Blu-Ray music releases are being planned.

As per a friend of mine that works for Sony.

Sony is in the early stages of planning blu-ray releases of music titles from the various labels they control. Whether they will include surround or not remains to be seen, but I will cross my fingers.

Here we go again.....

With fingers crossed as well, this is what I was hoping for.

OK, you've got your fingers crossed, I'll think wishfully and we need a volunteer to not hold their breath.

Actually this IS good news, forgive me for being jaded.

I don't have any inside information but I am sure that Warner, UMG and EMI are all looking at how to proceed with Blu-ray as well. I don't expect anything much before 2011 personally, just a guess, but I do expect a unified effort from all major music companies and several of the smaller ones when it does happen. There is obviously far greater potential with Blu-ray than we had with SACD or DVD-A, there should be no major missing players with Blu-ray. There is no format war now, it can be done right this time.

I would guess Sony will start with some current music releases and release some of the better SACD titles on the new format to get things rolling. What and when is anybody's guess but it will include surround, I feel certain of that.

Chris

Dylan Berichon said:

As per a friend of mine that works for Sony.

Sony is in the early stages of planning blu-ray releases of music titles from the various labels they control. Whether they will include surround or not remains to be seen, but I will cross my fingers.

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Looking forward to hearing more good news :banana:

I ordered a Denon DBP-4010UD a few weeks ago, so I don't care whether my hi-res music are DVD-A, SACD or Blu-ray :sun

Chris Gerhard said:

...I do expect a unified effort from all major music companies and several of the smaller ones when it does happen.

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You're either the world's greatest optimist or insane. Either way, good for you.

Spanish Sony/BMG's efforts in surround so far have been "deluxe" versions of CD albums including a karaoke DVD in Dolby Digital. If they ever release anything on blu-ray over here, I'm expecting it to be mediocre at the most. Sad but true.

I think it's a reasonable assumption that the labels will attempt to exploit Blu Ray for music releases. The variable is how far they'll cock it up.

Until there is some effective surround music evangelism and it takes hold, they'll push ringtones, Mp3 tracks for smart phones and YouTube videos.

Where are the industry leaders to emerge from the ashes of the collective surround music amnesia?

I don't think I am insane or overly optimistic. Blu-ray accounts for about 10% or so of DVD revenue now for the video market and growing at a healthy pace and I see no reason why it can't do about as well compared to CD for the audio market. I don't believe Blu-ray will replace MP3 or CD for audio but with declining revenues, it should be enough to interest the music companies to help offset the decline. There are already 40 million or so Blu-ray players worldwide and with the crazy promotions that are going on, the number is going to grow pretty rapidly. I don't believe any mainstream consumer electronics manufacturer is making a high end DVD player without Blu-ray now for the upscale market and low end Blu-ray players are so inexpensive that many consumers are going to purchase one for their HDTV soon after they purchase the HDTV. The music companies need a market that can play the product and that part of the equation will be covered. I just don't buy there is no market for better quality audio and multichannel audio. There is no market of significance for SACD if Panasonic and Warner don't participate and there is no market of significance for DVD-A if Sony doesn't participate but all of those and all of the other companies are involved with Blu-ray.

Chris

My .02 is that it isn't a question of whether or notthe music industry will "use" blu-ray or not, but whether releases will be primarily stereo or multichannel, or both. the same problems still exist with multichannel that existed with DVDa and SACD--namely royalties issues, much extra work, finding the master multitracks, etc.

On the one hand you had Neil young release his archives in blu-ray stereo, but on the other hand you have the upcoming Pixies release in 5.1 blu-ray.

Bottom line is right now blu-ray represents the best hope for the future of mulichannel music; my suggestion is to join in support, or don't complain if it dies on the vine again.

Chris Gerhard said:

I don't think I am insane or overly optimistic. Blu-ray accounts for about 10% or so of DVD revenue now for the video market and growing at a healthy pace and I see no reason why it can't do about as well compared to CD for the audio market. I don't believe Blu-ray will replace MP3 or CD for audio but with declining revenues, it should be enough to interest the music companies to help offset the decline. There are already 40 million or so Blu-ray players worldwide and with the crazy promotions that are going on, the number is going to grow pretty rapidly. I don't believe any mainstream consumer electronics manufacturer is making a high end DVD player without Blu-ray now for the upscale market and low end Blu-ray players are so inexpensive that many consumers are going to purchase one for their HDTV soon after they purchase the HDTV. The music companies need a market that can play the product and that part of the equation will be covered. I just don't buy there is no market for better quality audio and multichannel audio. There is no market of significance for SACD if Panasonic and Warner don't participate and there is no market of significance for DVD-A if Sony doesn't participate but all of those and all of the other companies are involved with Blu-ray.

Chris

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I hope you are right. I just don't trust the music industry to come up with a high quality product and to do it in a way that doesn't leave consumers totally ignorant or confused. People see Blu-ray as a HD video format (that's the smart ones). That's a problem. The other day someone was saying that lots of Blu-ray discs get returned when people find they don't play on their DVD players. I would suggest that if they want to introduce music on Blu-ray they do it quick and they also bundle a free music disc with each player.

That's a good point about people returning blu-rays. It's the same problem as before, a lack of proper marketing and consumer education.

One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

The pessimist in me says that these discussions are rather pointless as a hi-rez MC format can never succeed as vast majority of consumers can not bring themselves over setting up a 5.1 system. And even if they do they will not find time to sit in a sweet spot. And if yes, they will not be able to tell difference between this and CD. Therefore the bottom line is either in bargain pricing of the whole reproduction chain or maybe sticking whole discograhies on single one Blu-ray and thus bringing the masses to appreciate the use of this format for (hi-res MC) music slowly. Maybe, thinks the optimist in me.

We've been through this so many times before. The General Public will want to see VIDEO from a Blu-Ray. I don't think they'll go for a 5.1 Music BD disc, because they can't play it in their cars, or in their non-theater systems. And, when they get it to their theater 5.1 system (even if it's just a WS TV with a 5.1-in-a-box setup), they will want to see "stunning video" on their screen.

NO ONE would be happier than me to be able to go to BB and buy 5.1 BD music, even if I had to make my own DVD-A's to play in the car from them. However, the way things are going with music and headphones/iPods/USB/Hard Drives, I fear that any disc based music system without video is doomed from the start.

Sadly......................but I hope I'm wrong.

Has anyone seen "Jimby" lately? Are you out there?

I don't see what BR will offer that the old formats didn't. I also don't see the labels spending money....again......to remix stuff for 5.1 when it failed the last time.

The older formats are fine but they are already stigmatized as failures within the industry, that's a bad rub to get beyond.

Whew... I remembered my password! Anyway, I'm glad to see there's at least talk of utilizing BD for music seeing as how it at least opens up the door to the possibility of more hi-rez surround. But I worry we might see somebody release a BD music disc of some album that only contains music videos. And where the only audio option is Dolby Digital 2.0. (Sure, it most likely will at least by 48kHz/16bit LPCM... but I wouldn't put this past the realm of possibility.)

daved64 said:

I don't see what BR will offer that the old formats didn't. I also don't see the labels spending money....again......to remix stuff for 5.1 when it failed the last time.

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Big differences in my opinion:

1. 100% industry support for the format. SACD and DVD-A had fractured support with big players missing from both camps. In my opinion, a consumer audio video format that doesn't have support from the industry doesn't succeed, period. Whatever market could have been realized had no confidence either format could survive and of course for good reason, neither could. Why bother with a format like SACD or DVD-A that won't see many releases and can't be played by friends and family?

2. HD video simultaneously with high resolution audio. Neither SACD or DVD-A had any video so Blu-ray can do everything SACD and DVD-A could do and so much more. Audio only releases or combination of audio and video work on Blu-ray. Of course DVD-A could also offer lossy audio and video by inclusion of a DVD-V section or separate disc, but that wasn't nearly as attractive for use with a high quality audio video system, video and audio were both compromised. Blu-ray requires no compromise with capacity and bitrates available to do everything needed.

3. There is a much larger customer base with players already in service, bigger than both SACD and DVD-A combined, and it is growing at a good pace. Consumer products that succeed by reaching a market for use with a product that already existed for another reason are common. Blu-ray has far greater market awareness, people that don't own it now are considering a purchase and I am finding that many people I know that don't own it understand it will replace DVD. Blu-ray is only succeeding by reaching the market that already owns an HDTV. SACD and DVD-A had very poor market awareness and in my experience, when somebody knew about either, the opinion was often negative. Blu-ray is held in high esteem by everyone I know in real life that is interested in home audio and video.

4. The existing mixes for the debacle behind us can be used again, it isn't like a large market already owns the music. New music of course must be mixed and the selection needs to be a multiple of what was available on the older formats. Equipment and personnel already exist to do this work, let them get busy.

I feel certain that Blu-ray will do much better than SACD and DVD-A but I am also certain it can't reach a market as large as DVD and CD did but with both of those declining, these companies all need something to help offset the decline. We still see some LP releases. I don't know the number of turntables in service, but it has to be a tiny fraction of the number of Blu-ray players in service. I know the primary reason for the Blu-ray player purchase wasn't to play music, but that doesn't matter, it works great for that purpose. There is a market for high quality audio and it should be big enough to matter. Why wouldn't they give Blu-ray a chance? When to proceed and how to proceed needs to be worked out.

Chris

It seems that most here are basically saying the mass market won't be interested in high quality audio and I understand Blu-ray audio won't be in basically 100% of homes like CD was but I don't know why it has to be all or nothing. It can't be the tiny market that SACD or DVD-A saw and be profitable but maybe ten times the SACD/DVD-A market can be profitable, maybe twenty times is needed, I don't know but at some point it can be large enough to matter without reaching everyone. The market that is interested in high quality audio and owns Blu-ray and an HDTV should be an affluent market so it is a good market to target. I don't know how big it will be, only that it should be huge compared to SACD and DVD-A. Of course the market for green cheese is probably huge compared to the market that owned SACD and DVD-A.

Chris