Audio News for October 31, 2006

Group Founded to Fight for Hi-Def Surround Against the MP3 Hordes – Dr. Mark Waldrep, CEO of Aix Records, is fighting mad about the marketing hype and falsehoods about digital data reduction being promulgated by manufacturers, music companies and audio services. He has founded a nonprofit organization called The High Definition Surround Music Association [HDSMA.org] to create, promote, educate and distribute true hi-def surround music via workshops, giveaways, web tutorials and branding. Hearing the claim that the new terrestrial HD Radio technology ushered in the High Definition age of radio got Waldrep started on his remedy. Actually the “HD” in HD Radio doesn’t stand for hi-def but instead for Hybrid Digital – yet the public would naturally connect it with HDTV. HD radio truthfully delivers audio quality less than half that of already-compromised average MP3 files of 128 kbps – often as low as 64 or even 32 kbps. Digital radio in the UK has similar data reduction and has received widespread complaints, and not just from audiophiles.

The U.S. satellite radio services are no better, claiming “CD quality” when in fact they data-reduce to 1/25th or more of the bit rate of 44.1K CDs. And their minimal experiments with surround sound have been limited to now-obsolescent matrix technologies. Many DVDs use compressed Dolby Digital encoding for stereo or mono audio, when there is enough space to hold uncompressed PCM audio – which doesn’t require any decoding. Then there is the “ripping” of uncompressed audio files to MP3, with very few users choosing lossless formats or at least 320 to 360 kbps to maintain higher quality. Waldrep hopes his organization can clear up some of the confusion in the public’s mind over what is really high definition/hi-res.  He feels that “It’s time to spread the word that audio deserves better.” He may be contacted via email for more information.

BitTorrent Expands Its Technology – Switching from audio to video compression, we learn that the digital video delivery platform known as BitTorrent is making deals with hardware manufacturers to embed its technology into consumer products. BitTorrent has been one of the alternative video compression technologies which peer-to-peer file-sharing sites used to make available movies and TV programs which were not available on commercial DVD. As well as some which were – which got BitTorrent and its competitors in trouble.  Now some of the competition has been shut down while BitTorrent is partnering with major and independent movie studios to distribute legal video content on either a subscriptions or per-video fee.  The technology promises painless and disruptively cheap  video file publishing online.

Consumer electronics companies are looking for a profitable way into the expanding home entertainment market. A recent survey showed that by 2010 30 million U.S. households will have an entertainment network set up in the home. BitTorrent could be the key ingredient in the area of Internet-connected video device, bringing popular digital content to consumers’ fingertips anywhere in the home. However, some of the major manufacturers – such as Sony and Panasonic – are concerned that the software does have the potential for misuse (meaning piracy).