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Not another bluespec format!

 
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hardlok



Joined: 02 Aug 2011
Posts: 17

PostPosted: Mon Oct 08, 2012 7:39 am    Post subject: Not another bluespec format! Reply with quote

Sony must be grasping at straws now. Is it releasing Blue-spec CD2 to try to milk the last drops of profit from the dying RBCD standard?

The raison d'etre of blue-spec and now blue-spec 2 is apparently to reduce readback jitter by making pits and lands more defined and easily read by typical optical laser assemblies in disc players. But of course, no one would ever be able to confirm if the improved sound quality is actually due to tweaks made to in the remix, or in the case of brand new recordings, benefits from higher bitrate master recording. Sony is pulling another fast one on consumers and it should re-evaluate its moral code.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world is getting used to the idea and benefits of getting music digitally in higher wordlength/higher bitrate than RBCD could ever have delivered. With digital delivery of music, we dispense with so much engineering on the manufacturing side. On the consumer side we eliminate the cost and complexity of optical readback mechanisms, which are expensive to make precise and jitter free, and are subject to wear and tear and mistracking issues. Higher definition delivery formats like 24/96 (given proper engineering excellence) are now making past RBCD enhancements like HDCD and XRCD irrelevant.
RBCD jitter-reduction tricks like SHM-CD, blue-spec, HQCD, etc, are also anachronisms in the face of digital-direct playback. The abandonment of DVD-A and SACD is now actually trivial, considering that technology is already available to permit direct digital delivery and playback of DSD and PCM material, in both stereo and multichannel.

The last remaining bastion of disc-based playback is now Blu-ray, which is costly and inefficient, and likely to make way for digital delivery as well. While people still have blu-ray players, they will naturally have the inclination to play RBCD on the optical drive as well. But this is actually getting outmoded as most blu-ray players support playback of digital files via usb storage devices. Sony is just delaying the inevitable, prolonging the agony of optical playback's demise. It may seem like Sony, as part owner of the RBCD and other optical formats, has a parental prerogative to do whatever it deems fit to keep its offsprings alive. But in actuality, it is doing a disservice to the entire industry and acting as an impediment to global progress in terms of cost effectiveness, engineering productivity, and even environment friendliness.
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PS3SACD
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Joined: 17 Aug 2007
Posts: 316

PostPosted: Mon Oct 08, 2012 8:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, the RBCD seems to be a greater success than held imaginable. It's conquered the world, paved the way for DVD, BD and many other optical disc formats yet will not go away, despite innovations like SACD. A pity really we're not getting Blu-spec SACDs.

I sometimes wonder though how much more energy-efficient downloadable content is compared to physical media. It appears to be very environmentally friendly, with replication and physical distribution skipped, but somewhere there's a server (in fact a whole park) humming to serve up this content at any moment.


Last edited by PS3SACD on Sun Oct 21, 2012 11:42 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Brandon B



Joined: 14 Oct 2007
Posts: 392

PostPosted: Thu Oct 11, 2012 4:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Arstechnica did an analysis a year or two ago of a similar question. Internet distribution of files wins the eco contest hands down.
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hardlok



Joined: 02 Aug 2011
Posts: 17

PostPosted: Fri Oct 12, 2012 7:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I still remember the days when every XRCD remaster was a celebration, and probably still is today. SHM-CD? Rip away the clearer plastic material on the read surface and we'll realise we just paid dearly for another remastered album. Not that they all sound great -- many SHM-CD remasters have been plain awful or brickwalled or both or worse. Thankfully, Blu-spec 1 titles have been less plentiful, because the technical merits of clearer pits and lands have not translated into earthshaking sonic benefits. With the dwindling demand in music stores for physical discs, one would have thought that making the medium more relevant (to extend its life by lowering costs and increasing engineering quality) with lower jitter production techniques would not be at the cost of consumers. When the collective wisdom of buyers indicates that the sound quality of SHM-CD releases is not directly linked to the improved readback but rather to the unpredictable quality of remxiing/remastering choices, we can conclude that the high prices of such CDs are the brainchild of snakeoil marketing execs.

Maybe we cannot interpolate the same SHM problems when we consider SHM-SACD, since the higher definition format can really reap optimal benefits from painstaking care in remastering and remixing, especially to mch bonus material. But the premium added to the price compared to the earlier non-SHM SACD is unjustified since SACD itself is already sold at a premium with royalty costs added. The music companies should not be allowed to get away with milking repeated windfalls from each recording by announcing gimmicky technologies to go along with simple remix/remastering improvements. Blu-spec 2 SACDs? I can almost the marketing whizkids in Sony drooling... "Let's take the intentionally poorly-mastered XYZ band's hottest SACD release and do it right this time but then we sell it for a 2,000yen premium! The 'philes will fork out dough just so they can hear the quality that they already paid to hear in the normal release! If we repeat this for 500 old and obsolete classics, that'll get us the keys to the executive washroom up at level 42 in no time!"

As for eco benefits and stuff... well I still like the process of holding a small jewel case and reading the liner notes and admiring the artwork when listening to the music. But the sale of digital music with accompanying artwork is helping to bridge that gap. We can now see album art on the media player's LCD screen, on the TV screen, or on the computer monitor. Or print it out if the artwork is particularly enjoyable. With cloud and server virtualization technologies catching on like wildfire, the unit cost of the "store-once, sell multiple times" digital music shopfront model is really efficient. I've owned a dozen CD and universal players over two decades, and the painful truth is that even high quality drive mechanisms will wear out, sometimes prematurely due to dust, or at other times for no reason other than factory built-in obsolescence. Replacement and repair is not always possible or worthwhile. Tracking may go off, tray doors may not close or open; spindle clamps may not lock into place. Rubber parts may rot or go offspec. Copy protection and watermark technologies add to the complexities of buying content on discs. It was fun to overcome the problems and limitations of disc playback over the decades, but it's high time we graduated to the KISS (keep it simple, stupid) and TELL (tighter eco lifecycles, luv) pathways.
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Brandon B



Joined: 14 Oct 2007
Posts: 392

PostPosted: Sat Oct 13, 2012 5:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm still keen on discs for high resolution surround audio, but I imagine sometime in the next five years that wall too will fall. The only obstacle right now is a convenient way to play back HDD stored 5.1 files.
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