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| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 163 responses total. |
krj
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response 139 of 163:
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Mar 11 16:39 UTC 2003 |
Minidisc is highly useful if you need a very small, very portable,
decent quality digital recorder. My wife uses hers a lot to record
herself singing. However, if you don't need the
portability at the recording end, MD has pretty well been replaced
by MP3 files recorded on a larger computer and played back on a
portable.
Unfortunately the development of quality portable MP3 recorders
is blocked by the Audio Home Recording Act, due to the requirement
that consumer digital recorders implement a SCMS (Serial Copy
Management System). The few MP3 recorders on the market appear
to be trying to stay under the radar by limiting the MP3 rate
to 128K or so.
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scott
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response 140 of 163:
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Mar 11 16:45 UTC 2003 |
Outside of the US, MiniDisc is quite popular.
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keesan
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response 141 of 163:
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Mar 11 17:03 UTC 2003 |
Isn't a microcasette recorder small enough?
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scott
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response 142 of 163:
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Mar 11 18:12 UTC 2003 |
Small enough, but the sound quality of microcassette is terrible.
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goose
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response 143 of 163:
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Mar 11 18:21 UTC 2003 |
Saying it's terrible is being kind.
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anderyn
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response 144 of 163:
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Mar 12 00:17 UTC 2003 |
I've never tried recording on a microcassette, but a minidisc recording has
the good qualities of both a cd and a tape -- you have digital quality,
archival permanence, the ability to re-record and rearrange tracks.
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krj
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response 145 of 163:
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Mar 13 05:12 UTC 2003 |
Here's an interesting item from the NYTimes about Natalie Merchant,
former lead singer for 10,000 Maniacs, former million-seller solo
artist. She has chosen not to renew her contract with Elektra
and her next album will be self-released.
A comment from Jay Rosenthal of the Recording Artists Coalition
(the performers group launched by Don Henley) echoes things
Richard Thompson said earlier when he chose not to renew his
contract with Capitol/EMI: "The only reason to go to the major labels
is to get your songs on the radio, to go for the promo money."
Rosenthal predicts that a large number of artists will soon
be following the self-employment model: "he expected major
labels to cut their rosters by 30 to 50 percent in the next
year."
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/13/arts/music/13NATA.html
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krj
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response 146 of 163:
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Mar 13 15:06 UTC 2003 |
Two electronics hardware firms introduce new portable disc formats.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993490
Sony announces a system which uses minidisc-style encoding to
cram 30 hours of music onto a single CD-R. Philips uses DVD
blanks and says its system stuffs 100 hours of music onto a
single disc.
"The music industry this week condemned the launch of two
recording systems that will let people copy between 30 and 100
hours of music onto a single disc. The launches, from electronics
giants Sony and Philips, are being seen as a potential
pirates' charter. ..."
"Sony Music did not want to comment on its sister company's launch..."
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gull
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response 147 of 163:
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Mar 13 15:54 UTC 2003 |
The toothpaste is already out of the tube on that one. I routinely put
ten to twelve albums' worth of MP3s on CD-R blanks. Lets me carry a
good chunk of my CD collection around in my car in a compact way,
without risking losing the real CDs if my car is broken into. I could
stuff 30 hours in if I were willing to tolerate lower quality.
It's amusing to watch the internal disagreements between Sony Music and
Sony's electronics division.
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tpryan
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response 148 of 163:
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Mar 14 00:02 UTC 2003 |
I've noticed it's easy to get 9 hours on an MP3 CD
encoded at 192-44-S.
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dbratman
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response 149 of 163:
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Mar 14 07:27 UTC 2003 |
I can already carry around as much music as I need at any time in my
pocket on CDs as it is; why do I need more miniaturization, especially
if it's at a loss in sound quality, which I definitely don't need?
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anderyn
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response 150 of 163:
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Mar 14 13:58 UTC 2003 |
But minidiscs aren't degraded. They're digital too, and you can rearrange the
music on them. I love 'em.
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gull
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response 151 of 163:
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Mar 14 14:01 UTC 2003 |
Yeah, I've kind of settled on 160 kbps, 44.1 kHz, joint stereo as a good
compromise for the environments I listen in. With a good encoder (I
like LAME) I can't tell the difference between MP3 at that bitrate and a
CD when I'm in a moving car. I can tell with headphones in a quiet
environment, but it's not enough that I find it objectionable.
If I'm doing something where I'm not so concerned about fitting as much
music as I can onto the disc, I go with 250 kbps, 44.1 kHz, joint
stereo. My player starts to flake out at bitrates above that. It was
an early model.
I've always liked that MP3 lets me set my own trade-off between space
and quality. That's something that's lacking in these proprietary lossy
formats like MiniDisc. (Yes, MiniDisc uses a lossy compression, and
does cause some quality loss. It's just not enough to be noticable in a
single generation.)
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goose
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response 152 of 163:
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Mar 14 20:18 UTC 2003 |
RE#150 -- MiniDiscs use a lossy compression scheme known as ADTRAC, to they
are degraded, in a similar fashion to how MP3s are degraded.
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dbratman
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response 153 of 163:
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Mar 15 07:28 UTC 2003 |
The kind of music I listen to, you notice the loss in quality. Or at
least I do.
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anderyn
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response 154 of 163:
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Mar 15 22:12 UTC 2003 |
Ah. I am just not good enough to hear the losses from a recording on a
MiniDisc, not so sophisticated as Ken or David. (I know that I never noticed
that much of a problem with my off-the-rack tape recorders as compared to nice
tapes with all the bells-and-whistles that Ken made.) I suspect that I don't
have an ear for that kind of distinction.
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scott
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response 155 of 163:
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Mar 15 23:49 UTC 2003 |
There are some artifacts which I can occasionally hear.
Not enough to prevent me from enjoying small, cheap, recordable media which
allows rough editing and very compact location recording.
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jaklumen
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response 156 of 163:
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Mar 16 11:11 UTC 2003 |
I have a little interest in home audio equipment, and I was friends
with someone who was really into car audio and competed with his
system. I guess when you get involved with that stuff, you start to
hear the differences.. you just have to be exposed to a lot of it.
I used to subscribe to Sound & Vision (which used to be Stereo
Review). It just blew my mind how these people could dissect the
sound, but then, they do it for a living.
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dbratman
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response 157 of 163:
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Mar 17 07:45 UTC 2003 |
I wrote, "The kind of music I listen to, you notice the loss in
quality. Or at least I do." But I am not an equipment junkie! In
fact, I am still using the same 30-year-old off-the-shelf amp and
speakers I've had for, uh, 30 years.
It is simply that I am a classical listener, and you don't have to be
much of a classical listener to notice a degredation in sound quality.
Lots of instruments: all acoustic: it's sensitive to that.
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anderyn
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response 158 of 163:
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Mar 17 12:58 UTC 2003 |
I suspect that that may be where I don't have the ear training to hear what
you hear. I have never been able to get into classical music. (Much as I
haven't been able to "get" jazz or any other type of music which is mostly
instrumental. I have a major voice bias in my musical tastes, and I tend to
listen to the words and get very impatient with long instrumental hiatuses.)
I also don't play any instrument, so I don't have that kind of training to
fall back on either.
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jaklumen
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response 159 of 163:
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Mar 18 05:45 UTC 2003 |
I'm not sure that's so much training as exposure.
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gull
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response 160 of 163:
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Mar 18 14:19 UTC 2003 |
An article about a recent speech by departing RIAA chief Hilary Rosen:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/29797.html
It includes this bit of revisionist history by Rosen:
"The argument is that somehow the record companies seek to encroach upon
a consumer's ability to make a personal copy of music. Nonsense. We have
always been supportive of the ability of consumers to copy a CD for the
gym or for their car. More power to the music fan."
And a comment on the Verizon case, in which the RIAA tried to get the
names and addresses of peer-to-peer network users released without a
court order:
"Verizon has unfortunately turned this case into a bogus claim to
protect their members' privacy rights. Well first of all, there is no
right to commit a crime in private. And second and more importantly,
when you are on one of these p2p systems and have opened your hard drive
and its contents to the network, you have given away your own privacy."
She admitted publicly for the first time that the RIAA has been
inserting bogus files into peer-to-peer networks in an attempt to
frustrate users. She also all but admitted that the unlabelled
copy-protected CDs they tried to foist on us weren't the best idea:
"While the technology is apparently not quite ready, there is promise
for some protective technologies, which would offer consumers use of
their music on the computer and still prevent uploading onto the
Internet. While there are no specific plans to release such products
into the marketplace at this time, if they are produced, record
companies will need to work closely with retailers to assure that the
proper consumer education and labeling takes place."
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dbratman
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response 161 of 163:
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Mar 19 01:21 UTC 2003 |
Twila: There's plenty of classical music that's vocal. Have you tried
listening to choral music? classical art song? opera?
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anderyn
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response 162 of 163:
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Mar 19 13:01 UTC 2003 |
Um. Only a very little.
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krj
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response 163 of 163:
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Mar 23 01:20 UTC 2003 |
"Replay TV maker Sonicblue to file for Chapter 11"
http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=2423476
Sonicblue has been the hardware maker most willing to introduce
innovative products and take the legal heat from the copyright
industry. They defended and won the copyright suit over the original
Rio MP3 player, and Sonicblue's win allowed all other makers of
MP3 players to get into the market. More recently they were
defending their ReplayTV video recorder in another copyright
infringement suit.
In a previous article which I don't have as a citation, it sounded
like the company was being dragged down by its legal expenses.
This seems like another step closer to the copyright industry
obtaining a defacto veto over the development of new technology.
The Rio and Replay hardware lines are to be sold to the Japanese
firm which runs the Denon and Marantz brands.
-----
This next item was widely reported this week. This quote is from the
ZDnet story:
"...the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) sent letters
to about 300 companies providing evidence of specific instances of
their internal networks being used to swap copyrighted songs, and
warning of potential legal liability."
"RIAA turns up heat on file-trading at work"
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-993143.html
In a followup story...
"The RIAA's action drew protest from the Information Technology
Association of America, a trade group representing Microsoft Corp.,
IBM Corp., and more than 400 other software and service companies.
"'When corporations are trying to protect themselves from major
hackers and terrorists... trying to do serious damage to their
networks, I don't know that they want to spend their time chasing down
a half-dozen employees who like to trade old Rolling Stones songs,'
said the group's president, Harris Miller. 'It's a matter of
prioritization.'"
http://www.dailynews.com/Stories/0,1413,200~20950~1253396,00.html
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