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

[David DelGrosso]

Originally Posted by Gerben Van Duyl

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>.

I do remember that lovely pub, way out in the English countryside... and although it was years ago, it's probably still raining there!

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.

Thanks for the clarification. I'll try this again when I'm back in my home office, later this week.

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 perspective remains the same... as long as consumers are buying new hi-rez disc players for movies and videogames, there is also a profitable business for music disc sales.

Please re-visit the global hardware sales totals for HD-DVD and BD players. Then tell me how many of these people would also purchase 24/192 re-mastered "collectibles" of Sgt. Pepper or Dark Side of the Moon?

I am quite confident that MANY "A" music-only titles could easily out-sell most of the "B" and "C" movie releases.

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.

I totally agree that hi-rez downloads will be a significant business... someday. The magic question is how swiftly will discs truly fade into non-existence?

We (the industry) have been predicting a total convergence of PC and A/V gear, for more than 30 years... and yet, just about everybody I know, still plays discs in their living room Home Theater.

Even if "discs" are the "dinosaurs" of modern technology, it took millions of years before the dinosaurs became totally extinct!

DD

[jbk]

One of the big drawn concerns for the video and music industry for hi resolution downloads will be piracy or the belief there will be piracy.

Look at the issues surrounding the BR and HD DVD formats copy protection!!

Secondly, as DD pointed out the convergance of PC and audio has a long way to go before it's realized. Are any of the PC manufacturers working on a PC Audio/Video server? By that I mean something that will satisfy audiophiles and videophiles?

jbk

[David DelGrosso]

Originally Posted by jbk

Are any of the PC manufacturers working on a PC Audio/Video server? By that I mean something that will satisfy audiophiles and videophiles?

If they are, these music producers are certainly unaware of it:

Producers howl over sound cut out by MP3 compression

Whether you know it or not, that compact disc you just copied to your MP3 player is only partially there.

With the CD on its way out and computer files taking over as the primary means of hearing recorded music, the artificial audio of MP3s is quickly becoming the primary way people listen to music. Apple already has sold 100 million iPods, and more than a billion MP3 files are traded every month through the Internet.

But the music contained in these computer files represents less than 10 percent of the original music on the CDs. In its journey from CD to MP3 player, the music has been compressed by eliminating data that computer analysis deems redundant, squeezed down until it fits through the Internet pipeline.

When even the full files on the CDs contain less than half the information stored to studio hard drives during recording, these compressed MP3s represent a minuscule fraction of the actual recording. For purists, it's the Dark Ages of recorded sound.

"You can get used to awful," says record producer Phil Ramone. "You can appreciate nothing. We've done it with fast food."

Ramone, who has recorded everyone from Frank Sinatra to the Rolling Stones, was a musical prodigy who graduated from Juilliard at 16. He won the first of his nine Grammys in 1965 for the classic album "Getz/Gilberto." He is not alone in the upper ranks of his profession in decrying the state of audio, even though millions of dollars have been spent building high-tech digital recording studios.

"We're pretty happy with what we send out," says engineer Al Schmitt, winner of 15 Grammys for records by artists from Henry Mancini to Diana Krall. "What happens after that, we have no control over that anymore."

These studio professionals bring their experience and expensive, modern technology to bear on their work; they're scrupulous and fastidious. Then they hear their work played back on an iPod through a pair of plastic ear buds. Ask Ramone how it feels to hear his work on MP3s, and he doesn't mince words.

"It's painful," he says.

MP3s have won the war of the formats because of technology, not because of their audio quality. "It's like hearing through a screen door," says neuroscientist Daniel Levitin of McGill University, author of "This Is Your Brain on Music."

But what is the price of inferior audio quality? Can poor audio touch the heart as deeply as better sound? John Meyer, who designs and builds some of the world's best speakers at his Meyer Sound Labs in Berkeley, Calif., doesn't think so.

"It turns you into an observer," Meyer says. "It forces the brain to work harder to solve it all the time. Any compression system is based on the idea you can throw data away, and that's proved tricky because we don't know how the brain works."

It could be that MP3s actually reach the receptors in our brains in entirely different ways than analog phonograph records. The difference could be as fundamental as which brain hemisphere the music engages.

"Poorer-fidelity music stimulates the brain in different ways," says Dr. Robert Sweetow, head of the University of California-San Francisco audiology department. "With different neurons, perhaps lesser neurons, stimulated, there are fewer cortical neurons connected back to the limbic system, where the emotions are stored."

But Sweetow also notes that music with lyrics may act entirely differently on a cerebral level than instrumental music. "The words trigger the emotion," he says. "But those words aren't necessarily affected by fidelity."

Certainly '50s and '60s teens got the message of the old rock 'n' roll records through cheap plastic transistor radios. Levitin remembers hearing Sly and the Family Stone's "Hot Fun in the Summertime" on just such a portable radio, an ancient ancestor of the iPod.

"It was crap, but it sounded great," he says. "All the essential stuff comes through that inch-and-a-half speaker."

Levitin also says that Enrico Caruso and Billie Holiday can probably move him more than Michael Bolton or Mariah Carey under any fidelity.

"If the power of the narrative of the movie isn't there," he says metaphorically, "there's only so far cinematography can take you."

EMI Records announced earlier this year the introduction of higher-priced downloads at a slightly higher bit rate, although the difference will be difficult to detect. "It's probably indistinguishable to even a great set of ears," says Levitin.

For digital audio to substantially improve, several major technological hurdles will have to be cleared. The files will have to be stored at higher sampling rates and higher bit rates. Computing power will have to grow. New playback machines will have to be introduced. (Ramone thinks high-definition television is the model for something that could be "HD audio.") And if the Internet is going to be the main delivery system for music in the future, Internet bandwidth will also be a factor.

"The Internet is in charge now," says Ramone, "and it has all kinds of wobbles. You have wires hanging out of windows and things like that. That's just the way things have to be because the Internet is in transition."

© 1998-2007 Seattle Post-Intelligencer

[Alexander Jero]

Glad to join the forum.
I am composing music and working with Surround Sound for about 10 years and can confirm the great perspective for Surround Music on High Definition Formats. I just released first HD DVD-Audio Surround Music Album "Uncommon Bach" and coming up this month with 2 new releases of Jazz and Electronic music.
People are interested in High Definition Music and Looking for more Surround Music titles to be released on HD-DVD and Blue-ray.

[Magoo]

With Sony's Music catalog, I'm hoping that when I finally get a Blu-Ray unit with HDMI 1.3a that one of the reasons I'd buy the unit is for High Res Music.


Do I own an SACD player?........yes Sony XA777ES
Do I own a DVD-Audio Player?....yes Denon DVD 9000

Do I want to get in to Vinyl again with $20K Tables and $10K cartridges and still hear the stylus draging on the surface just to hear that warm natural analog sound NO No NO!

I want silky silent passages when they exist and yet still do it digitally!!

They still are producing SACD's and DVD-A Discs....just not very many!

It's my hope that Blu-Ray will pick up the slack there!

[jbk]

Originally Posted by David DelGrosso

If they are, these music producers are certainly unaware of it:

Producers howl over sound cut out by MP3 compression

Whether you know it or not, that compact disc you just copied to your MP3 player is only partially there.

With the CD on its way out and computer files taking over as the primary means of hearing recorded music, the artificial audio of MP3s is quickly becoming the primary way people listen to music. Apple already has sold 100 million iPods, and more than a billion MP3 files are traded every month through the Internet.

But the music contained in these computer files represents less than 10 percent of the original music on the CDs. In its journey from CD to MP3 player, the music has been compressed by eliminating data that computer analysis deems redundant, squeezed down until it fits through the Internet pipeline.

When even the full files on the CDs contain less than half the information stored to studio hard drives during recording, these compressed MP3s represent a minuscule fraction of the actual recording. For purists, it's the Dark Ages of recorded sound.

"You can get used to awful," says record producer Phil Ramone. "You can appreciate nothing. We've done it with fast food."

Ramone, who has recorded everyone from Frank Sinatra to the Rolling Stones, was a musical prodigy who graduated from Juilliard at 16. He won the first of his nine Grammys in 1965 for the classic album "Getz/Gilberto." He is not alone in the upper ranks of his profession in decrying the state of audio, even though millions of dollars have been spent building high-tech digital recording studios.

"We're pretty happy with what we send out," says engineer Al Schmitt, winner of 15 Grammys for records by artists from Henry Mancini to Diana Krall. "What happens after that, we have no control over that anymore."

These studio professionals bring their experience and expensive, modern technology to bear on their work; they're scrupulous and fastidious. Then they hear their work played back on an iPod through a pair of plastic ear buds. Ask Ramone how it feels to hear his work on MP3s, and he doesn't mince words.

"It's painful," he says.

MP3s have won the war of the formats because of technology, not because of their audio quality. "It's like hearing through a screen door," says neuroscientist Daniel Levitin of McGill University, author of "This Is Your Brain on Music."

But what is the price of inferior audio quality? Can poor audio touch the heart as deeply as better sound? John Meyer, who designs and builds some of the world's best speakers at his Meyer Sound Labs in Berkeley, Calif., doesn't think so.

"It turns you into an observer," Meyer says. "It forces the brain to work harder to solve it all the time. Any compression system is based on the idea you can throw data away, and that's proved tricky because we don't know how the brain works."

It could be that MP3s actually reach the receptors in our brains in entirely different ways than analog phonograph records. The difference could be as fundamental as which brain hemisphere the music engages.

"Poorer-fidelity music stimulates the brain in different ways," says Dr. Robert Sweetow, head of the University of California-San Francisco audiology department. "With different neurons, perhaps lesser neurons, stimulated, there are fewer cortical neurons connected back to the limbic system, where the emotions are stored."

But Sweetow also notes that music with lyrics may act entirely differently on a cerebral level than instrumental music. "The words trigger the emotion," he says. "But those words aren't necessarily affected by fidelity."

Certainly '50s and '60s teens got the message of the old rock 'n' roll records through cheap plastic transistor radios. Levitin remembers hearing Sly and the Family Stone's "Hot Fun in the Summertime" on just such a portable radio, an ancient ancestor of the iPod.

"It was crap, but it sounded great," he says. "All the essential stuff comes through that inch-and-a-half speaker."

Levitin also says that Enrico Caruso and Billie Holiday can probably move him more than Michael Bolton or Mariah Carey under any fidelity.

"If the power of the narrative of the movie isn't there," he says metaphorically, "there's only so far cinematography can take you."

EMI Records announced earlier this year the introduction of higher-priced downloads at a slightly higher bit rate, although the difference will be difficult to detect. "It's probably indistinguishable to even a great set of ears," says Levitin.

For digital audio to substantially improve, several major technological hurdles will have to be cleared. The files will have to be stored at higher sampling rates and higher bit rates. Computing power will have to grow. New playback machines will have to be introduced. (Ramone thinks high-definition television is the model for something that could be "HD audio.") And if the Internet is going to be the main delivery system for music in the future, Internet bandwidth will also be a factor.

"The Internet is in charge now," says Ramone, "and it has all kinds of wobbles. You have wires hanging out of windows and things like that. That's just the way things have to be because the Internet is in transition."

© 1998-2007 Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Is this the definition of irony?

The focus for TV and dvd has become on the quality of the video experience visa vie blu ray and hd dvd on HD TV's. Or, even via cable or satellite.

And, the music consumer is devolving(is that a word?) to MP3! If I have a choice of listening to compressed music vs a needle dragging across a record. I will take the latter over the former every time.

Just a quick comment:

Remember when the CD replaced the record? The MP3 player and MP3 files have become the CD of our time. MP3 convience and limitless songs to down load have replaced the CD and CD player. You can take music everywhere, anytime. My daughters use theirs in their cars and for sonic wall paper at home.

Maybe if we are lucky MP3 will evolve into something acceptable...

jbk