Intended for the computer market, Sony's new system employs a shorter track pitch and a minimal pit length to increase the capacity of the discs from 650MB (MegaBytes) to 1.3GB (GigaBytes). Although both varieties of disc use a standard 780nm (nanometer) wavelength laser, the numerical aperture…
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For technophiles, DVD is the current hot ticket. The compact disc is far from dead, however. The 20-year-old format has been given a new lease on life by Sony Corporation, which in early July announced the development of a new technique that will double the data-storage capacity of recordable CDs.
It's a sobering thought: it was the computer manufacturers and software developers, not the consumer electronics industry, who enabled the biggest audio format since the CD to become popular. The format, which hasn't done much to impress audiophiles, but has greatly enhanced the portability of music, is MP3 and CE manufacturers are only now trying to catch up with products that take advantage of its widespread use.
High-resolution audio is clearly having a tough time catching fire via the normal consumer electronics channels, so perhaps a boost from the computer industry might help in a…
Will the threat of lawsuits have any effect on the file-sharing phenomenon? The music industry hopes and prays that it will. As of July 19, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) had sought and obtained "at least 871 federal subpoenas against computer users . . . with 75 new subpoenas being approved each day," according to an Associated Press report.
Defendants include individuals known only by their screen names, some university and college network administrators, and Internet service providers such as Verizon Communications, Inc. and Comcast Cable Communications, Inc.…
In an "increasingly complicated and competitive media environment," public broadcasting intends to be there. So declared the Corporation for Public Broadcasting on March 30, when it announced an almost $2 million investment in projects for National Public Radio and Public Interactive. CPB has long held the intellectual high ground in broadcasting, and its new investments are intended to continue that tradition. The goal of the program is to create "new content and services which will broaden the public square of ideas and civic discourse," according to a corporate press release.
"…
Wireless local audio/video networks and surround sound systems have long been one of the electronics industry's holy grails, given the fact that a major cost in installing home theaters or whole-house audio systems is the wiring. The market potential is so great that major chipmakers have invested enormous amounts of research in developing products that would enable easy placement of audio and video systems anywhere in a home without the need for dedicated wiring.
Cirrus Logic is one such company. Cirrus has promoted wireless protocols such as "Whitecap2" and "802.11e" as standards for…
Warner Music Group rebounds: WMG announced Thursday August 19 that it was near completion of a major corporate restructuring, a move expected to save as much as $250 million annually. WMG had originally projected savings of $60 million per year. Earlier this year, the company was acquired by an investment consortium led by Edgar Bronfman, Jr., scion of the Seagram family of Montreal and former chief of Universal Music.
Bronfman described the new WMG as a "lean and flexible music company." WMG has shed approximately 1000 jobs, including several top executive positions since being spun off…
One of the music industry's "big five" will soon begin offering its wares as digital downloads. Seagram, Ltd. chief executive Edgar Bronfman, speaking on Friday, March 3 at the Jupiter Consumer Online forum in New York, said his Universal Music Group will start selling music online this spring.
Seagram's CEO sees the Internet as the panacea for anything that might ail the music industry—despite last year's record sales, only a tiny fraction of which took place over the Net. "We need to stop thinking about selling round things," Bronfman stated. "In the future, we'll be selling songs,…
Satellite radio may become one of the most successful communications formats ever launched, according to predictions from market research and analysis company The Yankee Group. A new report suggests that satellite radio will take off the way cable TV did back in the 1970s; the result may create permanent changes in the radio industry.
Among predictions in "Satellite Radio: A New Star on Broadcasting's Horizon" are estimates of over one million receivers installed only one year after the format launches. The Yankee Group claims that 21 million receivers will be in place by the end of five…
From the September 2004 issue, Art Dudley gets his mitts on the Spendor S5e loudspeaker, remarking, "I'm never more conservative than when the subject turns to home audio . . . . Give me thin-walled hardwood cabinets, obsolete tweeters, and handmade polypropylene woofers . . . ."
Robert J. Reina finds magic with the Audes Bravo loudspeaker. As Reina reports, "I believe that any good speaker needs to get the midrange right. The Bravo did so in spades." And at $999/pair!
Next, Michael Fremer sets up the Rockport Technologies Merak II loudspeaker & Sheritan II subwoofer in his…
Lexington, KY–based Thiel Audio has announced a new line of SmartSub subwoofers, "designed as the ultimate solution for bass management and reproduction in home theater and music sound systems." The line includes the SS1, SS2, SS3, and SS4 subwoofers, the SmartSub Integrator, and the PX02 and PX05 Passive Crossovers, a group of products said "to offer the most seamless and realistic low frequency reproduction possible." Company president Kathy Gornik describes the new line as "the world's first intelligent subwoofers."
Thiel claims that the SmartSub Integrator, an active electronic device…