Sony turns CDs blue with new Blu-spec CD standard
By Thomas Ricker 
posted November 5th 2008 1:54AM
posted November 5th 2008 1:54AM
P.S. That weeping CD logo above is our Photoshoppery, not Sony's.
[Via Impress]
posted November 5th 2008 1:54AM
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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
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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....