Blu-Spec CD

Sony is planning to create a new optical disc format for music based on Blu-Ray technology that is compatible with traditional CD players but provides expanded quality and features on Blu-Spec capable players. This format is extremely reminiscent of SACD, which was a music optical disc format that used DVD disc technology to provide higher quality and extra features on SACD capable players, while providing a hybrid CD compatibility so that audio discs would work on regular CD players as well.

This is very surprising for two reasons: Obviously, music has been moving away from physical media and towards Internet distribution and secondly, SACD was mostly a disappointment which even Sony seems to have deemphasized (even new PS3 units won’t play SACD content outside of the CD compatibility mode).

I don’t see many users moving back to optical discs for music storage, but there’s one thing that would make this a very cool development: lack of DRM and full rip/burn support. There are still a few things missing from existing music download stores that this could fill:

• High Quality: Supposedly everyone is completely satisfied with standard .mp3 quality. I’m not. And beyond merely ripping CDs with a higher bitrate compression, I’d like to see genuinely higher quality source audio.
• Multi-Channel: I’d like to be able to buy multi-channel (surround sound) electronica music.
• Extras: I’d like my digital music data to come with all the extras: name+genre tags, lyrics, album artwork, and other bonus feature content.
• Album Format: Does all audio have to be delivered in 70 minute albums broken up into 3-5 minute tracks? How about multi-hour productions such as operas or electronica landscapes?

SACD (and DVD-A) had most of the above, but they killed it by successfully preventing users from ripping/burning and using the massive convenience of digital music jukebox technologies. If a new format gave us all the benefits of SACD and more and gave us the full flexibility and freedom of moving that content across devices, and got full support from the recording industry, then this could be a big development.

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