A Blueprint For the Future of High-Resolution, 5.1 Music

[David DelGrosso]

Originally Posted by mcraghead

Basically what I'm trying to say is that I believe the potential is far greater for new releases than it is for back catalog since the amount of work would roughly be the same either way. In a one for one comparison I would take a top 20 new release over a back catalog item almost every time.
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If the back catalog was that much more powerful than new releases then why don't record companies just stop releasing new material and concentrate on selling what they already have?

I really don't understand why it has to be an "either, or" situation. Why can't these record labels market both the hot new downloads AND the hi-rez re-released hits from the past??

The problem that I have with these sweeping generalizations about record label economics, is the implication that ALL generations of music lovers and ALL genres of music, should be serviced by the same marketing plan.

But I believe that the OPPOSITE is true... that a 55 yr-old 6-figure exec might actually prefer a 24/192 re-release of Dark Side of The Moon, over downloading Ashlee Simpson's new single (even though she DOES sound better, ever since her nose job.)

The whole idea of a Hi-Rez music format is that: 1) A/V fans who purchase great sounding gear want BETTER sounding software ...PLUS... 2) "classic rock/jazz" music lovers very much enjoy re-visiting their favorite "blasts from the past" whenever they become available with better-than-ever sonic realism.

PEACE

DD

[jbk]

Originally Posted by David DelGrosso

An excellent clue to solving this mystery!

Millions of 5.1 hi-res systems are already in place (ie. offering advanced razor blades to people who already own the razors?)

From my humble perspective, the industry execs who keep insisting that consumers only care about the simplicity, convenience and low price of music downloads, are ignoring how many expensive steaks are still being sold in fancy restaurants (with no golden arches or drive-thru windows!)

Two different business models, but both can be profitable.

The real questions are... how many people truly care about Hi-Res music recordings that offer no TV picture to focus on... and why would they pay real money for these new releases?



1) Recent advancements can result in perfect replications.

The recent advancements in microphones, electronic boxes and Hi-Res digital recording gear, can deliver an unprecedented sonic realism that is so lifelike that we can see and feel the music, even without a picture.

I fully understand the mass trend towards lo-res downloads. But I also know that MILLIONS of people are continually upgrading their sound systems, and will always be seeking out great-sounding content that fully exploits this expensive gear.

2) Many CLASSIC recordings are timeless works of art!

Older paintings increase in value over time, yet the finest music recordings of each era are supposed to be relegated to downloadable compressed files??

I honestly believe that there are hundreds of artists and labels who are leaving money on the table by not committing to a coherent Hi-Res marketing plan that re-introduces their finest recordings.

3) Surround mixes paint the entire room.

Stereo recordings provide the artists and engineers with a single wall on which to paint their musical visions, while Hi-Res 5.1 surround enables them to vividly paint the entire room.

To old-school diehards there is often a resistance to such creative freedom, as if there is something unnatural about listening to voices and instruments that are coming from all directions.

To the rest of us, we simply load in the 5.1 re-mix of Boys II Men "Yesterday", with the four vocalists re-mixed into the four corners of the room --- literally transforming a decent re-make, into a stunning tribute to this all-time Beatles classic.

4) Live concerts can sound pretty dead in stereo.

Since the advent of stereo, ALL live recordings have been forced to blend the audience sounds together with the music tracks, as if the crowd was originally on stage with the musicians. Huh?

In Hi-Res 5.1 surround, the audience is directly placed into the rear channels and balanced into the sides, is if we are sitting right there in the crowd… even when there is no picture!

5) Turn that screen off while you’re driving!

The latest CEA statistics confirm that factory and aftermarket installations are continually being upgraded to accommodate DVD 5.1 playback.

But needless to say, the video screen needs to be off, whenever there is nobody in the car besides the driver.

So wouldn't it be nice for all of us road warriors to have a collection of great-sounding new music discs in the glovebox... especially when our Bluetooth earpiece battery dies out?


At this point, we can only dream about what might happen if ALL of these factors were CUMULATIVELY taken into re-consideration by a select group of influential music execs.

And for those of you shaking your heads sideways, let’s re-visit this story in November, after the sales results are announced for the new Led Zeppelin re-issues in MULTIPLE media configurations: Jimmy Page Online

PEACE

DD

Piddleing eg our percent of market share in the music industry and equipment sales is miniscule compared to the total market.

You're putting words in my mouth implying that the back catalogs should be scraped or dumped or what ever.

My point is there has been a fundamental change in how a majority of people listen or don't listen to music. I my estimation the movement is towards home entertainment systems to watch movies. The sound is secondary.

My daughters have pointed out to me that I'm the only person they know that actively sits and listens to music for it's own sake. Today I was listening to the Best of sam and Dave and Paul Revere and the Raiders that I bought in a antique barn. The latter is a mono recording on Columbia one eye red label. It doesn't sound bad.

My oldest was in the high school orchestra and has a keen musical interest but she listens to her music on her iPod or the backup on her computer. She virtually never uses the Pioneer receiver I bought her for christmas that are hooked up to my energy speakers she took from my second listening room. The pioneer is used with a dvd player to watch movies. My daughter and her friends get together to watch movies but never to listen to music like I did in high school and college.

Let's talk about the conversion of the music catalog for the sake of argument. On a threads on one of the forums someone said that SACD sold a million units last year and vinyl selling 1.3 million units last years. Record industry executives and bean counters look at those numbers and can't justify converting the old catalog into a new high resolution format because there just isn't any demand. Plus the industry was stung by the lack of public support of SACD and HD DVD audio formats. we'll leave the discussion for who was to blame for another threat. lets just say people didn't see as much of a benefit moving from a cd to sacd as they did from moving from vinyl to a cd.

In the heyday of the record business the Beatle and Stones albums exceeded those numbers easily. Peter Frampton Live sold 15 million copies! His following album sold 5 million copies. There record industry hasn't seen those numbers in years. When a Classic Records or Pure Pleasure get the analogue tapes and re-issues an album how many do they press? 5K or 10K? They might make money selling to our market segment but hi res can't live on those numbers.

Let me say, that like you I would love to have hi res music but for the record (good pun) industry to jump on board there has to be some demand. I don't think that we can equate 5.1 Home Theater systems as a potential market for hi res audio. The 5.1 market is a different market it's not about the music, it's about the picture. The sound and music is incidental to the experience.

jbk

[mcraghead]

OK...I think far too many people drawers are binding on them over this one. I was not saying that record labels should forget the back catalog. It was not about the value or lack there of in relationship to the back catalog. My whole point was that they left out the new releases almost completely and the potential it has. I don't think you can launch a new format on back catalog alone. Regardless of how valuable those catalogs are, if they continue to try to push new formats using back catalogs alone those will be a failure. Of course it's just my opinion...And you know what they say about opinions.

Michael K. Craghead

[David DelGrosso]

Originally Posted by jbk

In the heyday of the record business the Beatle and Stones albums exceeded those numbers easily. Peter Frampton Live sold 15 million copies! His following album sold 5 million copies. There record industry hasn't seen those numbers in years. When a Classic Records or Pure Pleasure get the analogue tapes and re-issues an album how many do they press? 5K or 10K? They might make money selling to our market segment but hi res can't live on those numbers.

Let me say, that like you I would love to have hi res music but for the record (good pun) industry to jump on board there has to be some demand. I don't think that we can equate 5.1 Home Theater systems as a potential market for hi res audio. The 5.1 market is a different market it's not about the music, it's about the picture. The sound and music is incidental to the experience.

Here's the part where I'm confused...

Both HD-DVD and Blu-ray can deliver 24-bit/192 kHz Linear PCM uncompressed audio...AND...millions of people are going to buy these new players.

So if the record labels were to re-master the Top 100 Classic Rock albums of all time, in 24/192 stereo... how many "music only" units could they possibly sell?

For example, can a 24/192 stereo re-release of Sgt. Pepper sell more copies than Disney's August featured release of The Lookout, starring Chris Pratt?

My recommendation is nothing more, nothing less:

Add "music only" discs to the HD/BD catalogs, with...

1) The original "works of art" re-mastered in 24/192 stereo

2) Bonus 5.1 24/192 re-mixes, whenever it's affordable

3) Add whatever on-screen extras you can find, from the original recording sessions

and

4) Eventually co-create some 5.1 Car Audio bundling programs, that give these consumers some great-sounding music to listen to when they're stuck in traffic (and yes, these new formats will also be installed into many vehicles)


For the record... when I created the marketing plan for DTS to enter the Home Theater market in 1996, there was ZERO demand for DTS 5.1 surround in the home... especially considering that Dolby Digital was already written into the DVD standards as the mandatory codec for 5.1 audio.

When I left DTS in 2004, there were 250 MILLION boxes in people's homes that displayed the DTS logo.

And my personal experience is, that "demand" is NOT ALWAYS created by the consumers themselves!

Sometimes you can actually create consumer demand, simply by offering people something new that is truly enjoyable to experience.

PEACE

DD

[David DelGrosso]

Originally Posted by Gerben Van Duyl

Please do me a favor, go here Amjad Ali Kahn, download the track and play it on your DVD player through your surround system (burn it to a CD).

Please come back and tell me what you think of the experience.

Gerben,

Hi there... long time no see!

Apparently you have moved "down under"... good on you, mate!

I hope you don't mind that I also followed up on your request to these other two forum participants. But, as it is, I have not yet been able to actually listen to these DTS-encoded tracks.

I downloaded the Amjad Ali Kahn surround track into a pretty high-powered PC, complete with the latest version of Stuffit, plus a CD recorder and built-in DTS 5.1 playback.

But this 74 MEG "zipped" file would not expand, so I tried it again (hopefully this type of malfunction rarely happens.)

FYI... this broadband download actually took 25 minutes (which also might be a serious concern re: mass marketing)

Then, the second time around, it successfully expanded so that I could burn it onto a CD.

However, the disc transfer was unsuccessful, and displayed the following error message: "It is not possible to burn this file, because it has errors or is missing burn rights."

Please advise.

David D.

[Gerben Van Duyl]

Originally Posted by David DelGrosso

Gerben,

Hi there... long time no see!

Apparently you have moved "down under"... good on you, mate!

I hope you don't mind that I also followed up on your request to these other two forum participants. But, as it is, I have not yet been able to actually listen to these DTS-encoded tracks.

I downloaded the Amjad Ali Kahn surround track into a pretty high-powered PC, complete with the latest version of Stuffit, plus a CD recorder and built-in DTS 5.1 playback.

But this 74 MEG "zipped" file would not expand, so I tried it again (hopefully this type of malfunction rarely happens.)

FYI... this broadband download actually took 25 minutes (which also might be a serious concern re: mass marketing)

Then, the second time around, it successfully expanded so that I could burn it onto a CD.

However, the disc transfer was unsuccessful, and displayed the following error message: "It is not possible to burn this file, because it has errors or is missing burn rights."

Please advise.

David D.

Hi David, long time since we had a beer/coke together, must have been in the Royal Oak in Twyford, next door to the DTS offices. My 'down under' activities are here: MAREOR, Screen Research Procella, Yamaha DME, home theatre cinematitle>.

In reply: Please ignore the file size: more efficient compression formats are available in the near future for hi-res surround sound, with near-lossless or even lossless results. These would reduce the Mb count and the download time significantly. The server this file is on is not optimized either, it could be faster. Consider this an experiment.

I just did the download to my laptop in 16 minutes and the ZIP presented the included WAV file without any problem, it is playing on my speakers as I write this. File size is 70.4Mb, seems like your download went wrong and the file was corrupted, please try again without any download managers. I use Firefox.

The point of the exercise is to show how easy it is to obtain hi-fi quality surround music (remember: even regular DTS is lossless most of the time!) through a simple download. In this case for free. Before you know it you will be listening to the most beautiful music, from the comfort of your chair.

Swedish Radio has a habit of putting their high quality productions online in DTS surround, with more than 10 million downloads a year ago already. Multichannel Sound 5.1 - sr.se

This shows that there is a large international audience interested in surround music, willing to download it via their PC (there are only 9m Swedes). And although they do not pay $$ for the downloads, they still 'pay' in terms of their effort to go to the site and do the download. Can you imagine how successful this would be if it was commercially marketed music content with an international focus, rather than Swedish?

As some contributors have posted in this discussion, the current group of hi-res aficionados is just too small to create a sustainable revenue stream for the music labels. Whether in 2.0 or in 5.1.

My argument for a hi-res download site (which has nothing to do with iPod, as above experiment demonstrates) is that we need to bring hi-res into the 21st century. Discs are dinosaurs and HD DVD and BD are the last of the T-Rexes. If we don't present a viable alternative to the industry, hi-res music, whether new releases or back catalogue, will become a really rare commodity indeed.

Kind regards, Gerben Van Duyl