ORM: No, not at all. And actually, I think it will happen.
SDE: Let’s talk about 5.1 surround sound. As you said, more and more households have blu-ray players sitting under their TV; they might also have a surround set-up with speakers behind the sofa, a subwoofer etc., so they can enjoy Lord Of The Rings and the like, but it’s only a small minority of titles that you have released so far that have included a 5.1 mix. Looking online, it seems to be the most desired thing, particularly from audiophiles who may have some SACDs sitting on their shelf or have enjoyed DVD-Audios in 5.1 in the past. Are you going to start releasing more titles with 5.1?
ORM: Two things about this. Number one, you have your personal belief when you launch something. You do your best to test, what does the market want? So I had to follow my belief, and my belief is that when I’m listening to an orchestra, and don’t like to hear the trumpets behind my right ear. I like to be in a theatre with everything in front of me listening to a performance. That’s what Pure Audio was about. What I found out, is the same as you. I got a lot of feedback from consumers saying ‘actually, you know what, we want 5.1’. So we started to release Queen and others. We have more product coming in 5.1. We’ve actually launched a dedicated plan for the next six months to have a lot of 5.1 releases – as a pure dedicated initiative. I have to be honest and say that I was surprised how much people wanted that. I thought all these music lovers will want it exactly as it was originally recorded, but no, they want it like that.
SDE: Ultimately you can give people the choice can’t you. If you don’t want 5.1, just listen to the stereo version.
ORM: Yes, but we have costs to consider and sourcing – we don’t have 5.1 available everywhere.
