Musicians embrace Blu-ray format

[akrako1]

Musicians embrace Blu-ray format

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/ptech/05/06/young.bluray.ap/index.html

Rocker Neil Young plans to release his entire music archive on Blu-ray discs, a sign that the discs' capabilities are building appeal among musicians as well as movie studios....

The first installment of Young's archive will cover the years 1963 to 1972 and will be released as a 10-disc set this fall on Reprise/Warner Bros. Records.

Young said the archives will be released chronologically and include some previously unreleased songs, videos, handwritten manuscripts and other memorabilia, in addition to the high-resolution audio that Blu-ray technology is known for.

Cool. A new type of better-then-cd-quality Audio. Sign me up. I wonder what format they will use for the audio... I hope it will be one that won't require a new receiver in addition to a blu-ray player. I'm hoping for 24/96 PCM and not TrueHD or DTS-HD. Home much new equipment can folks be forced to spring for?

Fans can download more content like songs, photos and tour information directly to the Blu-ray discs as the content becomes available.

I'm wondering about the above comment. I've seen it repeated over and over on various news releases about this. Unfortunately, it's impossible. Nothing gets downloaded 'directly to the Blu-ray disc', as these players don't have burners! I'm guessing that the extra material is stored on the Blu-ray players HDD? Do they all have HDD's?

[edDV]

Young embraced Blu-ray format because he was paid big bux to do so.

Young said the archives will be released chronologically and include some previously unreleased songs, videos, handwritten manuscripts and other memorabilia, in addition to the high-resolution audio that Blu-ray technology is known for.

The first installment of Young's archive will cover the years 1963 to 1972 and will be released as a 10-disc set this fall on Reprise/Warner Bros. Records.

And why can't this all be relesed on one 25GB BD disk? It isn't like this archive video is HD or even on film. The audio masters can be transferred with space to spare*.

One $25 BluRay for the entire collection? I might buy it.


* Or are they releasing all 4-32 tracks on PCM so you can do your own mix? I might kick in another $25 for that.

[edDV]

Fans can download more content like songs, photos and tour information directly to the Blu-ray discs as the content becomes available.

I'm wondering about the above comment. I've seen it repeated over and over on various news releases about this. Unfortunately, it's impossible. Nothing gets downloaded 'directly to the Blu-ray disc', as these players don't have burners! I'm guessing that the extra material is stored on the Blu-ray players HDD? Do they all have HDD's?

Sony doesn't offically support BluRay playback from a PC. This could mean the material is already on the disc and you are only adding unlock codes or maybe a networked PS3 is required?

[MOVIEGEEK]

You would have to pay me to listen to Neil Young(or give me antidepressants).That being said since the format war is now over musicians have little choice but to embrace Blu Ray,the market penetration of BD players is higher than DVD-Audio players.

[RabidDog]

Never overestimate the understanding of a journalist
"Fans can download more content like songs, photos and tour information directly to the Blu-ray discs as the content becomes available."
It probably just requires an Interwibbly connex and displays the info on-screen... always think of the easiest answer! Be a bit difficult them burning all possible future tour dates/locations. Nothing here he couldnt have done on DVd really??

I'm guessing that the extra material is stored on the Blu-ray players HDD? Do they all have HDD's?

Ahh Give a geek a rumour.. next you'll be querying Kennedys assasination!

Also Neil young is just a single musician isnt he? "1970's Has-Been puts out dreary dirges on New Format"

[edDV]

Never overestimate the understanding of a journalist
"Fans can download more content like songs, photos and tour information directly to the Blu-ray discs as the content becomes available."
It probably just requires an Interwibbly connex and displays the info on-screen... always think of the easiest answer! Be a bit difficult them burning all possible future tour dates/locations. Nothing here he couldnt have done on DVd really??

I'm guessing that the extra material is stored on the Blu-ray players HDD? Do they all have HDD's?

Ahh Give a geek a rumour.. next you'll be querying Kennedys assasination!

Back in my day the journalism school took all the science and English lit D students. They had to have a rich enough daddy to pay tuition plus all the drunk tank costs to the local sheriff.

[PuzZLeR]

I'm just curious - will this BD set be in SD? Young's "embracing" of blu-ray may be due to the capacity of the disc for quantity. Seems like an awful lot of video per disc for HD. And this could be especially true when alot of the original source footage from the 60s and 70s wouldn't benefit much with HD encodes.

[akrako1]

I'm just curious - will this BD set be in SD? Young's "embracing" of blu-ray may be due to the capacity of the disc for quantity. Seems like an awful lot of video per disc for HD. And this could be especially true when alot of the original source footage from the 60s and 70s wouldn't benefit much with HD encodes.

The article gives me the impression that these discs will be primarily audio-focused, not video. While they might add a slideshow or something visual to go along with the music, I'm guessing that the majority of the bandwidth will be allocated to the audio - though there is no mention of format.

[PuzZLeR]

Yes it is quite obvious that most of the production and emphasis will be on audio. I can bet that part will not be disappointing (unless, of course, you hate the music in any quality).

I'm also wondering if this is another feeble attempt to introduce a "BD-A" format in the future to save the CD like DvD-A and SACD tried. If that's the case I still say it won't work because by the time the music industry decides to adopt "BD-A" will be about the same time that video on a disc will be dying like it's dying for audio now. The demand curve as a function of time will phase out too soon for it to gain any momentum.

Music's only growth opportunity on disc, at least for the near future, is with video.

[edDV]

I'm just curious - will this BD set be in SD? Young's "embracing" of blu-ray may be due to the capacity of the disc for quantity. Seems like an awful lot of video per disc for HD. And this could be especially true when alot of the original source footage from the 60s and 70s wouldn't benefit much with HD encodes.

Unless some of his concerts were filmed in multicamera 35mm film, there is no HD library. Many music videos were shot 35mm so those can be remastered to HD.

BluRay doesn't mean HD. It accommodates SD as well. All XDCAM was SD until last NAB.

[PuzZLeR]

BluRay doesn't mean HD. It accommodates SD as well. All XDCAM was SD until last NAB.

I agree totally that the two, BD and HD, are not synonymous. The BD spec does allow for SD content but its higher capacity will still be used for HD while DvD is still around.

The only reason SD on BD isn't commonplace is for marketing. The average consumer will buy a BD disc and say, "Oh what a scam. It's not HD."

But when DvD dies, I can clearly see BD releases in SD like single discs showcasing seasons 1-5 of the Simpsons, or 10 concerts of the Beatles - remastered and delivered with the AVC or VC-1 codec for compression and quality with room to spare for great audio.

This I can see working in the future. BD-A? No.

[zoobie]

Neil was always cutting edge...one of the first to record digitally, etc. Now it looks like his plan of not allowing photos of himself on the internet is going to pay off...big time
there's a huge forum online that actually thinks www.neilyoung.com is his site...well, they're mostly muses who have a dream...just hope it isn't a nightmare they wake up to