MQA is Vaporware

[mansr]

8 minutes ago, Paul R said:

If anyone here is confused about that, you are.  

 

I have referenced DIVX many times, go look it up. The situations are closely parallel.

DIVX is MPEG-4 video, aka ISO/IEC 14496-2. The situations are nothing alike.

[new_media]

5 minutes ago, Paul R said:

 

If anyone here is confused about that, you are.  

 

I have references DIVX many times, go look it up. The situations are closely parallel. 

 

-Paul 

 

 

Circuit City's DIVX DVD copy-protection scheme and the DivX video codec are completely separate technologies.

 

The latter was named after the former as a joke because of how hard Circuit City's scheme failed. It had nothing to do with reverse engineering their technology.

[Paul R]

1 hour ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

It isn’t. You can’t take an MQA file and convert it back to the pre-MQA version. 

 

I see your point, and of course, that is one of the tenants of identifying true lossless compression. 

 

Actually, Mani already posted some data that shows there is loss. However, does that mean that Tidal is lying and purposely providing false information to encourage audiophile signups? 

Maybe, or maybe not. Dang tough call I think.

 

-Paul

 

[Paul R]

3 minutes ago, mansr said:

DIVX is MPEG-4 video, aka ISO/IEC 14496-2. The situations are nothing alike.

The situations are exactly alike. Go look up the history of DIVX videos. They were sold on encrypted disks that required paying rental fees to watch. Oh yeah, the bugger tracked each disk with a unique bar code too, and had extra encryptions on it besides the old style CSS.   Yeah, absolutely. People bought the things too. 

 

When DIVX went out of business, the disks were unwatchable.   

 

And the opposition on the internet, the fears and outrage expressed, were all very much like this. 

 

Sounds a whole lot like MQA to me, except MQA has less tech resources and the record companies are going to exercise caution about how much money they put on the table. 

 

-Paul 

 

[Paul R]

10 minutes ago, new_media said:

 

Circuit City's DIVX DVD copy-protection scheme and the DivX video codec are completely separate technologies.

 

The latter was named after the former as a joke because of how hard Circuit City's scheme failed. It had nothing to do with reverse engineering their technology.

 

The Security module in Divix was broken, and ways to read DIVX discs were abundant during the time.  The current DIVX is in part a joke, but also is playing on people remembering the name. 

 

And the DIVX fiasco of the late 1990s is exactly equivalent to the MQA talk. I think it was mid-2001 when all DIVX players and discs, including the ones that were supposed to play forever, just stopped working. 

 

[Paul R]

32 minutes ago, mansr said:

What is the difference between a proprietary encoding like MQA and something you would qualify as DRM?

 

 A "proprietary encoding" *may* be used in an implementation of digital rights management, but it is not digital rights management in and of itself. For example, I have software the does proprietary encoding of information to transmit. The reason is purely for speed, has nothing at all to do with managing who can use the information. That kind of management happens externally to the data and the transmission. 

 

You can also implement DRM without a propriety coding. For example, a player may check a serial number  to validate you are authorized to decode and play some media. None of that requires proprietary coding. This also happens all the time. 

 

DRM is a system that is specifically designed to restrict access to material based upon ownership and/or rights granted by the copyright or IP owner.  That does NOT appear to be what MQA is, though I grant you, it absolutely *does* have the capability to be used that way in a DRM system. 

 

Can MQA be used for evil purposes?  Probably, but then, the same can be said for most things. 

 

I am honestly not trying to argue for MQA, but separating out facts from the hyperbole on both sides is incredibly difficult. 

 

Does make for good conversation though. 

 

-Paul 

 

 

[kumakuma]

51 minutes ago, Paul R said:

The situations are exactly alike. Go look up the history of DIVX videos. They were sold on encrypted disks that required paying rental fees to watch. Oh yeah, the bugger tracked each disk with a unique bar code too, and had extra encryptions on it besides the old style CSS.   Yeah, absolutely. People bought the things too. 

 

When DIVX went out of business, the disks were unwatchable.   

 

And the opposition on the internet, the fears and outrage expressed, were all very much like this. 

 

Sounds a whole lot like MQA to me, except MQA has less tech resources and the record companies are going to exercise caution about how much money they put on the table. 

 

-Paul 

 

 

I see your DIVX example and remind you of SACDs.

 

The technology was introduced in 1999 but it has only been possible in the last few years to "liberate" the music that resides on these discs.

[mansr]

18 minutes ago, Paul R said:

You can also implement DRM without a propriety coding. For example, a player may check a serial number  to validate you are authorized to decode and play some media. None of that requires proprietary coding. This also happens all the time. 

You can't have DRM without a proprietary element. Some schemes use a (mostly) open format encrypted using a key known only to the owner and the licensed decoders. That key is the proprietary part here. Using a secret encoding is, for the purposes of this discussion, effectively the same as encryption with the entire proprietary decoder as the megabyte-sized key. It won't have the properties of a true encryption algorithm, but reverse engineering it is at least as difficult, and that's what matters here.

[firedog]

1 hour ago, Paul R said:

 

I see your point, and of course, that is one of the tenants of identifying true lossless compression. 

 

Actually, Mani already posted some data that shows there is loss. However, does that mean that Tidal is lying and purposely providing false information to encourage audiophile signups? 

Maybe, or maybe not. Dang tough call I think.

 

-Paul

 

I really don’t understand why you are making this complicated.

Tidal doesn’t use the word lossless. They say 24/96 and “master quality”, which is a meaningless marketing term designed to obfuscate.. The 24/96 is a lossy compression scheme, MQA. It’s fake 24\96.  Tidal is simply lying. Today we call it marketing. 
Not a tough call at all. 

[Paul R]

24 minutes ago, mansr said:

You can't have DRM without a proprietary element. Some schemes use a (mostly) open format encrypted using a key known only to the owner and the licensed decoders. That key is the proprietary part here. Using a secret encoding is, for the purposes of this discussion, effectively the same as encryption with the entire proprietary decoder as the megabyte-sized key. It won't have the properties of a true encryption algorithm, but reverse engineering it is at least as difficult, and that's what matters here.

 

You certainly can. A library with check-in and check-out, for instance. 

 

I seriously doubt reverse engineering MQA would present that much of a challenge to even a moderately talented engineer, especially not if they have an unencoded version and an encoded version to compare from. More tedious than actually difficult. 

 

-Paul 

 

 

[kumakuma]

6 minutes ago, Paul R said:

I seriously doubt reverse engineering MQA would present that much of a challenge to even a moderately talented engineer, especially not if they have an unencoded version and an encoded version to compare from. More tedious than actually difficult. 

 

Perhaps true but that still only gives you the lossy MQA version.

[Paul R]

26 minutes ago, firedog said:

I really don’t understand why you are making this complicated.

Tidal doesn’t use the word lossless. They say 24/96 and “master quality”, which is a meaningless marketing term designed to obfuscate.. The 24/96 is a lossy compression scheme, MQA. It’s fake 24\96.  Tidal is simply lying. Today we call it marketing. 
Not a tough call at all. 

 

Probably right Danny- I still think that the Tidal crap -  "anauthenticated and unbroken" version -  should mean exactly that, and that they are complicit with any deceit that MQA may or may not be pulling. 

 

 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

6 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

Perhaps true but that still only gives you the lossy MQA version.

So true. Put in work to get crap. 

[Paul R]

7 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

Perhaps true but that still only gives you the lossy MQA version.

 

That's the point though - you could still play what you purchased.  

 

-Paul 

[Paul R]

4 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

So true. Put in work to get crap. 

 

True, but I think I would put up with the slight crap in 24/96K, if the crap is merely what Mani found. 

 

-IF-  (big if here) it meant I had access to more and better quality recordings. The failure to follow through with that is what really annoys me about MQA. I can live with some compromises, if I get better and more music. 

 

I suppose I should be grateful they are failing at that, it sure puts less of a dent in the music budget! 

 

-Paul 

 

[mansr]

26 minutes ago, Paul R said:

 You certainly can. A library with check-in and check-out, for instance. 

You're not making any sense.

 

26 minutes ago, Paul R said:

I seriously doubt reverse engineering MQA would present that much of a challenge to even a moderately talented engineer, especially not if they have an unencoded version and an encoded version to compare from. More tedious than actually difficult.

It's a fuckload of work, especially getting every little corner case right. And even if you do perfect it, you're still on the hook for patent infringement, possibly copyright too.

[mansr]

16 minutes ago, Paul R said:

That's the point though - you could still play what you purchased.

Not legally.

[Paul R]

1 minute ago, mansr said:

You're not making any sense.

Then think about it some more. It makes perfect sense. 

 

1 minute ago, mansr said:

 

It's a fuckload of work, especially getting every little corner case right. And even if you do perfect it, you're still on the hook for patent infringement, possibly copyright too.

 

Not if the patent owner is out of business and there is justification to recover investment. Anything worth doing is hard work, but this isn't that heavy duty of a chore, and there are a lot of people that would be invested in seeing it done. 

 

-Paul 

 

[mansr]

3 minutes ago, Paul R said:

Not if the patent owner is out of business and there is justification to recover investment.

Patents don't expire when the owner goes out of business. They get sold to a patent troll in the Eastern District of Texas.

[KeenObserver]

How about this:  Skip MQA altogether!  Then all that is moot.

[MikeyFresh]

1 hour ago, firedog said:

Not a tough call at all. 

 

No it's not, nor this:

 

6 minutes ago, KeenObserver said:

Skip MQA altogether!

 

[FredericV]

7 hours ago, KeenObserver said:

Every time I log back on it is the same circular BS over and over again.

 

It's like a Monte Python skit:

 

MQA is lossless

No it's not

Yes it is

No it's not

It's perceptually lossless

What?

Look, there's bigfoot!

 

The MQA shills must figure people will just get sick of it and say:  "All right! Just take all my money and give me the crippled recordings!  Just shut up"!

 

There comes a moment you win the discussion, and some hours/days/weeks later they throw that already debunked agument back in the discussion. It shows they are dogmatic and do not learn, even if they were debunked.

Keep stirring in the same soup. Sooner or later it's going to get very dull. Maybe that's the endgoal. Make the discussion so dull members are running away or fall for the GO LISTEN argument. Someone is getting paid to make it dull and keep spreading already debunked lies here and in other fora, or some other checkboxes tick which we are no longer allowed to mention.
 

[manisandher]

7 hours ago, Paul R said:

For what it is worth, very nice analysis.

 

Thanks.

 

7 hours ago, Paul R said:

I sure hope you have your lead pants on.

 

Haha. It's crazy that putting forward objective evidence and asking genuine questions based on that evidence can still get people riled up.

 

Such is the world in which we live.

 

Mani.

[Paul R]

1 hour ago, FredericV said:

 

There comes a moment you win the discussion, and some hours/days/weeks later they throw that already debunked agument back in the discussion. It shows they are dogmatic and do not learn, even if they were debunked.

Keep stirring in the same soup. Sooner or later it's going to get very dull. Maybe that's the endgoal. Make the discussion so dull members are running away or fall for the GO LISTEN argument. Someone is getting paid to make it dull and keep spreading already debunked lies here and in other fora, or some other checkboxes tick which we are no longer allowed to mention.
 

Or from another point of view, there comes a moment when people have been bullied into being quiet. Sometimes on both sides of an argument. 

 

It is a puzzle to me why Chris is allowing such bad behavior, but this is his house and we all play by his rules, regardless of whether or not we agree with him. Everyone always has the option to go somewhere else or start their own forum. 

 

In this hobby, there is only one golden rule, and that is for each person to listen and decide for themselves.

 

The truth, whatever it may be, will always come out. 

 

-Paul 

 

 

 

[gdpr]

1 hour ago, Paul R said:

Or from another point of view, there comes a moment when people have been bullied into being quiet. Sometimes on both sides of an argument. 

 

It is a puzzle to me why Chris is allowing such bad behavior, but this is his house and we all play by his rules, regardless of whether or not we agree with him. Everyone always has the option to go somewhere else or start their own forum. 

 

In this hobby, there is only one golden rule, and that is for each person to listen and decide for themselves.

 

The truth, whatever it may be, will always come out. 

 

-Paul 

 

 

 

Only if does not have a 'serious' impact, directly or indirectly on other people.

 

If I play my music so loud that my  neighbours are bothered because they cannot sleep, they rightfully can ask me to turn the volume down.

I hope you can translate this statement to MQA yourself.

 

Dirk