CharlyD
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Niel Young releases anthology on Blu-Ray
Elk
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This is an interesting development. I know next to nothing about Blu-Ray but I am pleased that someone is taking advantage of video' high-definition capability.

Sadly, regular DVD offers 24/96 in its spec - but few producers employ it. Maybe it will be different with Blu-ray as there is so much more bandwidth available with this format.

mrlowry
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My favorite quotes of the article.

"We are trying to give them quality whether they want it or not."

"Putting on a headphone and listening to MP3 is like hell,"

Hopefully, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin will do projects like this.

BillB
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Neil's last album "Living with War" has a CD, plus a music only DVD recorded at 24/96. Nice sound! The DVD does have some still photos showing during the music, but it's not a video. I turn off the TV while it plays, to get rid of the tv noise.

Elk
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Really?! Very cool!

rvance
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Neil Young was an early and enthusiastic adopter of DVD-Audio and inspired my foray into this medium back in 2000. Whether in 2 channel, 24 bit/192khz or 5.1 24/96 it sounds awesome when remastered correctly. Now it's dying/dead and Blu-Ray will try to revive the hi-rez market. Good luck!

bifcake
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I was reading this month's TAS (partly because I haven't received May's Stereophile issue and I was told to wait until May 6 for the issue to arrive, which it never did, but that's another story) and in their coverage of one of the shows (I think it's CES. The one with Vienna rooms and other such nonsense) they mentioned that Blue Ray was conspicuously absent from high end audio. Their feeling is that the future of audio is in the downloads/hard drive/music servers not in the physical media anymore. I wonder if that's really the case. High end is notoriously slow in adopting to changing market conditions and bad at forecasting, so they may have it wrong this time as well, who knows?

CharlyD
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I think significant releases like this Niel Young anthology will be very well-received by the marketplace. I sure want it. Blu-ray systems (players, receivers, speakers) with the ability to play hi-rez audio content will become commonplace. A/V processors and receivers that include the DTS and Dolby codecs for hi-rez audio are all the rage in home theater forums. Blu-ray players are predicted to be one of the biggest sellers in the CE markeplace over the next few years. To paraphrase Niel, consumers will have hi-rez playback systems (at least the ability to play hi-rez audio) whether they want them or not.

On the other hand, I would expect that audiophiles (and other music lovers) would also appreciate the ability to purchase a single tracks of hi-rez music, organize tracks into playlists and all those other features possible in the download/server/player architecture. Blu-ray, of course, doesn't fit this model. I'm waiting for some vendor to produce a box that supports this capability and that can be easily integrated into a HT system. And NO, I don't feel that a home theater PC falls into this category.

Anybody have any idea how content can be added to the menu of a Blu-ray disk and played as shown in the video? The PS3 has a hard drive, but this is not a standard feature on other Blu-ray players. Niel seems to be doing quite a sales pitch on PS3. Perhaps this feature is only supported in the PS3.

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Blu Ray schmu ray, the real question is, "Will it be released on vinyl?"

Neil on Blu Ray may be enough to get me thinking of buying some sort of playback gear to hear it!

Will a "regular" DVD-A player play the Neil package?

CharlyD
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Quote:
Blu Ray schmu ray, the real question is, "Will it be released on vinyl?"


That would be a rather large box of many disks.

Quote:
Will a "regular" DVD-A player play the Neil package?


Nope. It would have to be a new Blu-ray player (or PS3)probably connected to a new processor/receiver with HDMI ins and outs. This won't be cheap - dammit.

rvance
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Quote:
Blu Ray schmu ray, the real question is, "Will it be released on vinyl?"

Neil on Blu Ray may be enough to get me thinking of buying some sort of playback gear to hear it!

Will a "regular" DVD-A player play the Neil package?

I don't think the disc will be encoded with additional info readable by a regular dvd player or dvd-a capable player- the lesser resolution quality would be counter-productive- but I have been wrong before. I think the intent is to make it "state of the art," and fully interactive during playback. Hell, if you don't have the right player and cable (HDMI, ver. 1.3a) you won't get the maximum audio resolution possible, so it won't be as truly "hi-def" as it could be. Even HDMI ver. 1.1 and 1.2 presents roadblocks with otherwise compatible equipment. The 5.1 and/or 7.1 channel analog outputs are great for SACD and DVD-A, but not optimum for Blu-Ray as I understand it- too much conversion. It gets very complicated and I'm no KBK or JV, so I'll be fumbling with my pedestrian brain and medium hi-rez formats for a while.

bifcake
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Quote:
It gets very complicated and I'm no KBK or JV, so I'll be fumbling with my pedestrian brain and medium hi-rez formats for a while.

Don't feel bad, remember that we are not all grandiose experts in the organization of flowering prose. We are only human.

Embrace your humanity.

CECE
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Jan V. "expert"......hehehehehehe. Single driver, high THD tube...now, that's realism. The best thing for Blu-Ray hi rez. Cus' we all now understand that a single driver midrange, is the only way to get it. And KBK, has the "secrets" no one can hear about. Cus' patents don't work for them. They only need one more member to be the 3 stooges......and I AIN'T applying.

rvance
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Thanks for the reassuring words, guys. I didn't mean that as an attack on their hi-fi chops- they both have some great audio insights. And I think Buddha's Lowthers-with-psychedelic-light-array are transcendantly pure audio vehicles, DUP- so you kind of borrowed my sarcasm for your own nefarious agenda . I was just reeling from days of immersion in the "Perception" thread, where the attempts to illuminate simple concepts turned into the clash of the ego titans. Forgive my lapse.

Neil Young is a true seeker of sublime truth! God bless him.

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