Blu-ray CD - the future of High Resolution music?

[jubaiweaponx]

digging through your cd collection and finding something hdcd compatible ,still sounds nice

[kingofgrills]

Originally Posted by blindcat87

I think the music industry would be very foolish to give up on HD music. The fact is that they never really tried with SACD and DVD-A. The killer with them was not the player problem, but the interface problem and marketing issues. Even audiophiles were not happy having to use 6 analog cables to hook up their new players, and there was little attempt to market hi rez music and surround music. These formats were not ready for prime time until they were already a niche format, when HDMI became a standard. If there had been a convenient interface and labels had been willing to release more hybrid titles and market the advantage of the SACD layer, things could have been different.

I've said it before, I think the secret to BD music releases is to educate the consumer and to include a portable, low resolution version on each release allowing folks to experience HD surround music and still have a lossy compressed version for their iPods. Surround systems are a lot more common now than they were when the previous formats came about, serious demos at retail locations, a real marketing campaign, and something like Disney's BD tour could go a long way towards convincing the consumer that BD can improve their music listening experience as much as it does their movie experience. Especially if they go the extra mile to not alienate the MP3 crowd.

Just my opinions, but as someone who loves music as much as movies, I think it would be tragic for the music industry to give up on quality audio. I really think the key is to get the players in their houses, show them what it can be like on their home system, and provide the portable option as a bonus that they don't have to pay extra for.

Chris

I fully agree with you on this. I love my SACD collection, and I'm not ready to give up on high quality HD music. iPods and MP3 players represent a huge step backwards from conventional CDs in terms of sound quality. Due to the music industry's concern over copy protection, SACD and DVD-A were implemented without a good digital interface such as HDMI. Those formats were indeed way to complicated for consumers to set up and use, and bass management was handled poorly by the majority of early sound mixers and manufacturers.

The prolonged and confusing HD music war between SACD and DVD-A left both camps as losers, and the adoption of HD music largely failed except for with audiophiles. At least with the HD movie format war, the majority of movie studios seem to recognize the need to have a single uniform standard, and they are actively driving the fight toward its invevitable single standard which is Blu-ray.

Given that Blu-ray will be the uniform HD video format, HD music might be successfully adopted if it's driven on the Blu-ray format as well. I'd be all for it.

By the way, has anyone else been troubled by the fact that Sony discontinued all models of PS3 in Japan except for the 40 gig model? You know, the model that does not include SACD playback? Unless Sony announces a new Japanese SKU soon, I'll be really worried about their future support of SACD on the PS3 platform.

[bluseminole]

Originally Posted by statikcat

What reason is there to really have a disc with higher quality than CD? You are not going to gain much sonically. There have already been formats beyond CD - even ones that ran on DVDs and they all failed. The quality gain is so small and most people do not care about 5.1 in this reguard. CDs are still around because they already sound great. If anything music sales are showing that people don't mind even sacrificing cd quality to mp3s/aac.. These formats currently have no future at all imo.

This is the reasoning I hear from most "common people" when I talk to them about upgrading to Blu-ray: "Why do I need anything better than DVD? My SD DVDs look great already!"

Have you listened to a proper SACD setup? If so, then you are most certainly entitled to your opinion and that is that. But if you have never heard multichannel SACD, then my god, seek a demo out immediately! There is a vast sonic difference between SACD and CD, and bringing that difference in quality to Blu-ray disc, so so many more people can utilize it, would be great in my book. I agree, most people won't buy into it, but I will, and for that reason, I'd like to see it come about...

[Teazle]

Originally Posted by bluseminole

But if you have never heard multichannel SACD, then my god, seek a demo out immediately! There is a vast sonic difference between SACD and CD ...

Same holds for stereo. A _huge_ difference over CD will be apparent with a halfway decent (say $50) pair of headphones.

[PS3LikeNoOther]

I really, really, really hope this does happen. I have been holding out on getting a 7.1ch set up for my PS3, but this would deffinetly tip the iceburg. They need to get this going like ASAP, because I want Michael Jacksons new album to sound like.no.other win its stores this winter. We here need to start a movment to get the ball rolling on this. Blu-ray is the future of media and I can not even begin to discribe how pleased I would be to finally see both video and audio using the same format. I am imagining having a Blu-ray player in my car. My god road trips would be unreal with the awsome speakers I have in my '81 Corvette.

You guys have seriously got me pumped for this. I really hope it happens, and I pray this can be rolling buy the time Michael's new album hits. Can the man that ignited the music industry for blacks, for MTV, for pop, for child musicians, for dancing, for...get it. Michael Jackson is music, so can music, ignite itself again in 2008 with Blu-ray.

[caliminius]

Originally Posted by johnnymech

If you haven't noticed, the music industry has been tanking for years. People don't buy CDs as it is. I don't think people will spend more for what they're not paying for now.

That's nonsense. 90% of all music purchased is still on CD (I can't speak to what amount of music "acquired" by any means is CD or not).

The music industry is hardly tanking. They are in the same situation that the movie industry and DVD are now facing, market saturation. The vast majority of content has now made it to CD and DVD, people have upgraded and/or acquired what they wanted, so now the vast majority of purchases come down to new releases. It's that simple.

That's why the movie industry is anxious to push HD content and to some extent digital downloads. If HD takes off, they can be assured
another cycle of upgrades.

There are multiple reasons that DVD-Audio and SACD failed. The most obvious is that no studio was doing much to push either format, not even Sony with SACD. There was hardly any advertising, I don't think there were ANY CD-SACD/DVD-A day-and-date releases. And unfortunately Sony established the pattern that Blu-Ray Profile issue has followed by pushing out stereo-only players and then introducing the multi-channel players later. If Sony were truly serious about SACD they should have either put out only hybrid SACD/CD discs after releasing it or made all SACD's hybrid discs for simple compatibility.

If some sort of Blu-Ray-Audio format were to succeed it needs to also include a CD version on the same disc.

[Teazle]

Originally Posted by caliminius

If some sort of Blu-Ray-Audio format were to succeed it needs to also include a CD version on the same disc.

To add to that thoughtful post, as far as I can see the main reason why SACD didn't catch on was a root insensitivity to a shift in consumers' listening habits. I trace the beginning of this shift to the introduction of the Walkman. Long before iPods people were getting accustomed to "ripping" their favourite records to cassette, making mix tapes to play in car or at the gym, etc etc. The days of buying an LP and sitting down at home to listen to it through, as a form of passive entertainment, ended sometime in the 80s.

Yet due to DRM, limited disc space, and perhaps the implementation of surround sound, SACD and DVD-A demanded a return to the inflexible old practice of putting on the record in the living room, a record which can be heard nowhere else. (Even the first in-car SACD player is only a few months old.) But a hypothetical Blu-ray-based hi-res audio disc has plenty of disc space to get round this -- include a stereo, DRM-free CD-grade track which can be burned to CD, ripped to mp3 or WAV etc, and possibly include also a virtual surround track (like one prepared with Dolby Headphone virtualization) for portable surround use.

I think the second major obstacle to hi-res audio was pointed out by someone earlier (now I can't find the post) -- a departure from album-oriented purchasing and a resurgence of the single via downloads. People just want to buy the one hit song and this is what DLs allow. (Due to pressing, packaging and distrib. costs CD singles are much less economical relative to the content.) Yet again, SACD and DVD-A stuck to the old LP-based model of the "classic album recording", and people for years have been hoping to avoid this for a lot of their music purchases. (For my part I bought e.g. most of the Talking Heads DVD-As to get the handful of hit songs but most people are unwilling to do this.)

I don't see any way around this other than to give up on the idea of trying to sell consumers album-length content on disc. Jettison the model of a disc as containing one or two singles, one or two B-sides and the rest filler. Leave singles to the downloads and use discs for something more ambitious that would have more perceived value to the consumer (for the production cost of the disc). I'd like to see a different marketing concept for "DSD-BD", leveraging the extra disc space to present something on the order of mini artist archives. Like the first four or five Led Zeppelin albums on a single disc, including hi-res scans of all the album artwork, period photos and reviews, with the pics meant to be viewed on a 1920 x 1080 display. No motion video (that's for conventional BD), just audio and stills, but with the intention of producing definitive versions to cover any conceivable listening use. For ultra reference quality at home, a stereo DSD track at 5.6Mhz, a six- or eight-channel remix also at 5.6Mhz, plus the lower-grade DRM-free version(s) for portable use, putting on home media server etc.

[The Seventh Taylor]

Originally Posted by Teazle

Like the first four or five Led Zeppelin albums on a single disc

That would make the discs way overpriced.

The cost price of the discs will soon drop to DVD-like levels (i.e. below $1) so if we're ever going to see something like this it will be a single album per disc, if only for the perceived value.

As for the audio format, I think DSD128 -- the 5.6 MHz format -- will remain reserved as a studio format for recording and editing music that when done sounds excellent at regular DSD (2.8 MHz).

[Teazle]

Originally Posted by The Seventh Taylor

That would make the discs way overpriced.

The cost price of the discs will soon drop to DVD-like levels (i.e. below $1) so if we're ever going to see something like this it will be a single album per disc, if only for the perceived value.

Apart from the disc itself, there would still be savings in packaging, distribution, warehousing etc. if something the size of a boxed set were shipped on a single disc.

Of course, consumers might reject that too. In any case it looks like the traditional 45-60 min album format may be on the way out, in part because of iTunes selling singles, in part because of the disappearance of AOR (which actively promoted LPs). With DLs on the rise there is less need for artists to generate fluff tracks which previously did nothing but help fill out an LP. On the other hand, now with 50GB discs there is no need to limit a record to an hour or so of play time (even at insanely good SQ). From both directions the LP length is losing its rationale.

I take it that one lesson of the failure of SACD for pop/rock music is that if record companies want to re-sell their back catalogues to listeners who already have the music on CD, they will have to depart from the model of selling a disc holding an hour of music for $20 - $30 no matter what the audio quality. Maybe DL is the only real alternative, but I hope something can be done with Blu-ray.

[ken_wilsonii]

Let's remember that Blu-Ray is the type of disc NOT the audio format.

None of the Blu-Ray audio formats hold a candle to it

DTS-HD Master Audio, can deliver audio quality at bit rates extending from DTS Digital Surround up to lossless (24-bit, 192 kHz).

SACD uses a very different technology known as Direct Stream Digital at the very high sampling rate of 2.8224 MHz.


The sampling rate matters most. anybody know of a reason they could not write a SACD track to a Blu-Ray Disc. It has more than enough capacity

[blindcat87]

That is not entirely accurate. DSD has a massively higher sample rate, but it is a 1 bit scheme. That is the reason that SACD with DSD was in direct competition with DVD-A which uses the Meridian Lossless scheme to compress 96/24 or 192/24 PCM losslessly. The sampling rates work out to be very close. Where SACD claims an advantage, though many still argue whether it is an advantage or not, is the end result of the reconstruction of the sound wave, the filtering scheme, and the efficiency of the codec.

DSD was originally an archival format used by Sony, and this is why it is so effiscient. Given that there is serious doubt as to whether the difference between 96/24 and 192/24 is within the range of human perception, it is highly questionable to think that DSD would sound any better than any other lossless codec. The end result, unless there is something that alters the signal, should be equal to the master regardless of which container the data is held within. The fact is, that the best format would likely be uncompressed PCM, why compress anything unless there is some reason to save room? Using DSD would be repeating the mistakes of the past. Right now, only the PS3 is capable of handling DSD and only some of the versions have that capability. The goal here is to create an HD music format with a chance for mass adoption. Complicating things by using a format not supported by the Blu-Ray standard would completely trash the idea and put us back to square one requiring new players and opening up the niche that SACD and DVD-A now inhabit for new neighbors.

Using the specifications we already have can give an equal or greater audio experience to SACD and DVD-Audio without throwing new wrenches into the mix. The recent release of DVDs and the forthcoming release of BDs with an extra disc containing a digital copy for portable players shows that releasing BD-Audio titles with a standard CD version for portable list could be done at no additional cost. This, to me is the way to do this. If you added MP3 or HD-AAC files to the standard CD tracks, the releases could have it all.

Chris

Originally Posted by ken_wilsonii

Let's remember that Blu-Ray is the type of disc NOT the audio format.

None of the Blu-Ray audio formats hold a candle to it

DTS-HD Master Audio, can deliver audio quality at bit rates extending from DTS Digital Surround up to lossless (24-bit, 192 kHz).

SACD uses a very different technology known as Direct Stream Digital at the very high sampling rate of 2.8224 MHz.


The sampling rate matters most. anybody know of a reason they could not write a SACD track to a Blu-Ray Disc. It has more than enough capacity

[Clark Kent]

No current Blu-ray player except the PS3 could read it. DSD is not part of the current BD specifications for audio. I think the music business is more concerned with declining cd sales than making another high resolution music format.

[blindcat87]

If it is handled correctly, a new format could be part of the solution. Another part would bee scouting for real talent instead of for the next carbon copy group or performer, and yet another would be stopping this stupid loudness war and realizing that recording with great loudness at the cost of quality and dynamic range is just a crime against music.

On that topic:
http://www.turnmeup.org/

I have been really hoping that this movement might catch on. I like to crank up my music, but I would rather the studios let me do the cranking and not destroy the quality of my music by pumping it up themselves.

The RIAA would like to blame all of the decline on file sharing and piracy, but the truth is that it is many factors. Frankly, I think the used CD market and the fact that they haven't dropped prices in forever have hurt them more than file sharing. I still buy music, but I have probably bought 5 or 6 new CDs in the last two years. The rest have been used. I will pay premium prices for SACDs and DVD-As, but I am just not going to shell out what they are asking for new release CDs when I know that their costs have dropped massively over the years and that the artists' take has not gone up even a hair.

Chris

Originally Posted by Clark Kent

No current Blu-ray player except the PS3 could read it. DSD is not part of the current BD specifications for audio. I think the music business is more concerned with declining cd sales than making another high resolution music format.

[Kirsty_Mc]

IMO the reason that SACD (and DVD-A) failed was

1. The format war.
2. Too early on the market.

Personally I think reason 2 was the biggest. When launched CD was not really that old and folk were not delighted about having their format updated. These musical types can be a bit conservative.

Also to get the best out of a SACD system you should really have a multichannel amplifier and associated speakers. These types of system when SACD launced were not as common (or reasonably priced) as they are now.

Now that multichannel audio systems are more common a multichannel audio format makes more sense.

[blindcat87]

I absolutely agree with your reasons, I would add another major one though. The required interface. At first, there was no digital interface that would allow one to get the full benefit of the formats. People had to have a reciever or processor that had analog inputs. Then, when a digital interface came about, it was only available on top tier players and processors (Ilink).

With HDMI available and with surround systems being much more common today, I think the stage is set for a new HD audio format. It just has to be done right and actually marketed.

Chris

Originally Posted by Kirsty_Mc

IMO the reason that SACD (and DVD-A) failed was

1. The format war.
2. Too early on the market.

Personally I think reason 2 was the biggest. When launched CD was not really that old and folk were not delighted about having their format updated. These musical types can be a bit conservative.

Also to get the best out of a SACD system you should really have a multichannel amplifier and associated speakers. These types of system when SACD launced were not as common (or reasonably priced) as they are now.

Now that multichannel audio systems are more common a multichannel audio format makes more sense.