Got a good marketing hook? Great, give it a nice thick slather across some related bits of your consumer electronics and prepare to rake in the cash. With MD and SACD formats not exactly dominating the audio masses, Sony's back with a new format by the name Blu-spec CD. It takes advantage of (you guessed it) Sony's Blu-ray Disc technology to press new high-quality discs while somehow maintaining compatibility with regular ol' red-laser CD players. How? No idea, really -- it's some kind of secret, proprietary Sony magic hidden deep inside of Google's Japanese-to-English language translator. Perhaps an English press release will be issued later in the day. It does seem that Sony will kick out about 60 Blu-spec CD classics (Miles Davis' Kind of Blue for example) in December ranging in prices from ¥2,500 (about $25) to ¥4,200 ($42). Ouch.
P.S. That weeping CD logo above is our Photoshoppery, not Sony's.
[Via
Impress]
posted Nov 5th 2008 1:54AM
Sony's adding more and more features to their products...
Cost, too.
"Sony's adding more and more failures to their products..."
Fixed.
engadget, its so lame. why do you have to bash sony everytime?
Because engadget loves apple, and apple hates sony (tearful divorce, and all that)...
@ silverblackvoid and Marko:
Come on, this obviously is not going to go anywhere. People in the movie industry are already saying BR will be dead in a few years. Do you honestly think making BR players "backwards compatible" with CDs is going to change anything?
I can see the Wiki entry already: In 2009, after Bluray and the PS3 failed and its stocks plunged to new lows, Sony thought the only way to revive its ailing company was re-releasing the CD with a blue (spelled "blu" for generation x acceptance) coating. This obviously failed too and the company was purchased by toshiba and quickly divided into its divisions and sold off to the Chinese. Ken Kutaragi was recently seen in the gutter.
Yeah but eventually they will need to cut costs on the product so they will remove some features like backwards compatibility.
"It takes advantage of (you guessed it) Sony's Blu-ray Disc technology to press new high-quality discs while somehow maintaining compatibility with regular ol' red-laser CD players."
Eventually the disc will only be able to be played on Blu-ray because Sony decided that nobody really wants to play them on old regular CD players.
Does this make Blu-spec a small thimble of hurt?
Makes perfect sense, blu ray should be blue!
Cds have been working for me for about.. 21 years now? is there something beyond "cd quality" this is supposed to produce? will they last longer? get less scratches? does it even matter anymore?
sony wants to cash in on the colour Blue as much as they can before blu ray becomes even more marginalized in the marketplace.
Blu-spec CD is a specification for an improved version of a conventional Audio CD, introduced by Sony Music Entertainment.
Instead of a traditional infra-red laser, a blue laser is used for recording the pits on the CD master that is needed for disc replication.
The blue laser creates more precise pits, causing less distortion in the optical read-out process and supposedly resulting in higher-quality audio...... However, and despite marketing claims, there is absolutely no published proof or evidence that this technology actually leads to any improvement in the final audio reproduced, since CIRC, the built-in redundancy and error correction system that is part of the CD standard, already takes care of occasional misread bits.
One of the fine ways to empty the customers wallets and buy that same music title for the 6th or more time! AVOID! This we don't need.
Hmm, this has the potential to be huge... I think.
@ GoCarnivore
GoCarnivore said: Hmm, this has the potential to be huge... I think.
YEAH a HUGE repetition of the Betamax fiaso. I do appreciate your carnivorous optimism none the less.
youre an idiot
No thanks . (the price i mean)
I'm at a loss for words......you just can't make this sh*t up.
At least they got a good name this time, BS CD
@MastrCake
hay hay dude, you cant say damn the US anymore, not in this time at least arrogant U.S patriotism is back... for a few weeks at least.
Seriously... last I checked, 100 yen did not equal 1 US dollar!
In January 2007, 100 yen equaled 80 cents.
Damn the American Dollar!!!
Umm, I'm not sure if you're aware of this or not, but it changes every single day... So yeah... Don't know how to break it to you but last time > checked (30 seconds ago) 100 Yen = 1.002 USD...
Please check your facts before making a fool of yourself again :)
I checked**** - commenting system cut out my 'I' for some reason
$1.002=$1 when you are rounding
I know it changes every day, but you can't deny that the US dollar really sucks right now.
But that is not the topic. The topic is BullShit CD.
MiniDisc needs to be updated to Blu-Ray
Blu-ray UMD FTW.*
*actually FTL
As cool as that would (being a former MD fan myself) it would go nowhere because no one likes moving parts, and flash chips are way cheaper.
No doubt it would have the same fate as the MD-HD
Atro's jokes FTW*
*Actually, FTL
(good job, Gallagher)
this is stupid , sony is milking the blu name ....... F*CK SONY!!
Someone's still weeping over their HDDVD player.
Milking the blu name? What about the 'I' ? Eh? :P
I like blue.....
The drop looks like a twisted eye-ball...
Pah, they own lots of music, technology etc. If it's backwards compatible, fully rippable into mp3 then I see no problem with the standard. But this being Sony, I somehow doubt it.
It come with Blu-Root Kit and some Bluy-Monster Cables
In case anyone thinks the price is high because of the technology, regular CD albums in Japan start from 2900yen a piece.
Well, if it comes with all the Blu-ray issues of DRM and playback problems, Sony has demonstrated its ability to crap all over their consumers face twice within the same year. Most people don't give a crap about music quality. Why? Because, unlike movies, we don't sit still to listen to our music. Listeners are usually doing other things that can distract you from the issues/benefits of ultra quality audio on cd. I'm not saying that the compression found on MP3 files is not noticeable. It is. But unless you have one really crappy encode you can usually tolerate the shortcomings of MP3 compression over its portability advantages.
Oh yeah, screw Sony. I'm not re-buying my CDs just because they come up with some bs to justify the new re-releases. SACD was a failure, and this Blu-spec CD will follow in the same steps.
The reason you're right is the same reason why Sony will succeed. Nobody cares.
Psst... its just a regular CD with a blue tint....
i.e., a PS2 disc at Blu-Ray prices...
wow, thanks Sony...
The way it works probably has something to do with a blue ray Len's ability to refract light. If you ever look at a blu-ray lens you will notice that it has a small lcd on top of the lens. I'm thinking that there are probably 2 data layers: one which a regular CD player can read and another that blu-ray lenses can read also giving you higher bit rates to songs where available while still being compatible with standard old fashion CD players when necessary. Totally a guess though. I read paper on blu-ray refractive technology so it seems plausible.
CDs....I think we've past the point of using CDs. With MP3 and similar formats, CDs are better for Frisbee throwing.
http://www.worldgonemobile.com
Yeah, because MP3s and CDs are indistinguishable.
fasdfadfafaf
tarstastatat
garfsabasbsasb
Much as I would like newer higher fidelity formats to exist, the truth is that people are happy with higher bitrate mp3's even though they're technically not as good as CDs, because their much improved portability makes up for that.
Sony should really just work on a newer higher fidelity digital download format instead. Like, SACD quality but easily downloadable to be played back on a variety of portable players, high end home audio equipment (like, future SACD decks could have a USB port for portable hard drives/flash drives that contain these downloads), a software player, PS3, whatever. Would be a heck of a lot more successful than yet another attempt at a disc format. Nobody wants to go and buy discs, let alone at $25 each lol.
They've been trying to foist ATRAC on the world long past the end of the MD era.
Rather than waste time with CDs on high def CDs, they should come up with a higher def version of MP3. Because although pyshical media is great to own, the vast percentage of music is listened to digitally these days.
Heck, most sound systems dont do proper justice to CDs, let alone a new high def CD.
Its called FLAC.
You know, Blu-Ray MiniDisc is a good idea... I liked them because they protected the disc and were rewritable. Could make a come back lol.
25 to 42 dollars, really? Do these magically beat out dual-layered DVDs or something? When would these actually be useful? Sounds like they're taking a page out of Toshiba's book with their super hyper awesome DVD upscalers that look like BluRay.
I don't get it. I don't even know what it is attempting to do.
How do you play them - Current Blu-Ray players?
What sound format is it using - can my amp decode it?
I've invented a new product too, Blu 2K Xtra Plus - but I can't tell you what it does.
What they don't tell you is that they could gain more by compressing CDs with 224Kbps vorbis than they could by switching to X-rays.
May I ask - why?
I'm planning to buy a Sony Vaio laptop in the next month. Is it a good timing to buy a Blu-Ray drive or prices are expected to drop in the next 30 days? Thanks
my comments at http://www.commentino.com/orim
remember sonys other hidef audio format?
yes sacd?
i guess people with those discs are probably going to be quite angry if they get abandoned for this new format.
and yea...sony..more drm? sounds delightful...
...
Unless if Sony actually try to push this as a standard (doubt it), and don't be greedy about (this is Sony, so doubt it also), this will be doomed to be put on the shelf in a years time next to Sony's MiniDisc and Betamax.
Oh, and MD FTW :P
I suppose there's a SD and a HD track? I can already imagine the sales conversations in Hi-Fi stores.
"Yeah, hello, I'm looking for the Decca record of the 5th Brandenburg concerto, do you have that in stock?"
"Let me see... do you want the CD version or the BS CD version?"
"BS CD?"
"Yeah, see, this is the new Sony hiqh definition disc, which offers improved audio quality when played back in a device that meets the new standard, while remaining compatible to normal CD players. Let me show it to ya on this Denon stereo."
*Puts in disc, pushes buttons, music plays*
"So this is normal definition track, which already sounds pretty nice..."
*Pushes some more buttons, music starts over.*
"... and this is the high definition track."
*Grins eagerly*
"Do you hear the difference?"
"..."
"...no."
(uncomfortable silence)
"Can I have my CD now? I gotta go."
You should write gags for Family Guy and The Simpsons :)
Last I checked, CD's used infrared lasers, not red lasers like DVD's do. :-)
Wow. Leave it to Sony to find yet another way to whore out "Kind of Blue." To be honest, though, As someone who owns a good deal of SACD's and DVD-A discs, I've always hoped for a unified HD audio format. Maybe this will be it....
Meh! to Optical Storage.
Sony pushed their luck with Blu-ray, along with the other member of the BDA, essentially buying a win.
Blu CD (or whatever the hell they are going to call it) is going to do exactly what most of their other formats do, nothing.
Great another propertarian format from the masters of DRM/malware/viruses, (secuROM, XCP Rootkit, ARccOS, ) and anti-consumer tactics
RIAA, CRIA, SOUNDEXCHANGE, BPI, IFPI, Ect:
# Sony BMG Music Entertainment
# Universal Music Group
# Warner Music Group
# EMI
MPAA:
# The Walt Disney Company
# Sony Pictures
# Paramount Pictures Viacom—(DreamWorks owners since February 2006)
# 20th Century Fox (News Corporation)
# Universal Studios (NBC Universal)
# Warner Bros. (Time Warner)
anybody here doesn't have music on HDD? they probably could create a new download service, some lossless format which sounds better than CD, but I really dont want another media disc type.
Is this Blu-ray Disc profile 3.0?
It looks like it is a regular CD, just made with much better polymer (polymer origonally developed for blu-ray discs), and mastered using improved technology (or mastering equipment, imroved with technologies gained from blu-ray development too).
The new poly & better cut masters means the pressed CD's have much less "jitter" and better shaped pits and lands on the disc; the discs data is much more accurate and hence easier to read by CD players. Audio CD's of course having no error correction (unlike data CD's) hence you should get better sound quality.
What's the point anymore when even audiophiles are ripping to servers in lossless format and then using high-end DACs for playback? I would have preferred DSD on Blu-Ray or at least 192/24 on Blu-Ray. This is Redbook CD all over again.
Sony missed the memo that optical disks are on their way out in favor of direct downloads. I just bought IBM's most versatile DVD burner for my Lenovo ThinkPad R61; it plays and records something like 12 variants of CD and DVD--everything but Blu-Ray. Now comes another variant? I'll pass.
I don't know everyone is saying this sucks or is gonna fail, this is clearly intended just for the Japanese market. The same market where SACD and MiniDisc were doing quite well.
Note to the Editors.... CD's use Infra-Red, DVD uses Red, and HD Discs (HD-DVD and Blu-Ray) uses Blue Lasers.
TEG
It's not blue, it's violet. Fool.
PlayStation 2 games realeased on CDs were blue.
Sony just loves to spend money on audio formats that are destined to fail.
Minidisc/Atrac, SACD..all fail.
Unless they make a high-quality format that takes up less space then an mp3, at a loss-less like bitrate, and can has universal compatibility, it'll fail.
This is a disc of hurt.
I barely buy CDs anymore and they want to try selling these for $25 to $42? Are you f'n serious?
Seriously, why are we still dicking around with optical media? It still gets scratched when I forget to put it in the box and use it as a coaster instead.
A good piece of flash memory like that sorta fluff they use in the first Matrix movie would be nice. Lovely quick read-speeds without the issue of scratches. :)
No thanks, I will never pay $25 to $42 for these Blu-Spec CD's.
What all electronic manufacturers need to do is put codecs for higher end audio and other (less popular) formats (ie: flac, ogg, DSD, even 24bit 96k or 192k PCM) into all of their players...weather that information resides on a flash drive, a hard drive, CD-R, DVD-R, BD-R or whatever new 'can't live without' storage medium that comes along, it should be able to be accessed and properly decoded...it's only just a bunch of ones and zeros anyway...how hard (maybe more like 'expensive') can it be?
Can we just forget about the hole cd thing....
We have dvd for a long time now! hello wake up!
its very stupid everyone have a cd player...
everyone need a dvd player for his/her music.
DVD for music and Blue-ray disc for the movies
Okay SONY, 75 comments so far and nobody's asking if this new Blu format is surround capable? That would be the ONLY reason I'd even consider them. Stereo? We've got that in a dozen formats already....