Warner to Sell Music on DVD

Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "Warner Music is planning an aggressive attempt to replace the CD by pushing consumers to buy their music on specially outfitted DVDs, the Wall Street Journal reports. It's music to the ears of some struggling retailers who seek a new physical product to re-capture some of the online (and file-sharing) market. 'As a retailer I'm going to be holding on desperately for any compelling physical product,' said Eric Levin, who owns two independent stores called Criminal Records in the Atlanta area. 'So the introduction of a new format...is cause for excitement.' More from the article: 'But there are some stumbling blocks that may discourage consumers from embracing DVD albums. The new discs would not play on normal CD players, meaning consumers could not simply pop their new discs into their car stereos or other players. And users would not be able to copy the main audio mix onto their computers. On the proposed DVD album, the main audio mix is to be protected by the same software that already protects the content on normal DVDs.'"

5 years late

[jugglerjon]

I remember wanting something like this 5 years ago when it was difficult to have a portable music source that had more then an hour or so of content. Now I can't see anyone adopting this technology because it's not better then what we already have.

Cant rip to computer?

[gravis777]

They are going to use CSS to protect audio? Wasn't it cracked like 8 years ago? So, in other words, the format is not out yet, yet the DRM on it has already been cracked? I like this.

Wait, let me get this straight

[grasshoppa]

So this new and exciting product will

1) Not play on CD players ( given it's a dvd and all )
2) Not be copyable to a computer ( given the same dvd DRM already in place. Stop snickering in the back )

So their target audience must be...uh...hmm.

The young and the gullible? But I don't think they'd be willing to drop this kind of scratch on a whole new music infrastructure ( car, home, portable ). So make that the young, gullible with rich parents.

A remarkably small subset. It would seem these folks are taking a page out of Sony's play book when promoting new formats.

Yep. gonna fail...

[Churla]

The only way to make DVD's viable as a music platform IMHO would be to increase the amount of real content (i.e. music) which was on the thing.

As someone mentioned, you can cram up to 40 albums on a DVD without even getting to the higher capacity setups.

Of course studios would never do this because then you could buy , for instance, every Beatles album on one dvd. PERIOD. Either they would have to charge both arms and a leg for it (how much is the Beatles CD collection complete again?) which people wouldn't normally pay in one drop. Or they'd have to admit that larger collections of media aren't proportionally worth more than single new albums.

Not to mention several artists would struggle to put together a DVD worth of real solid content without videos.

Now, on the other hand a DVDA car stereo which could play DVD's I cram full of music? I'm on that. But easier to just get a 30g ipod with a car hookup. So no reason to push that technology either.

End result, music companies are struggling because they don't want to accept that the consumer is deciding the path of the industry and they aren't.

DVD-Audio? SACD?

[norminator]

So basically the audio quality will be somewhere between CD and DVD-Audio quality (so it's less good than a product which has, for the most part, been a complete failure among the general music purchasing population), but we're promised the possibility of extra features, like pre-ripped, iTunes compatible tracks (which wouldn't work with non-iPod players) and ringtones (WOW! we should be so lucky to get annoying ringtones with our music!) and videos which are probably available elsewhere on the internet anyhow.

No Thanks.

Format wars

[zoeblade]

OK, so no one's buying SACDs or DVD-As. Bearing in mind that DVD-As can store sound in an uncompressed or losslessly compressed format, and DVD videos store it in a lossy format, why would someone who hasn't bought a DVD-A buy music on a DVD video, without as much video footage as a DVD video showing a concert recording?

Warner Brothers should just face it: two formats are already trying to outdo CDs, and both are failing. This one will also fail. Most people don't want a better sounding format - CDs are adequate. If anything, MP3 sharing as proven that what people want is convenience, the kind you can't get from a physical disc.

Personally, I'll stick to true CDs. They have no "digital restriction management" as RMS fondly calls it, and you can still sell them second hand.

Re:DRM yadda yadda...

[MrSquirrel]

I wish $5 CDs would happen. If the price of an album of music was 5 dollars, I would buy music again... as it is, I probably have about $20 to spend on "fun" per week (I'm a poor college student) -- current CD prices steer me clear of buying music (except from local bands) because I could only buy 1 per week and that would be my only source of fun. I can easily get the music from those CDs by clicking a button online that says "download torrent"... and that still leaves me with my $20 to spend on other sources of fun.

I justify all my purchases on how much happiness it will bring me and for how long versus its cost: with CDs being almost 20 bucks after tax, I cannot justify this -- I make $10 an hour (University Helpdesk, crappy pay) and most CDs have less than an hour of music -- so two hours of work to get less than an hour of pleasure... pleasure that is only so-so... it's hard to justify that. I already have a lot of music, does that new CD from "Stabby McStabStab" really mean that much to me?

If CDs were $5, I would easily be able to justify spending my money on them: "it's a half hour of work for 45 minutes of rockin' good tunes!" plus I wouldn't shy away from buying CDs due to "duds" -- so what if I bought one $5 CD that royally sucked; I also bought three really amazing ones.

Oh well, it's not as if the recording industry dinosaurs are smart. Hopefully they'll be extinct soon.

Re:BZZT! Wrong Answer!

[nasch]

Kind of randomly picked from among the several dozen posts saying this same thing to reply to. As I thought about this, I realized it's very likely the record labels are planning to stop producing CDs, period. They will only offer DRM-ed music, so that they have the option of sueing anybody who exercizes their fair use rights which are denied them by the DMCA. This is something that could convince me to become a pirate.

Re:protected?

[LunaticTippy]

I ran into a DVD that wouldn't rip. Sony, naturally. I had to install a few apps and it wound up taking about an hour. Very labor-intensive and flaky process. It reminded me of old days, copying protected disks on my commodore 64. It's the same method, too. Bad sectors on the disc.

It was Capote and I'll never buy a Sony DVD again.

Re:DRM yadda yadda...

[klausboop]

I don't direct this at MrSquirrel particularly, but those with MrSquirrel's attitude in general. Given the statement "If this $20 CD were only $5, I could justify buying it instead of getting it without paying for it," does it follow that "If this $15,000 car were only $1,000, I could justify buying it instead of getting it without paying for it." Or, "If this $1.79 loaf of bread were only $.50, I could justify buying it instead of getting it without paying for it." Or to be less tangible, "If the artist only charged $1000 instead of $100,000 to use their song in my movie or commercial, I could justify buying the licensing rights but instead will use it without paying for it." I recognize that argument by analogy has its pitfalls, but don't these phrases all fundamentally say, "this is too expensive, so I'm just going to take it without paying for it."

I think DRM stinks as much or more than anybody, and vehemently hate the DMCA as it supresses free speech and other civil liberties. Plus, our copyright system is broken and fair use is under attack. Music has become a commodity both to the labels and the listeners. Loads of problems. But how about just not having something that you can't afford? Why is it OK to take something for sale without paying for it? Is downloading music for free from P2P a form of civil disobedience or protest or something? Bah.

To the music DVD issue: I don't know if I'll buy one. I like the DualDisc because I can play it in my regular CD player and access enhanced home theater content there. I love Hybrid SACD like Dark Side of the Moon and the Rolling Stones catalog because it has fewer compatibility issues than DualDisc. I also am happy to pay an extra $4 or $5 for a package like the Flaming Lips surround edition of The Soft Bulletin: a double-disc package containing the album on a plain CD and another disc that's a DVD/DVD Audio with the (fantastic) surround mix + video bonuses. I'll send my message to the labels by continuing to purchase those formats and not buying a DVD-only platter.

Re:Criminal Records

[mypalmike]

I live just down the street from Criminal Records. It's right next to Savage Pizza. Really. It's a very cool independent shop. They know their music. Sadly, I don't think their market is going to be saved by a new physical format.

I would actually buy this. If...

[MiraclePhil]

If the "main-audio" tracks are high-quality DVD-Audio tracks (5.1 surround sound, PCM), playable on any player capable of playing the current format DVD-Audio discs (my Acura has a DVD-Audio player in it). If the "pre-ripped" tracks are DRM-free, MP3, "Lower quality" would basically mean that is it a 2-channel version of the music, the bit rate should still be of higher quality (I'd accept 128K, but higher is better, and a lossless format would be better). The sound difference between CD and DVD-audio is incredible, so you'd be getting a better version of the album, and with the ripped tracks it would be easy to burn a normal audio CD to play in the plain vanilla CD players we all have.

DualDisc is Underused

[DavidD_CA]

From TFA:

...and most recently DualDisc, which plays like a CD on one side and like a DVD on the other. Warner ... But the capacity of both the CD and DVD sides of DualDiscs is limited compared to normal CDs and DVDs. In contrast, the storage capacity of the planned Warner DVDs is up to four times what can be held on the DVD side of a DualDisc.

It's a shame that there isn't more use of DualDisc. I thought it was a very cool idea. Unlike this proposed new format, the "music" side of a DualDisc works in any CD player. I saw it as an added bonus that you'd get a few videos and other junk if you popped it into your DVD or computer.

The notion, however, that there isn't enough storage capacity is lame. I've never seen more than a handful of low-resolution videos (at 3-5 minutes each) on a DualDisc. Today they're probably only using 25% of the capacity offered. If they have 4x as much room on the new format, how will that change anything?