Audio News for May 23, 2008

Netflix Offers Hi-Speed Streaming of Movies – Taking the first step in the possible eventual extinction of its popular DVDs-by-mail rental service, Netflix Inc. has introduced a $99 box and a streaming service it calls “Watch Instantly.”  The five-inch-square device uses a broadband Internet connection – which can be wireless – to stream about 10,000 movies and TV shows from the Netflix library – about 10% of their total offerings. There is no additional cost to the 8.2 million subscribers who get the $99 box and are already paying at least $9 a month for the rent-by-mail plan, but many users will have to view the movies on their computer monitors and recent movies are not available on the service. The idea is that users will be able to access movies they want in a few minutes instead of waiting for delivery thru the mail. Some other devices will be coming out which will also deliver Netflix’s streaming service to TV sets. LG Electronics expects to include this feature in an upcoming Blu-ray player.

Blu-ray Profile Problems – The technological potential of Blu-ray players is being stepped up, but sometimes to the disadvantage of those owning first and second generation players. The first crop of players didn’t include interactive features such as PIP (picture-in-picture playback) and Internet connectivity. These were Profile 1.0 players, were often very slow loading, and also lacked an Ethernet port. Some of the latest Blu-ray discs are using advanced programming that often cannot be accessed on many players. Some manufacturers, but not all, post updated firmware on their sites which can be downloaded, burned to a DVD-R and thereby installed on an older Blu-ray player.

The Profile 2.0 spec includes something called BD-Live, which allows the Internet features, but many manufacturers have decided not to support this function in this year’s models.  The Sony PlayStation 3 is the only Profile 2.0 player currently on the market, and Sony has added a new firmware upgrade that allows decoding of DTS-HD lossless format. Of course you can still watch the actual feature if you can’t access every last bonus gimmick on a Blu-ray disc, and many of us have little interest in what we would find on the Internet while watching a DVD.  We care primarily about video and audio quality, and want to be able to access all the new lossless audio codecs as well as uncompressed 5.1 PCM surround. (There is also a Profile 3.0 in the works which would create an audio-only Blu-ray format, which we feel is unneeded and unwanted.)

Gimell Launches Surround Downloads – The specialist record label of The Tallis Scholars now offers surround sound downloads in 5.1-channels using either the popular FLAC lossless format or WMA 5.1 surround format.  Their first download is their 2007 release of Palestrina’s Missa Papae Marcelli and Allegri’s Miserere.  There are already several methods of downloading the surround sound files: some network-connect AV receivers will stream them from your PC, you can burn your own DVD-Audio discs in your PC if you have a DVD-A or universal player, and PCs with 5.1 sound cards will play the WMA surround downloads using the Windows Media Player. (WMA v.11 for PCs is required, and Microsoft stopped supporting WMA for Macs with v.9, so Mac users are being ignored once again.) The Gimell web site is www.gimell.com