: a) it's too loud b) "I don't like how it sounds like there's somebody walking/running/shooting behind me. It's too distracting/makes me keep looking over my shoulder/startles me!"
Great, there are gimmicks included! Whoopee! I've never seen a gimmick included on a CD or movie DVD that I'd pay two cents for. You can bet they won't have a version for Linux, either, so don't think I'll ever give a damn about "what I might be missing out on!" Oh no, more junk to clog up your computer, how can I ever live without that! Oh yeah, and being able to include these is something new? Sure. We've all seen how successful they are too, right? Well? RIGHT??? Oh wait...
So, once again the studios are making piracy much more convenient. You know, DVD would be CSSed so you probably wouldn't be able to copy them on your computer without resorting to "piracy tools". So this is the scenario:
Buying legal DVDs: High price, no flexibility of use, need to "upgrade" your equipment to read DVDs;
Buying CDs on the street: Low price, easy availability, maximum flexibility, quality like the original;
Legal download: Medium price, easy to find what you want, arguable flexibility (depending where you buy), not the best quality.
Illegal download: Free, not extremely easy to find what you want, very flexible, medium to low quality.
And the winner is (IMHO): Buying CDs on the street!
So the worst piracy method (which gives money to people who really steal property) is the best way to listen music without any problem. Once again, they'll manage to increase piracy!
Even before the patent on a computer that encodes AAC expires?
Then the RIAA can go back to sueing the "few" misfit technocrats who insist on listening to music on the mp3 player of their choice.
It was President Clinton, not a Republican, who signed the DMCA (and the Bono Act and the NET Act). Granted, Clinton couldn't have stopped those bills from becoming law, as they had at least 67 percent support in both houses.
In both this new "CDVD" format and the HD-DVD/Blu-ray wars, companies are trying to get people to pretty much buy the same thing. Oh, sure, you get some extra storage space and quality, but that isn't going to be enough to entice casual consumers to the new format. This isn't VHS vs. DVD or cassette vs. CD, it's DVD vs. DVD+.
We aren't going to get a true format change until one of two things happen:
1) All companies everywhere agree to completely stop producing regular CDs/DVDs (good luck with that!)
2) A format comes along that has the following criteria:
-larger storage
-smaller size
-more durable (doesn't become worthless with a few small scratches)
-higher quality
-widespread acceptance
Only once those criteria are met will a format shift change. A USB key would probably meet most of that criteria, you'd just have to get companies to use them.
However, I propose that the eventual replacement to DVDs and CDs will not having moving components. It will be flash memory. The casing will be half the size of a 3 1/2" floppy and only a bit thicker.
I think this means that people don't want to cary around a book or box filled with 50 or 100 CDs (or DVDs) Theu like the idea that a 3 cubic inch device can hold two soes boxes worth of CDs and that it can still play seemlessly over the car's stoero system. 70% that is a huge number and the car companies would never have done this if they did not know there was a big demand for this. Car companies aways thing along the line of "if it costs us a buck more to ake each car, then e loose a milion bucks if we sell a million cars" They would not add a $5 iPod dock unless they thought it would make them some money.
Who wants these DVDs?
This just shows how devoid of ideas the music business has become.
DVD-video discs have been used as an audio-only medium literally for years, albeit as a niche audiophile product. The DVD spec allows DVD-video discs to contain uncompressed PCM digital audio at 24 bits and 96KHz, a big step up from red-book CD audio (16 bits and 44KHz), and therefore (theoretically) more accurate. The small enthusiast-oriented record labels that produced such titles called them DADs, presumeably for Digital Audio Disc.
At this point, we've had three separate attempts to exploit the DVD's physical format for audio purposes: SACD, DVD-A, and DAD. All of them were more expensive and less convenient than CDs have become. All of them had built-in copy protection. None of them have exactly taken the world by storm. Why should something like this be any different?
Every DVD player, every CD-ROM/DVD-ROM drive, and every purpose-built CD player for that matter, can play CDs. Portable MP3 players all include systems for moving music from CDs to the player. That means the number of devices in the world designed with CDs in mind (either by working with them natively or by working with them smoothly) is skyrocketing, maybe faster than ever before in history. The CD is probably the closest thing we've ever had to a universal, standard digital media format. It has proven to be astonishingly flexible and (for the fast-paced world of computers and gadgets) shockingly long-lived.
Can it really be smart to turn one's back on all that?
CD audio is limited to 16bit/44.1kHz. This is what will kill them. Recording studios, etc. record most everything at 24bit, and at least 48kHz. DVD-Audio discs can play back these 24bit rates. Ask any audio/recording tech guy, or anyone in the audio tech business.
Not everyone listens to crap pop music like you. If you listen to Berlin Phil/Mahler 5 on a CD vs. DVD-Audio, it's a night and day difference. CDs may be fine for you, but the technology must go forward.
FWIW: Nine Inch Nails already sells music that is a dual sided CD/DVD-A disc.
Oh, and btw allofmp3.com is notorious for having credit card info leaked from customers. Read up on it before using that service again.
Its unbelievable. This industry is doing whatever it can to get people to stop purchasing their product. I just don't understand it.
Instead of DRM, the product should be uniquely branded (degrading code or something), so that counterfeits are easily discerned, rather than attempting to prevent counterfeiting. That's just me.
Carl Bialik from WSJ writes: >And users would not be able to copy the main audio mix onto their computers. Wait a sec, I thought the MP3 groups were already copying the audio from DVDs, and have been for years?!?
Make the DVDs small (like mini DVD), so they take up less space (should be easy enough, and you can still increase the audio quality). And remove DRM entirely. Again and again the music companies are working to stiffle your ability to make fair-use copies... if they could, they would force you to pay every time that you even listened to a song. It's called corporate greed. It has nothing to do with what is fair or right.
You know what would be a "compelling physical product?" CD's for $5.00.
Indeed! "Compelling" is the word they seem to gloss over.
What surprises me about this shift is that the music industry is so narrowly focused on one use of the DVD, a use which very tightly follows how CD's already operate. High quality master, medium quality ripped files, possibly some visual extras. Ta da. CD's already do this, but they're considered less "secure" by the music biz bean counters.
What excited me about DVD as a format when it was first released is that it was meant to be a pretty broad delivery platform. When it was first announced I was still working in the music industry and I mentioned to several people at one very major label that it would be awesome to see this format, with its much larger capacity, used to sell entire artist collections on one disc (merely one example.) You could fit the entire catalog of Jimi Hendrix on one DVD with better audio specs than a CD, and include all kinds of extras like behind the scenes photos (viewable while the music played, also printable for those who wanted a hard copy), interview footage or audio, full size album graphics, etc. They could also feature a "greatest hits" mode that plays only the top singles from that entire artist's repertoire.
Nobody is thinking outside the box when it comes to the DVD as a consumer format. You could also sell that DVD compilation for approx. $20 or so (USD) and still make a hefty profit, even given the current climate in the music industry. It's much cheaper to produce than a box set and the benefits would be massive, and the labels could for once be seen as some sort of innovator.
Of course: major labels are so money-hungry that they would never see that suggestion as a beneficial move, even though it's the kind of thing that would sell like hotcakes to people who even already own CD's by the same artist. If they want to make the move to using DVD as the standard, I'm definitely for it if they start coming up with ideas like that. But they aren't. And they won't.
Anyone who thinks of DRM as a "feature" is out of their mind. DRM of any sort is a huge pain in the ass. Just give us our content, and give it to us in ways where we feel like we're getting some value for our money. The product they're currently describing sounds like another price upgrade from CD's (which many people already feel are not worth the money.) It's doomed from the start if that's how they're going to approach it.
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70% that is a huge number and the car companies would never have done this if they did not know there was a big demand for this. Car companies aways thing along the line of "if it costs us a buck more to ake each car, then e loose a milion bucks if we sell a million cars" They would not add a $5 iPod dock unless they thought it would make them some money.
While your point is still valid, I suspect that most of the 70 percent of the car models will have this as an *option*. Probably not just a $5 stand-alone option either. I bet that in many of the models you have to upgrade to a more expensive stereo *and* pay an additional premium (like $20-$50) for the iPod dock. Because, as you say, "They would not add a $5 iPod dock unless they thought it would make them some money." With maybe a small number of models having it as a standard feature.
Traditionally, it's the music biz that screws the artists and the consumers.
Now, Warner plans to make themselves available in DVDA???
Are we sure the South Park boys aren't behind this one?
"Time is an abstract concept devised by carbon-based lifeforms to monitor their ongoing decay." - Thundercleese
It would actually be funny that in addition to it not playing on a CD player, they'd criple the DVD in some way to prevent it playing in DVD-ROM drives on computers (and other devices that use computer DVD drives).
In fact, they should use special DVDs that require the player to spin in the other direction to play. They'll make a fortune selling players! Hmm...
I just don't get how their mind works. Why would they think that folks would want this? How does this benefit the consumer? Why on earth would anyone buy music on DVD when you physically cannot hear sound better than what's on the CD to begin with?
I believe they -really- think that consumers -want- to be locked into something... that consumers really do want DRM to restrict their rights. Meh.
"If anything can go wrong, it will." - Murphy
I for one would love to get music along with the videos off of a DVD disc.
But I think I have the same problem that the rest of the posters have had.
I want to be able to rip (for my own personal use really) the music, back
it up, and keep it in a couple of formats for at home and on the go.
Until I read the bits about DRMing the whole blasted thing, I thought it
was a good idea. I would be more than happy to pay a bit more (or really
the current price) for 24bit audio (hopefully) and included videos.
The real question though is likely to be the same as the current album
incarnation. Price and value of music. I can't remember the last time I
spent more than 6 or 7 dollars on a new CD which wasn't from a independent
artist or hard to get find.
Visit spotbit.com for FREE magazines!! www.spotbit.com
Warner is just jumping on a trend (although small so far) started by mainly electronic musicians on independant labels. I own 3 DVD audio albums that are definately worth it.
- richie-060210.shtml
Tipper: Surrounded - http://www.gridface.com/reviews/surrounded.html
Amon Tobin: Chaos Theory - http://www.ninjatune.net/ninja/artist.php?id=1
Richie Hawtin: DE9: Transitions - http://www.popmatters.com/music/interviews/hawtin
The only reason that they are worth it is the fact that the artists are pushing the current boundaries of where recorded music is currently at. All these works were conceptualised and developed as 5.1 surround projects. I hope that this is just the beginning of a wider movement. That said, I don't neccessarily see the value of this kind of thing for Top 40 artists unless there projects are undertaken with this vision - a 5.1 surround mix of most of that stuff will not make any difference.
The WSJ article talks about value adding using ringtones, pictures, remixes, and other features. I think that this is a good idea but if this is seen as a way of resuscitating falling CD sales it is going to be the price that matters. If they can sell this at the same price point as a regular CD then it would probably work but only if the additional content is seen as 'worth it'.
Case in point, the Richie Hawtin DE9: Transitions release was packaged as a DVD and a bonus CD which contained an edited stereo mix of the DVD audio content (which was 97 minutes long). On the DVD was the 5.1 audio mix, interviews, video clips, and best of all, an already encoded mp3 of the audio content. All this content in a package at the price point of a new release CD, worth it? Hell yeah!
If Warner thinks they can charge a premium price for what they are planning then this initiative is doomed to failure. And instead of the low bitrate 'pre-ripped' audio for burning to a CD, how about including an audio CD in the package. CD duplication costs are cheap, just look at the number of AOL CDs, magazine cover discs, and other free CDs given away with nearly everything.
Itms is still not worldwide, so where would that leave the rest of us not in the countries served by itms? Nowhere, presumably. So no thanks.
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Capture sound - generally in wave format. Convert to preferred compression format such as mp3, ogg, etc. Put in share folder of favorite Knutella clone or torrent. Rinse and Repeat as necessary. What was the point??? Oh ya! Market lock in. Ya sure, ok, whatever. Brick and morter music stores are dinosaurs waiting for that final pyroclastic blast to put them out of everyones misery!
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See: Circuit City Ripping DVDs for Users
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/04/15272
If there's commercial venture for ripping DVD movies by major retailers, what makes these doofs at the RIAA think that John Doe won't be ripping the audio as before??? RIAA Desperation??? You bet!
Happy listening!
The record companies are trying to re-release everything so that they get a sale from each market segment - physical media and data. I am sure they are looking at the person who purchases a CD then rips it (legally) to their iPod (I do lossless) as 2 potential sales of which they only got 1 (the less profitable one). I currently purchase CD's and then put it on my iPod precisely because I can have it at high quality (lossless) for my home stereo as well as for the car and while exercising. The record company looks at it and sees that they are leaving at least $5-45 'on the table' because they can't use the DMCA to force me to buy their album again for each of my uses. Too bad, because this thinking is what continues to get them in trouble, and mp3 sounds terrible on good home stereos.