MOTM

In a message dated 8/15/01 9:29:32 AM Central Daylight Time, 
ken.tkacs@... writes:

> Sad that we have so much technology in this day & age and still we spend our
>  time listening to MP3s, compressed radio, VHS tape and MPEG video, and,
>  well, music that doesn't have synthesizers in it. It's criminal.

 Yep! (and...)

 I just bought a DVD-Audio (a high quality mainly-music format) player that 
has the ability to play fully uncompressed audio up to 192khz, 24 bit, *and* 
full freq. range capability on ALL channels. 

 Well, the kicker is that software is slow to be released since the powers 
that be are *still* grumbling about how to embed the copy protection into the 
audio channels(!) to where it won't be too noticeable sound wise. DVD-Audio 
players are just a little useless if there is no software to use with it!

 Isn't it just a little counter productive to release the highest quality 
audio playback format EVER to exist and then compromise it's sound to 
hopefully avoid illegal duplication?? Didn't they learn twice before from 
videotapes, and DAT?? DAT's consumer introduction was delayed two years into 
the US because of copy protection red tape.  Ahh well.... I guess it'll leave 
me more money to spend on MOTM gear! 

 Sorry about the rant, (had to blow off some steam) : )
   Andrew

I offer immediate relief:

Sorry to sound like a broken record, but!

go to www.rrich.com

and order his 7 HOUR DVD called 'Somnium'. This is actualy a 'normal' DVD
with no video. All the
bits are audio! Plays for 7 straight hours. Nice, quiet music.

He was going to release it as a true DVD-A disc, but the very problems you
describe prevented that.

BTW: there is a Perl script, only 7 lines of code, that hacks DVD video copy
protection in this month's Wired magazine.
Reminds me of Lotus spending 3 million dollars in 1980 to 'copy protect'
Lotus 1-2-3 by writing on a floppy track 41
(floppies normally write on tracks 0 to 39). A sharped-eyed
engineer/customer wondered why his floopy drive seeked past the servo stop
and got out the logic analyzer. Attaching it to the NEC 765 FD IC, he
figured out in 10 minutes
what it was doing and posted it to Usenet. Lotus' copy protection was hacked
as a simple TSR in DOS mimiced the
765. Elapsed time from giant NYC press conference, full-page ads in Wall
Street Journal, etc to hack: 2 days!.
The day the hack was posted, Mitch Kapor fired his entire 66-man engineering
department en masse.

Paul S.