MAJORS MOVING TO DVD? October 10 2000 dotmusic.com Could DVD Audio be the answer to the piracy issue? On November 7, Warner Music will become the first major label to release albums in the new DVD Audio format. About ten discs are being offered, from Natalie Merchant's "Tigerlily" to the Stone Temple Pilots' "Core". Also on the list is Emerson, Lake and Palmer's "Brain Salad Surgery" and a number of classical discs including Nikolaus Harnoncourt's "Johann Strauss in Berlin". DVD Audio provides a number of benefits to the music fan, most based around the fact that a DVD disc can hold significantly more information than a CD. Sound quality is higher (24 bit as opposed to the 16 bit CD) and additional audio tracks can be added, including surround sound mixes. Playing time is also far longer (which is particularly relevant for those lengthier classical pieces) and additional goodies such as biographies and lyrics can be thrown in. What's more, the Warner DVDs will be backwards-compatible, meaning that they will play both on new DVD Audio players and older standard DVD machines. But in an age of Napster-abetted Internet music sharing, DVD could be a record company's dream come true. In many ways, the major labels' Internet piracy problem originated with the CD- which provides a digital original from which people can easily rip MP3s. But DVD is, at least for now, far harder to pirate; there's no legitimate and widespread software application that will enable you to copy DVDs and those huge files too big to send over the telephone. So it is conceivable that there may come a day when a new album is released only in DVD Audio and other secure formats, making it far more unlikely that its tracks will end up on Napster. comment on this article e-mail this to a friend start a discussion [about i-drive] writing index thoughts dotmusic index Problems? Questions? Suggestions? Contact me: mail@tobyslater.com back to top back to home page

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