High Resolution Blu-ray The Easy Way

While I share your assessment of the advantages of internet distribution, I respectfully disagree with the view that physical format distribution is finished. Feel it, see it, touch it: music lovers and collectors of the world will continue to have fun with that, despite, or in addition to, the internet. <br />

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And of course internet distribution is not limited to downloads. Amazon sells a lot of discs.

Even though physical formats will be with us for some time, a music label is only severely handicapping itself if it doesn't offer and rely on internet distribution.<br />

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And aside from distribution issues, logistics, regional codes, etc., I have found that while many audiophiles like me love to touch and feel LPs and CDs, there is a growing number of others that just don't want to maintain the physical storage space required. And most folks I know under 30 just want the electronic files. Fortunately CDs are durable because most of the under 30 crowd do not treasure or care for these discs. <br />

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All of these attitudes work very well in my favor. Many in the over 30 crowd want to eliminate the clutter and regain the space. Most in the under 30 crowd are more than willing to part with physical discs. So for me it's very easy to pick up vinyl and CDs in very good to mint condition for $1 to $5 each. In fact if you pick up used CDs from Amazon, the shipping charge of less than $3 is often the only cost to the buyer.

Good luck with this in the future...<br />

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I also agree...Yes, discs are becoming the thing of a "collector".<br />

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The CD section at my local music retailer is now one tenth the size of the blu ray section. (the music section used to be twice as large as movies)<br />

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Even our local second hand DVD and CD shop is merging with another from across town. Even it is struggling!...This tell you something?<br />

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Blu Ray is a last ditch effort by the movie industry to maintain their outdated selling model. It is as certain as the sun rising in the morning that blu ray will go the same way as DVD's once internet speeds improve (which is also inevitable) It maybe holding right now because a movie is 50GB, which is a problematic size for present day downloads. But a high rez music album is no where near as big as that. A 24/96 album is in the order of 1-2GB....even smaller than a DVD. Well within CURRENT "downloadability" size (for want of a better word!) Even a 24/192 album is about the same size as a DVD. Again no real problem.<br />

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Actually, this discussion is probably "past tense" anyway! Somebody is probably out their right now about to launch a start up hi rez music library streaming service. "Rhapsody 24/96". Yep. Discs are well and truly finished... <br />

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Sure, put your hi rez music content onto a Blu Ray...but see how many you sell...and as the market takes hold...once you realize the piddly profit margin...why would you bother? Put two and two together, and why would anybody NOT release high rez direct via the internet..<br />

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Anyway. I'm out of this thread. Sure, by all means have mShuttle and blu ray hi rez discs. I dont have a problem with this at all...But if the guys at Bravura can't get a hold of this logic and refuse to release their hi rez content also via the web. No problem with that either..... I simply won't buy their music <br />

<i>"But if the guys at Bravura can't get a hold of this logic and refuse to release their hi rez content also via the web. No problem with that either..... I simply won't buy their music :)"</i><br />

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Hi wap - If things were only as easy as you imply. Bravura understands full well your logic. It's not a tough concept to understand. <br />

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The cost to setup a secure download service for a small label is not inexpensive. I've talked to many of them who would do this in a heartbeat if they could afford it. Sure there are other sites that offer this as a service and will sell downloads for a label, but some labels will make less money doing it this way than if they sell physical discs. These are businesses we are talking about. If the money is there the decision is easy.<br />

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This whole concept is nothing to get frustrated about or get into a heated discussion about. It's just a reality of the business. If there is money to be made businesses will go after the money. The people at some of the small "audiophile" labels are very smart and know what they are doing. trust me.

But personally I don't see the download market as any more mature than the disc market. There are still questions regarding the sources of the high resolution music (in much the same way as one poster here surmised it: ie not paying blu ray premium for 24/48) and how it was mastered and such just as much as Blu rays...you need only peruse the forums on this very site to see plenty of people who feel cheated after purchasing a supposed piece of high-rez music only to play it and realize it's just an upsampled copy of questionable quality. Seriously there are just as many negative reviews of certain high resolution downloads as there are on amazon regarding the quality of varying blu rays. I'm not coming down on either side here. Just in all fairness the two markets seem equally immature and equally incapable of capturing anyone's imagination except the sort of folks who read columns like this--which however popular it is--is several orders of magnitudes a fractional niche in comparison to the mp3 buyers out there. And to be fair to Apple, it seems that they have a pretty mature system in place for purchasing music. Not to my liking, quality wise, but certainly a pretty mature experience for the consumer. I don't see high rez audio occupying that same space in terms of usability. Jeez, it took me weeks of scouring this site before I had a clue what half of you were even talking about. And I am computer literate. I think everyone though is forgetting the barrier to high rez which is the complicated nature of it. Adjusting sampling and bit rates, making sure you have ASIO drivers, Foobar (need I say anything else? What part of Foobar would not completely deter your average Joe from listening to high rez?), most qualitative replays seem to require the added expense of a decent DAC, not to mention that if your system is in the sub 4000 range you are probably not benefitting from much that high def offers. Until someone addresses these problems computer audio is a 'hobby' a la apple tv. Thus I do believe that discs do offer the consumer a way around some of the confusion generated by downloads. That being said I am not sure that enough care in any kind of numbers that would make downloads or discs a viable reality. We just are not that many. And until something takes hold that is easy to use, doesn't require new equipment, and has tangible benefits that the consumer can perceive (without having to take a double blind test or buy a new stereo!!!) we will see nothing but the same old stuff on high rez. Classical and Jazz.

Bleedink... 100% +1<br />

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It's itunes downloads for the masses<br />

And sites like hdtracks for the folk here...<br />

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(You can make things easier BTW by dropping 24bit tracks into itunes...)<br />

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Chris...100% understand. I wish all the small labels well. They are showing the way. I'm not angry or frustrated with them. It's those large guy's that have swallowed up just about everyone else, who control all contemporary and catalogue rock albums, that I'm pissed with...<br />

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Cheers<br />

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I have a more hopeful long term outlook. I do not believe that we only have the two categories of consumers you seem to be reducing things to: 1. The niche-audiophiles willing to purchase high res music in very small numbers, 2. Mass market-consumers who could care less about the sound quality of the music they listen to, where mp3 is entirely adequate.<br />

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I think the two category outlook is somewhat short sighted. I know a lot of people who really love listening to music, some of them are audiophiles, but most of them are not. These "music lovers" listen to music very seriously, and they do care what it sounds like-some of them are also potential audiophiles, but this is not the point (that is the point of another topic). My point is that these music lovers would be willing to pay a premium for better sounding music-high res, and they are an infinitely larger market that the audiophile niche. I am not sure why folks are not getting my video analogy here: these "music lovers" are to audio what the BRD users are to video. I know a number of movie lovers, who purchase BRDs, and own 1080 p sets, specifically because they have been sold (marketed to) on the higher image quality (and sound in some cases). These movie lovers may get lots of films from netflix, but when they want the ultimate experience they purchase the BRD for its higher quality.<br />

There is no reason a pardigm similar to the "movie lover" could not happen for the "music lover". This paradigm shift would require that content and hardware providers aggressively market high res music to "music lovers", not audiophiles. This was tried a few years back with SACD and DVD-A, but the competition between the two formats, and the additional confusion generated by multi-channel vs. two channel, and poor management by competing interests doomed it to failure. But if managed properly, high res music distribution could be profitable, as there are many more "music lovers" than audiophiles. If the movie lovers can understand that advantage of full HD 1080 p, there is no reason that music lovers cannot understand the advantage of high res audio formats if content providers aggressively market to them.

and barrows I have always said that the only way high definition music will take off is in the form of a trojan horse through the equipment people have already purchased for movies and video games. There's the audience you are talking about and I agree whole heartedly with you that people are interested...until the talk drifts to sample rates and what you really have to go thru to play high def music on a computer. It is far far far from flawless. Not to say that there are no problems with Blu ray players and the like but I see it this way: it's far easier to plug a disk in and let the player figure the rest out than to download music, get it in your music player with the right tagging, and hopefully in a format that you can play, and hopefully in the same sampling and bit rate you bought it if you are savvy enough to figure it out. Plug in DVDBluray blah blah and none of that. You just hit play. I love both so I am really just playing devil's advocate to a certain extent. So discs do have that going for them in the consumer space. Your average consumer just is not going to go through what I had to go through to get a decent and working computer library. The fact that it isn't there yet at all says something right there. My oppo plays the discs it says it plays in their native resolution--something people on here obsess over. The same just cannot be said of downloads. Unfortunately the music industry is failing miserably in introducing consumers to these better forms of consumption just as they failed earlier in the previous decade. Here one has the perfect storm of cheap tech, higher capabilities, and the fact that most consumer homes already has some kind of video/movie theater system in place which could easily play high rez files to the point that the average joe would likely hear some difference. Some htib systems are getting great reviews and some amps come in at 200 bucks and will handle high def fine if paired with something not too anemic in the speaker department. Certainly good enough to hear a difference at least. And yet the music industry is content to let the opportunity slip through its fingers yet again. Most homes are ably equipped in the right areas to provide an ok sounding system...not audiophile but at 24/192 does it need to be for Joe to hear a big diff? Prob not. I can hear a diff on a MBP so it stands to reason if marketed correctly it would take off in the very markets barrows is talking about.

We are all coming to this from slightly different perspectives, but basically we are all in agreement here.<br />

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Burrows you're right. 100% agree. Music industry is missing a huge opportunity here to mimick the movie studios marketing move to 1080p..<br />

Bleedink your 100% right. They are missing an opportunity to make it simple...<br />

From a consumer perspective: I'm confident about the internet distribution model..there is no going back.<br />

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So lets get together and do a start up.... <br />

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A small googletv type streamer device that searches all the available 24/96 and 24/192 online content out there. Sort of like a hi-rez music boxee box. With software that then pulls it into itunes, onto a NAS, or the music library of the consumers choice. (but not actually computer dependent to work). That has a reasonable DAC to play it through the average guys Home Theatre set up. It would need perhaps one or two other digital inputs for lower res gear the punter might have, (or to play with USB->spdif converters) and it would need a learning IR blaster to automatically switch to the correct input when the "play" button is pushed...and "Voila"<br />

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The PS Audio Perfect wave DAC and the Linn Majik DSI are very close to this, but lack some of the more "practical" aspects, and an everyday price point...<br />

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Chris could market it on this site

Politely I mean...<br />

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The mass market <i>does</i> care about the quality of the music they download, but is not willing to pay an extreme premium for it. <br />

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It's that magic price mark again, at some point, if made available at a low enough cost, hi-res music downloads will totally supplant med-res music downloads. The same way DVD's supplanted VHS video tapes - they look and sound better, and have only a very small premium cost associated with them. No extra cost at all now of course. <br />

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Also of course, a couple technological jumps have to be made- higher broadband speeds, much higher mobile broadband speeds, backbone buildouts, and overall cost reduction. <br />

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-Paul<br />

“The mass market does care about the quality of the music they download, but is not willing to pay an extreme premium for it.” <br />

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Agree, but the mass market is also happy with MP3s which most audiophiles would abhor. I have even found some audiophiles were impressed with 320 kbps MP3s on certain iPod models. Perhaps because that resolution is often the closest to CD quality and the simplicity of the hardware and battery power offers a pleasing sound.<br />

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It is often said “Better is the enemy of good enough”. And I believe the mass market feels that the highest lossy resolutions and RBCD quality is good enough. Does anyone really believe that if the music industry were to change all music distributed on CDs to SACDs that the mass market would be moved? I think some audiophiles would be moved but other audiophiles who love CDs and computer audio would not be so moved. Out of a collection of thousands of albums my SACD collection is probably less than 100 and much of that was due to buying sprees when some SACDs were on sale for $4 to $6.<br />

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I still feel that high rez music is a niche market and unless the price is less than $10 for each album, it will always be a niche market primarily for audiophiles.<br />

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As for physical discs, the mass market standards are CDs and DVDs. IMO Blu-ray and 3D are for videophiles, gamers and sports fanatics and these folks like surround sound and heavy bass but they are not particularly concerned with the finer points of music qualities. Blu –ray will only survive because of the home theater market and what the industry does to encourage consumers to buy BRDs. For now many movie titles contain both DVDs and BRDs with the hope that many consumers will switch to BR. But again “Better is the enemy of good enough” and the large majority of the mass market believe that DVDs are good enough.<br />

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I recently bought two movies on Blu-ray that were on sale but now I regret the purchase. Why - because I have at least six DVD players, one portable DVD player and six computers including a laptop that can play my DVD movies. I only had my son's PS3 to play BRD, but that's on the fritz. So because I am an audiophile I want to buy an Oppo blu-ray player but the new models are $500 to $1000 (I paid less than $200 for my Oppo DVD player that plays CDs, DVDs, DVD-As and SACDs). So I am very likely to repurchase these movies as DVDs and just keep the BRDs for the time in the future when I buy an Oppo BDP-95. But this episode was enough to convince me that I do not even want my video library on BRDs, so all my future movie purchases will be on DVDs.<br />

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Since I really believe that it is the over 40 crowd that buys physical discs, I pose this question:<br />

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Out of the hundreds or thousands of movies or albums that you currently have on DVDs or CDs, what percentage and how many are you willing to repurchase on BRDs?<br />

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For me the answer is less than 1% and probably no more than two dozen. In contrast, how many high rez DVD data discs and high rez (24/176.4 and higher) downloads am I willing to repurchase? Probably closer to 10% and somewhere between 300 and 500 over the next 5 years if the music is appealing.<br />

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Again the priority should always be music first, well ahead of high resolution.<br />

I think it is a matter of perspective. <br />

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Ancient audiophiles were buying 78's when they were new, and marveling at the quality of sound that came off the things. <br />

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Today, audiophiles buy blue-ray disks when everyone else is happy with CD's, and ectastic about DVD's. And we store them on teeny little computers with gargantuan disk storage and processors more powerful than all the digital computers in the world in 1951. <br />

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And please to remember, that 128kbs lossy song on a $100 iPod would be almost unimaginable hi-res to your average audiophile in the 1940's. Progress marches on, the quality we lust after today will be a common thing in the not to distant future. <br />

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-Paul<br />

FWIW - I ripped my Tom Petty Live Anthology blu-ray (a 62 song beast) fairly easily today to 24/96 FLAC 2-channel following these instructions and using the relatively inexpensive (some free) software mentioned. Of course, I'd prefer something easier (mShuttle or HDTracks), but it wasn't all that bad. http://forums.linn.co.uk/bb/showthread.php?tid=2544&page=1<br />

The real key was the LOG file (see partial below) because it made breaking the giant 62 song flac into individual songs pretty easy.<br />

CHAPTER01=00:00:00.000<br />

CHAPTER01NAME=<br />

CHAPTER02=00:01:00.811<br />

CHAPTER02NAME=<br />

CHAPTER03=00:05:33.667<br />

CHAPTER03NAME=<br />

CHAPTER04=00:09:16.473<br />

CHAPTER04NAME=

Yeh. The real issue is not that it can be done....but why? WHY? Why should we have to jump through hoops to do this <br />

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I mean what is the big deal here? The music labels just have to stop pissing all us customers around. Hey Mr cigar smoking CEO of whatever .......(insert here) "big music label". Stop this "YADF" (yet another disk format) nonsense. Just release your content on a reputable online store at 24/96 or 24/192. I mean what is the big deal here? It's not rocket science. If you won't do it...A pimply faced youth can bit torrent this stuff straight off vinyl for nicks in less than 5 minutes flat anyway.... and Mr music industry CEO, guess what...we WANT to pay YOU for the "privilege" of providing this content for us.. I mean GEEEEZ!<br />

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Speaking of rocket science...It's been over 40 years since man landed on the moon..1969 (with a slide rule). Only 7 years later..1976 the redbook CD was born. Yes folks...that's almost 35 years ago. 35 years! There are 35 year old grandparents out there !! Grandparents who know no better. Grandparents who have never seen anything other than a "disk" playing music...let alone an LP 78! <br />

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Why is it taking the music industry soooooo long to get their head around this...?<br />

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For goodness sake what the............!<br />

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Why would audiophiles prefer to rip discs rather than getting the music files on data discs or downloads?<br />

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We rip CDs because we have them in abundance and used CDs can often be had for less than $5, which is roughly 25-50 cents per track. CD quality tracks for 1/4 to 1/2 the cost of lossy download tracks is a no brainer.<br />

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IMO unless you already have a large collection of high rez discs such as DVD-As and BRDs ripping these doesn't make sense. These discs are typically $20-$30 and the used market is negligible. <br />

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Ripping CDs is not too much of a burden because of the extensive online databases for automatically tagging rips. The few DVD-A rips that I have done to date were a PITA. A few DVD-A discs or tracks could not be ripped. For the DVD-As that were ripped getting the metadata was another PITA.<br />

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Contrast that to a data disc or download that has all the metadata and album artwork. All I have to do is copy the discs or download the files to my computer music servers. What could be simpler and as I recall some labels like Reference Recordings were offering large collections of their albums for sale on external hard drives.<br />

I agree, but you know what they say:<br />

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There is way I'd like things to be (e.g. free beer on every corner), the way things really should be, and the way things actually are.<br />

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I like downloading hi-rez from HD Tracks et al., and when they have what I want I do, but its good to have other options until the rest of the world catches up with us. <br />

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I've given up on music lables being able to figure anything out. At this point, they'ed be lucky to beat the Disney artists my 5 year old girl likes (although she did seem to enjoy Black Sabbath Paranoid when we were playing "old maid" the other morning). What I cant figure is out is why the various Blu-Ray ripping programs (Aunsoft, Pavtube, Aiseeoft, et al.) dont have the capabilty of, or at least dont advertise the capability of, ripping hi-rez audio to hi-rez FLAC.<br />

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In the streaming folder is where your audio and video files are located. The files are .M2TS which is not DRM'd as far as I can tell. Once you have that file it should be relatively easy to transcode using VLC to get your flac files. I've done this--or you can find a player that supports m2ts natively and you don't have to rip anything...just play the file!

for blu disc audio the files are seldom over 4GB. So you just burn all the nasty blu disc files onto a DVD. Then play them in your bluray player. The end.

Sure...it's not too hard, but the point is, customers shouldn't HAVE TO rip/burn anything !<br />

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This is the mentality everyone has to get out of their heads. Including the industry. "Ripping" or "burning" the "disc" is finished. These are now all old words. Extinct. <br />

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This was my point about the 39 year old grandparent's. Ripping/burning/disc are words for those 2 generations. Like the word "LP"was for me (the generation before)... The new consumer generation don't know what these words mean....<br />

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There are now perfectly good internet distribution channels that DON'T involve "ripping" anything!<br />

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Yet another marketing reason the labels can use. Here you go. Come buy off our online store, and guess what customers...No "ripping" required! You know you'd thing even THEY could see the irony here (They have been fighting "ripping" and "burning" for years)......<br />

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I am not supporting an idiotic industry...they obviously do not get very much right so it is not at all surprising that they cannot bring high definition audio to market as well. Now that being said, I will repeat again-I do not see either market as more or less mature than the other. In all fairness, it's easier to play the disc for most people--and is obsolete for other folks. I did want to point out however that these terrible DRM schemes are sort of hilarious when you can just dig into a menu and find a fully playable file which requires nothing further to play, and contains none of the DRM found on the rest of the disc!! I have personally found blu disc audio no more or less difficult to archive than DVD's or CD's...actually it's a little easier! M2TS is not encrypted, it's not protected, and it's playable on a wide variety of software players as well as supported on many hardware devices as well, as is. Just because someone points something out it doesn't always follow that they are advocating the point...or are stuck in some kind of "mentality". Sometimes they are just trying to be informative. Sorry if I wasn't! Cheers! Personally at this point I'll take anything that doesn't require a new player or a PHD. I don't care if it's on a disc or website. Just get it to me now~!!!!

Fair enough. So why we wait for the studios to join the 21st C, which is the best audophile blu ray player out there? Preferably one back compatible with SACD and DVD-Audio?<br />

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Which DAC chip/circuit board is regarded as the best surround chip at the moment?<br />

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Best audiophile quality. <br />

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I'd be looking for one with 5.1 analog out into my receiever(rather than replacing the whole receiver) as its an old NADT 773.<br />

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Oppo?...BDP 95, with the new Saber DAC...?<br />

Cambridge audio Azur BD650,?<br />

Or Denon?<br />

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And btw, where are all the hirez audio blu ray's? You know the ones like SACD's and DVD-audios, where the studios put down 24 bit tracks of old analog recordings. All I can find are live concert recordings on blu ray right now...<br />

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4 models (BDP-83, 83SE, 93 and the new 95). The newest 95 has balanced outs and their best quality build. It's too new for much feedback yet. All 4 do SACD/DVD-Audio/BluRay.

I wish I were kidding but I'm not. I went on a quest to purchase some music I'd found on some torrent sites that was encoded in DTS-HD MSTR, blu ray folders and all. These are definitely not DVD-A's repackaged as they've clearly been remastered (talking heads for example). I don't believe this is a flavor of DTS you can hob together by conversion of stereo sources though I may be entirely wrong. My best guess is that they are available in some country, just not the USA. Clearly they exist--unless there is someone stealing master tapes from the vaults of the major studios and remastering them fabulously and releasing them on the internet for free. How to actually purchase them? Haven't figured that one out yet! Hence my reasons for stating that the format is obviously not mature (much like downloads). The new OPPO is supposed to be great (the previous 93 was not such a slouch either) but obviously its just a player, unless there is something I don't know (which as I spend more time on this site I realize there is a great deal I dont!). They say it has the sabre chipset which is supposed to be like super dac.

Wow!<br />

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