Re: Re: SunnComm new CD mangling technology.

4t58fb702-O/[email protected] wrote:
> > The truth is that they hate the CD format.  They just want to degrade
> > it and degrade it until people are forced to buy an SACD or DVD in
> > order to have a decent version of the audio -- even though 44.1kHz
> 
> While I can think of some of the reasons why this might be so, i'd like to
> hear your reasons for thinking the same - SACD is AFAICT not 'DRMed'.

SACD has its own weird format that no-one except a Sony licensee can
read.  It is not even plain PCM sample data -- it uses some other
weird method of encoding audio.  The only way to copy it AFAIK is via
analogue.

Considering the MiniDisc, where Sony have managed to keep digital-out
connections from almost all of the MD players on the market, it seems
that they can be quite successful in using patents/licenses/etc to
make their products difficult to use for certain purposes (e.g. as I
have been doing, for making my own live recordings to MiniDisc of
copyright-free sounds (generously donated by Mother Nature) and then
transferring that audio to a PC).

The reasons that I can see for the whole music/audio/recording
industry wanting to ditch the CD format are:

- There is no more money to be made from people buying old albums
  again unless you force everyone onto a new format.

- There is no patent income for Sony/Philips from the CD format any
  more, and it would be good for them (and also for other hardware
  manufacturers) if everyone had to buy a new player again for a new
  type of disc.

- CDs are very accessible, reliable and DRM-free by design, i.e. they
  are completely consumer friendly.  Consumers can get blank CDs
  cheaply, can burn their own discs, they can transfer audio off discs
  onto other players (MP3/MD/etc).  From the point of view of the
  industry, there is all this activity going on that is not being
  'taxed', and that makes them feel sad and uninvolved (and for a
  middle-man, that is surely the worst possible feeling).  They would
  like us to pay extra for the privilege of doing each of these small
  things.

Something like SACD could potentially solve a lot of these problems
from their point of view.  If only analogue real-time copying is
possible, then that makes a whole host of useful and reasonable things
harder to do.  If you make copying audio to a computer slow and
time-consuming, perhaps they figure that people can be forced to go
out and buy the DRM'd WMA or AAC audio instead.

At least, that's how I think some people in the industry would see it.

Jim

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