Artikel über Hires, New York Times, 13.3.03

New York Times
March 13, 2003
Beyond the CD: A Bid to Burnish Records' Sheen
By WILSON ROTHMAN


IN the age of online music, when any 15-year-old with a modem can download the complete works of Eminem, some listeners may well have bought their last shiny silver disc. After a 10 percent plunge in CD sales last year, the record industry is desperately trying to find a way to take its business online - and make it pay.

But a second front is developing in the music counterrevolution, with a different set of weapons aimed at a different kind of target. The strategy is to keep listeners - especially older, more affluent ones - buying discs, and making what is on them richer in sound and appeal.

The discs in question are not in the 20-year-old CD format but in two more advanced forms: SACD (for super audio compact disc) and DVD-Audio. Both contain music remastered in high-resolution digital audio, often in cinematic surround sound, like DVD movies. Although the two formats have been around for several years, such discs were priced much higher than normal CD's and tucked into specialty racks found only in larger record shops. Figuring out what machines could play them has generally been confusing, or at least obscure.

But now the record industry is giving new priority to these feature-rich audio discs. Having lowered their prices to typical CD levels, the labels are ramping up re-releases of classic albums, and planning releases of new albums in those formats. On March 24, for example, EMI's Capitol label is reissuing Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" on SACD.

Hardware makers, meanwhile, are lowering prices on players and home theater systems, and are planning to put the format into cars and portable players.

"In 2003 you'll see EMI and other music companies experiment aggressively across a range of platforms," said John Rose, executive vice president of EMI Recorded Music. "This is going to be a very important year."

In short, the record industry is looking for the kind of silver bullet that Hollywood found in DVD's. "The movie industry has done a brilliant job in bringing real value back to movies," says John Trickett, chairman of the 5.1 Entertainment DVD-Audio production company and record labels. "Now it's time for the music industry to bring it back to music."

With that mission in mind, record companies are coming at consumers with up to three new features: high-resolution audio, multichannel capability (better known as surround sound), and in the case of DVD-Audio, TV-based multimedia content. So far much of the material has been geared toward audiophiles and baby boomers, with a range of classical music as well as classic rock titles from artists like the Police, the Eagles, Steely Dan and Creedence Clearwater Revival.

The presumption is that before DVD-Audio or SACD can entice users of tune-swapping communes like KaZaA, it has to be sold to those who not only still pay for music but are also willing to pay to enhance their listening experience beyond that of a typical CD.

That audience is more inclined to embrace new hardware, which for both SACD and DVD-Audio is typically a DVD player with an additional chipset and six outputs for surround sound, or in many cases, a specially designed "home theater in a box" system. What the industry gets in return, besides the consumer's money, is the peace of mind that comes with the latest in digital content security: most experts agree that neither format's content will be pirated anytime soon.

Make no mistake, there is a war going on between DVD-Audio and SACD. Sony and Philips, co-inventors of the original CD, created SACD primarily as a platform for stereo and multichannel music, with a high-resolution technology geared at recreating the fluidity and frequency response of analog sound. Most SACD's on the market have a hybrid CD layer, meaning that they play CD-quality audio in regular CD players and high-res audio in SACD players. (While the SACD platform supports multimedia content, no current SACD's carry onscreen graphics or video.)

DVD-Audio, introduced by Panasonic, Toshiba and the other patent holders in the DVD Forum, is a music-centered variation on the standard DVD, usually containing a high-resolution multichannel mix of the album and additional content like lyrics, photos, band interviews and music videos. You need a DVD-Audio-capable player to take advantage of its high-resolution tracks, but any DVD player can read the video content and play a low-resolution stereo mix of the music.

Stuart Robinson, editor of HighFidelityReview.com, said he believed that both formats were of equally high quality, a leap beyond CD audio.

"Both of them sound amazing," Mr. Robinson said. "Now what's important is the quality of music on the format, and not the format itself." High-resolution audio alone may not make much of a difference to the average consumer, however. "I'm not sure how many people are going to appreciate the differences between Dolby Digital and high-resolution DVD-Audio," he said, "but everybody can tell the difference between stereo and multichannel."

Everybody who has heard it, that is. Sales figures are still quite low: for every 2,000 CD's sold in the United States last year, only one DVD-Audio disc went out the door. Nielsen SoundScan reports that just over 300,000 DVD-Audio discs were sold last year, nearly triple the previous year's total but a far cry from the 650 million CD's sold. SoundScan lumps SACD's in with CD's because of the backward compatibility, so it is harder to estimate their sales figures. (This will change within six months.) However, it is safe to say that sales exceeded one million in 2002, owing largely to Abkco Records' release of 22 remastered Rolling Stones albums on hybrid stereo SACD last August.

While most of the people buying the disc had no idea that it was anything more than a restoration of the original master tapes, SACD proponents chalked it up as a major market-share victory.

"Abkco's launch of the 22 albums thankfully triggered similar ideas with other labels," says David Kawakami, director of the SACD Project for Sony Corporation. "Record labels just need to understand, like Abkco does, that hybrid SACD can be sold like any CD." In May, Sony Music will be rolling out 15 classic Bob Dylan albums in hybrid format, remastered in stereo for both CD and SACD players. And by the end of the year, Universal Music Group will have released hybrid albums by the Police, Steely Dan, Johnny Cash and Peter Gabriel.

"It's going to take a long time before the world's billion CD players are replaced totally by SACD players," Mr. Kawakami said. "Certainly when that happens, however, record companies will have the option to go to high-res only. Hybrid SACD is a perfect transitional product."

By this summer, the DVD-Audio camp will introduce its own half-CD half-DVD. Industry executives confirm that owing to the specifications of most DVD players already in homes, the initial run will be a dual-sided disc, much like the DVD movies with wide-screen on one side and standard view on the other.

This year, as competition within the formats heats up, the number of available titles will grow into the thousands for each, and will no longer just include audiophile favorites and baby boomer classics.

"Previously, we've had to look at the older demographic, with its disposable income," said Robin Hurley, vice president of Warner Strategic Marketing, which is in charge of Warner Music Group's DVD-Audio back-catalog releases. "My feeling now is that it's irrelevant. DVD is for youth, and DVD-Audio will be the next wave." The goal for many labels is to release an SACD or DVD-Audio at the same time the CD comes out; Warner expects new Linkin Park and Madonna DVD-Audio versions to ship alongside new CD's this year and at a similar price.

While the SACD had a head start in development and in selling the more compatible hybrids, the DVD-Audio group has been quicker at moving its technology outside of the living room. Last fall, Creative Labs introduced the Audigy 2 soundcard, which combines with the PC's DVD-ROM drive and 5.1 speaker system to create an ad hoc DVD-Audio player. The next stop for both platforms will be the car.

"When I first heard surround sound, I said, the perfect environment is in the car," says Elliot Sheiner, a Grammy-winning mixing engineer who is currently at work on surround-sound versions of both the Steely Dan and REM catalogs. "You get DVD-Audio in the car, and people listen to surround sound for the first time, they will want it in their home."

Still, the multichannel content and security requirements of DVD-Audio and SACD make it a physical challenge for aftermarket hardware makers. Multichannel tracks require not just stereo's Left and Right, but six discrete speakers: four "satellites," a subwoofer, and the all-important center channel. Only a handful of cars, including models from Cadillac, Mercedes-Benz and Volvo, have been designed with room on the dashboard for that center speaker.

For DVD-Audio, the biggest news will come from the automakers themselves, possibly as early as the New York Auto Show in April. Industry executives say that Detroit's Big Three are all gearing up to launch DVD-Audio as an option, and it may become standard in some luxury cars by the fall.

The third domain deemed crucial to the success of either platform remains relatively unexplored. The only "portable" on the market is a DVD-video and audio player from Panasonic, but it was not designed for music-only playback, and you cannot really wear it on your hip when you go jogging. No one has announced a specialized high-resolution audio-only portable, but the SACD group at least has an excuse, since SACD hybrids play in portable CD players. (The SACD camp begrudgingly acknowledges that the hybrid CD layer can also be ripped into MP3 format for use with other portable players.)

Perhaps DVD-Audio and SACD are not yet meant for joggers, for whom sound quality takes a back seat to skip protection and feather weight. Some audiophiles eye the MP3-playing masses with suspicion, puzzled as to the enjoyment that can be had from less-than-CD-quality sound. Although even the record companies are hung on the quality judgment, they all agree that boring old stereo may be the problem.

Surely, sitting in the middle of an audio hologram of "Roxanne" or "Hotel California" is more interesting than hearing those tunes emanate for the umpteenth time from a pair of speakers. Perhaps that, and some "bonus material" that the movie industry uses to impress shoppers, will help turn music lovers back on to the shiny silver disc.