The forthcoming Sony BDP-S550 is certainly a breakthrough product that will provide a hardware platform that might spur the release of Blu-ray music titles from specialty labels.
I agree that the professional SACD community (record companies releasing SACD) should turn their attention to Blu-ray. Blu-ray holds more long-term promise, and has the potential for mass-market acceptance.
I think we’ll see more artists follow Neil Young’s lead in releasing their back catalogs in Blu-ray. The format and technology infrastructure are there to deliver high-res music titles on Blu-ray. In addition to offering better sound quality, Blu-ray has the advantage (from the artist’s viewpoint) of not being easily transmitted through file-sharing.
The music industry doesn’t believe that the mass market will care about a higher-quality audio carrier. They don’t want to sink a lot of money into establishing a new format (and all that it entails, from manufacturing to marketing to retailing) that they think will occupy only a niche at best, and would perhaps be irrelevant in the age of downloads.
By Robert Harley
My older brother Stephen introduced me to music when I was about 12 years old. Stephen was a prodigious musical talent (he went on to get a degree in Composition) who generously shared his records and passion for music with his little brother.
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