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Music Media

Standard For MP3 CD Players Planned For March 124

Posted by timothy from the disc-error-begone dept.
udif writes: "OSTA, the Optical Storage Teechnology Association, (a standards body whose members include HP, Sony, Ricoh and others, and among other things, has defined the UDF filesytem for DVD's), is proposing a standard format for storing MP3's on CD, called CDA. Here is a quote from their press release: 'Many recently produced DVD players now have the ability to play back MP3 or WMA files. However, these players sometimes lack the ease of use of an audio CD when playing CD-R or CD-RW discs with MP3 or WMA files. Due to lack of standard format, discs containing MP3 or WMA files made in today's PCs with standard CD recording software often exhibit long initialization times and lead to a poor user experience ... CD-Text capable CD/DVD players will be able to display the names of artists and song titles and navigate the hundreds of MP3 or WMA files easily by selecting play lists or other criteria.'" CDA, by the way, stands for Compressed Data Audio. Seems like a good step toward at least good labeling of which players can play your shiny disks, whether they hold MP3s, home video in VCD format, or your digital pictures. Demo units using the spec should be at next month's Comdex.
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Standard For MP3 CD Players Planned For March More

Standard For MP3 CD Players Planned For March

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  • I am definitely putting this thing on my christmas list for two years from now! Any estimations on price? I might just be willing to bankrupt myself for something like this

    You can buy a cd player that plays CD-Rs (and CD-RWs, I think) now for $87 [easybuy2000.com]. It may not be "standard" yet, but whatever... it will read files off of a standard CD-ROM file system which is standard enough for me. Sure, the user experience could use a little work, but $87 for this much storage space can't be beat right now.

  • It would have been real great if they had made it so you had to support DVD-RAM or other home-writable DVD technologies to get the seal-of-approval.

    That seems to be about the only way you'd get dvd makers to make them...probably RIAA with a gun at their head.
  • Wow, Philips is not with them.
    Philips is the inventor of the Compact Disc and they are selling a very nice portable MP3 player which plays normal CD's, CDr's and CDrw's.
    No copyright protection at all.
  • ..is what we need, so that when some new CD/DVD disk standard comes out next week the manufacturer can just put an upgrade on the web so your player can read the latest version of shiny disk...

    ...course, it would be even better (but unlikely) if it was Open Sourced too....
  • ...nope, but a company producing such a product would become the market leader.

    I would actually expect the manufacturer of a flash upgradeable product to charge for upgrades, since it is entirely possible that the new features may include patentable stuff for which the manufacturer would have to pay royalties, and thus charge the consumer.

  • Hopefully, however, they will have sense enough to not specify file-types, leaving the door open for other formats like ogg, etc.

    My hopes exactly. It seems silly to lock technology into certain standards and not make technology as flexible as possible, but, then again, different standards got us into the problem... somehow, preposing new standards to standardize those standards isn't going to give a clean, standard solution to the problem.

    God, I need another cup of coffee...

    Thanks for the information. :)

    George Lee

  • I bought some MP3 cd's in China once, and they all had an AUTORUN.INI file which started WinAmp (included and extracted on the CD) with the default playlist. Pretty smart for Windows lusers.
  • No, Compact Disk DIGITAL audio .... CDDA
    but, yeah, it's confusing.
  • Silly me. I thought CDA stood for "CD Audio" which would be our good old-fashioned red? book standard. Just what the industry needs... more overlapping alphabet soup.

    -Chris
    ...More Powerful than Otto Preminger...
  • Start with grammar. Then work on composition. Then try oration. Then you have reason to expect that somebody might pay attention to what you have to say.
  • Screw MP3. MP+ sounds much better and with a smaller file size. http://www.mpegplus.net. It's not GPL, but the decoder is open source. Or if you're too paranoid about software patents, use Ogg Vorbis.
  • good news, it doesn't look like they want to make this a SMDI based spec. Just plain ol' MP3 files(z)...

    wait 'till the RIAA get wind of this...


    adrien cater
    boring.ch [boring.ch]
  • A standard for storing files on a CD already exists, it's called an iso9660 filesystem, or maybe even Joliet stuff. In any case, these standards already exist, and my experience with my MPTrip [easybuy2000.com] (device which reads mp3's off of a cd and plays them) is just fine -- I can't complain about slow access times or whatever, and I can even jog with it, and even bang it around on my desk for minutes, without any distruptions to the music.
    All these corporate types want to do is make it harder for me to stick all my music on a few disks.
    The best thing to do would be to just build devices that play stuff in alphabetical order (or random, or in a specific directory) from a regular old iso, so you can use it in your computer transparently, there is no point in introducing a new 'standard'.
    Blah, all these people want is money!
  • I think the compression used by WMA is significantly better than MP3, meaning smaller files that sound the same, or same-size files that sound better.

    Methinks, however, that this has less to do with quality of compression and more to do with WMA's support for encrypting the encoded data. I'm not sure how good it is; i've heard people say that its relatively easy to crack. At any rate, I personally view this as Big Money's way of trying to co-opt those open mechanisms. Something tells me that the final standard will likely provide some mechanism for anti-piracy controls (read: anti-consumer, anti-backup, anti-sharing, anti-space-shifting).

    Hopefully, however, they will have sense enough to not specify file-types, leaving the door open for other formats like ogg, etc. I don't really see much reason why the final standard couldn't be designed to work as well for video compression, like MP4. Except that there seems to be an inversely proportional relationship between the size of a corporation and the intelligence of its management.
  • 1. The UDF spec are there - check here [osta.org].
    2. The MultiPlay specification is nothing more than a Logo certification program, and is concerned with physical CD/CD-R/CD-RW compatibility at the Media level for consumer devices (so if you buy a CD player with a MultiPlay logo you know it plays your home-made CD-RW Audio disk).
    3. Apparently the CDA format was not released yet (it's a draft). I assume it would be released just like the UDF spec.
  • The Raite series of DVD/MP3 players use the "Special CD-R" technique for Firmware update.
  • i have a md and it works great for running/biking.

    the battery lasts forever. i just plug the output of my soundcard into it and hit record. the discs are about 1.50-2.00 each and they can be rewritten several times-they hold about 74 min, and they use the same technology as cd-rw's.



    use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
  • it was a md sony deck for a home stereo system and a portable player for about 250$. you would need the deck to record and listen at home. the player to drag around with you. you can also get a portable player/recorder for about 200$

    this may be out of your price range, but consider this: another benifit to the md stuff is that it is pretty standardized. i think the cd mp3 players are going to flipflop around with different standards for a while.

    use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
  • this is about an mp3 cd standard. not about whether such devices exist.
  • Most flash-upgradable setups allow for storing the old version before flashing it, so SDMI trojans are a pretty moot point.

    I'd like to think that out of all the companies on earth that will produce these, at least one will have the common sense not to use some asinine copy-protection scheme. And that will be the company that gets my business.

    ---

  • Why would you need a USB or serial connection to do firmware updates? Surely there would be a way of making a "special" CD-ROM with some sort of volume label or data pattern that would trigger a firmware update right from the CD.

    Pretty good idea -- so long as the original version of the firmware comes on a CD, so that any strange upgrades that you didn't really want don't end up turning your brand new piece of equipment into a large hunk of metal.

    ---

  • Check out CD MP3 player [thinkgeek.com]

    I have a diffrent one. Of course there are some issues with play lists and artist titles.. but I don't really care I put the disk in and press play. Then sit around for 10 or 12 hours. The one I have works pretty well even when I'm mountain biking (it is pretty resiliant to shock) but it chewes through AA batteries. It doesn't even play a single 12 hour disk on a new pair of batteries.
  • Perhaps some flash-upgradable hardware is the way to go. Throw a USB or serial connection on it and provide firmware updates for it; that's definately something that would convince *me* to buy any product.

    But this is a double-edged sword. Along with some enticing new feature, there could be a Trojan horse--SDMI compliance or some other evil copy protection scheme. Once the firmware's flashed, it's too late.

  • Most flash-upgradable setups allow for storing the old version before flashing it, so SDMI trojans are a pretty moot point.

    I don't think the music industry will be allowing that kind of flash setup. If it fails in the middle, oh, well.

    As far as copy protection, the ones who don't implement it don't get the license, and can't play the standard formats yet to come--or MP3, for that matter--this could be accomplished by the RIAA climbing into bed with Frauenhofer.

  • And VCD as lots of legitmate uses? I think not... but that is a supported standard, hmmm it looks very like DVD in file structure. The companies know people will not use the standard if its not available to the home burn market, if you look at the companies involved I doubt they want to shoot themselves again. The hardware companies never wanted CSS.

    hell the layout of a DVD disk is open, just some of the files within the file system and noddy encrypted.

    James
  • ... vorbis ogg?

    Will the manufacturers have to pay royalties for replaying mp3? I for one would rather they used ogg and didnt' charge me the extra. If we're going to have a new standard (and hence new cd writing software to make it a smooth experiEnce) we might as well push for a patent free format also IMO.

    In reality of course, mp3 is too popular to support only ogg, but including it as an option can't be that much more effort can it?
  • Creative, RCA and Philips won't be happy if noone buys their new mp3 CD-R discmans.
  • Perhaps some flash-upgradable hardware is the way to go. Throw a USB or serial connection on it and provide firmware updates for it; that's definately something that would convince *me* to buy any product.

    Why would you need a USB or serial connection to do firmware updates? Surely there would be a way of making a "special" CD-ROM with some sort of volume label or data pattern that would trigger a firmware update right from the CD.
  • Pretty good idea -- so long as the original version of the firmware comes on a CD, so that any strange upgrades that you didn't really want don't end up turning your brand new piece of equipment into a large hunk of metal.

    Unfortunately, if the firmware update gets botched, the player may not be able to read the original firmware CD, hence it would retain it hunk-of-metal-like nature. The player would probably need some sort of "hard coded firmware backup" feature, like many of the computer BIOS's do, in which a shadow ROM is activated via some sort of special jumper option. Or maybe doing the CD/DVD player equivalent of "Press F1 for setup", i.e. holding down the play, pause & stop buttons during power up.
  • Go research antenna design. Random wire antennas, as they are called, tend to be in the domain of reception only. For (good) transmission you won't generally get away with anything less than a yagi. Another response to my original post brought up cell phones; the cell phone scenario is different as cell towers are much closer. If you had a directional antenna on your cell phone, and aimed it at a tower, you'd get much better range.

    I use a random wire antenna for SWL, but I wouldn't dare use it for serious broadcasting work. It's much harder to radiate a signal well with a random wire antenna.

    Much more importantly, you can attempt to use the headphone cord for reception but NOT FOR TRANSMISSION! That's an easy way to fry out the earpiece! You would have to add a lowpass filter before the earpiece, and filtering on signals amplified to antenna level, it's just well... icky.

  • I'm affraid this will remain an industry secret..."oops we forgot to implement a version that the PC can use." In other words, you will be allowed to purchase CD's with whatever MP3's you want on them, except, only an RIAA accepted recording company can write and issue the CD's. So any MP3's that you dump onto a CD will not be readable in the new players.

  • CDA? (Score:1)

    by Cplus ( 79286 )
    CDA stands for Compact Disk Audio........no?

  • Yup. You've been reading /. too long. Sad thing is I think you're probably right.

    The text of the announcement was kind of interesting. The fact that it explicitly FAILED to mention security or watermarks probably speaks volumes. It also spoke of giving users the ability to create compilations out of their own audio CD's. Probably a reference to some sort of control with watermarks. Most likely, you can make a first generation copy but second generation copies will be crippled in some way.
  • Just have the CD player look for a special default playlist file in the root directory of the MP3 CD, named index.m3u. If it's there, great, read in the whole file and treat that as the CD catalog. If not, do it the hard way by traversing every directory.

    I tend to burn CDs with artist directories in the top level, and then album directories as subdirectories of the artist directories. I then have a script create playlist files for every directory, so as you get closer to the root directory the playlist files contain more songs. Since relative pathnames can be used in playlist files, these playlists can be the same as they are on CD-ROM as they are stored on my hard drive.

  • This is just another way that these companies can get everyone to buy another CD burner.

    Why can't they use existing CD filesystems?

    Because if they come up with a new filesystem, they can make everyone buy a new CD burner.

    It's all about how to make more money, not how to do it the best way...

    FoonDog
  • "[...]just like a computer would."

    Someone give this guy a clue. =)
  • How is this copy protection? Or are you just an ignorant fuckhead who doesn't know what s/he's talking about?
  • Three tries and it's still not clickable?

  • In the specs, it specifically states that audio quality will not be measured it just says that the audio must be understandable. What is to stop the RIAA from strong arming manufacturers of these devices into limiting MP3 playback rates to say 64 or 128 bits, regardless of the rate in which they were recorded?
  • The Philips eXpanium [philips.com] seems to do the same thing as this guy, for $100 more. Anyone know of any other differences?
  • In asia VCD is as popular as VHS is in most other parts of the world. Something to do with the high heat and humidity wreaking havok on VHS tapes that makes them somewhat less than desirable.
  • And while we're at it, lets settle on a memory format -- I mean having your Rio, eMap, Palm, Phone, Camera, etc, etc, etc, each taking something different is getting P.D. annoying!

  • The Pine D'Music [pineusa.com] is a much better player than the Philips, and it costs roughly the same price. The major thing is that it supports reading ID3 tags whereas the Philips Expanium does not. Also it supposedly has better sound quality.
  • Not too hard to decide; pretty paranoid.
  • How close are these companies tied to record companies? I can see just yet another breed of copy-protection that will cripple cool new tech.


  • Also, while I'm thinking about it, why are CD's so prone to skipping

    Prone to skipping? Not for several years now, in my case. I've got an off-the-shelf CD Walkman, that has NEVER skipped, even as I jog, run up & down stairs, stand on subways, etc. Buy something new, you should be pleasantly surprised.

  • I recently purchased one of the Philips 40-second skip-resistant players, and I was pleasantly surprised. However, as someone who jogs very frequently, the CD walkman got plenty of use, and after only a couple of months it began to give me some occasional skips, hence my argument for a very stationary method of preventing skips ... something stationary and stable enough to prevent itself from taking damage so early in its life... Thanks, though. I probably should have mentioned this in the first place.
  • What I want in such a player is to be able to put in any audio CD, compressed to mp3 or not, and the CD player can just "discover" what type of data is on the disk and play the files. This would require a few adjustments, but I'm sure it can't be too difficult for the industry as a whole.

    Also, while I'm thinking about it, why are CD's so prone to skipping? It would take a simple roller utility (rubber wheel on both sides in three places, 120 apart) to spin the disc and hold it on place, only touching the disc on the outer edges? Such wheels would not only keep the disc spinning, but they would hold the disc in place (for the most part) on those bumpy rides. Hmm, just a thought.

  • It not really that bad, you'd be suprised how stable Windows can be as long as you aren't installing all kinds of crap on it. Pretty much the only things installed are the ATI drivers and software, which includes TV Tuner and DvD player, Santa Cruz Drivers, The keyboard/Mouse Drivers, WinAmp and RealJukeBox. That pretty much does every thing an entertainment center does and in some aspects better. Most Computer DvD players are superior to all but the highest priced standalone DvD players, and not even a 5 CD Changer can give you the amount of nonstop music a 20 GB Hard drive, nearly full of MP3's can. With ATI's new Tuner software, I have all the capabilities of Tivo. There really is no downside to doing this way, except maybe the computer won't go with the furniture, which my wife objected to at first.


    Jesus died for sombodies sins, but not mine.

  • This has already been done, any DvD drive you would put into a computer will play DvD, Audio CD's, VCD's and CDR/CDRW. When my wife's stereo went bad, I built a 600 Mhz Duron system to replace it as the entertainment center. It has a DvD drive, a 21" monitor, I plugged the speakers and subwoofer from the old stereo into the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz sound card, a 20 GB 2nd Hard drive for MP3 storage, wireless mouse and keyboard and an ATI All-In-Wonder Video card for TV support. Works very well.


    Jesus died for sombodies sins, but not mine.

  • The press release states that the format is not finished, ie still vapor. However, OSTA exists primarily to promote UDF, so you can bet it'll consist of MP3/Red Book audio/.wav files in a special directory on a UDF volume..

    The following paragraph is an offtopic rant! UDF is a major pain in the ass, designed primarily by an overly-pedantic european standards committee. It's unreliable for read/write applications because it contains no inherent consistency support, and it's too complex to implement properly for read-only applications in a short amount of time.

  • This sounds like a neat scheme and all... but what about the BeOS mp3 players planned, utilizing the BeOS BFS system for organizing and searching mp3s, based on critera such as length, author, title, compression, etc etc... All of the features mentioned with this new CDA format can be done with BFS...
  • I think the problem with the filesystem is that it contains information not used by the CDA (by the way, does this confuse anyone else?). You have Created date/time, file size, file name, extension, a directory naming which sectors are used... all of this is unnecessary for MP3 players which just need a song title and playlist. The current cd players have to load in the directory structures, and then access the disc according to the structure to play the file. Obviously by changing the filesystem to something that is more MP3-Friendly, you could have more efficient, smooth playback.
  • The Iomega HipZip costs $300 and comes with 80MB storage in the form of two 40MB disks. While 40MB isn't enough to hold a complete CD, the disks are 10 for $100, 4 for $50, or 2 for $30. That's 400MB for $100. Much better than solid state. Still not as cheap as MD, but it can be used to transport files, has a built in rechargable battery, and takes less than 5 minutes to load all new songs on to a disk. As I understand it MD only works at 1X. HipZip is at least 8X and more like 10X. Sounds good to me. It's what I use.

  • is for money only. I guess they are going to charge for their so-called "invention" some sort of "legal developer fee". I don't want to see this happen. Do you?

  • Three words:

    Minidisc
    Minidisc
    Minidisc

    Yes, I know many people equate Sony with the great satan, but the tech is pretty damn good. Perfect for such activities as jogging. The newer models have 40+ seconds of skip protection. My older model only has 10 but I have rarely made it skip. The media is also more compact and can take quite a bit of abuse (they're jacketed). The only downside (IMHO) to CD-R: length. You can get the equiv. of one CD on each disc. Now, Sony's updated the MD to (if memory serves me correctly) quadruple the capacity, but AFAIK it's only used in some of their new digital cameras.

    Nathan

  • Well, how about the Photo CD format? It sounds like it's just some graphics on a CD, but only certain CD drives can read or write photo CD's. Couldn't ths be similar?
  • Uh MP3's are better than cassette-quality. The bitrate is higher. Its just a matter of lost frequencies.

  • Use a solid state player. There are plenty on the market. I personally have a Diamond Rio PMP300SE. It works wonderfully to do the mowing or stick in the car with a Cassette Adapter. I find the Software to have better features in Linux than Windows. While I have made MP3 CD's for specific purposes, like taking in to work for several hours of listening pleasure, for many activities that involve shock and long battery life nothing beats solid state. I get 6-8 hours of battery life from my Rio on a rechargable battery. My portable CD player is lucky to get 2 hours with twice as many batteries. My Portable CD player is only good for sitting in the car or a walk, or just sitting beside me on a desk. CD's should be used for stationary devices and solid state MP3 players should be used for situations that require shock tolerance.
  • Except that I don't trust ANYTHING from China, especially executables they put on a read-only medium and try to run as soon as it gets in my system . . .

  • Very simple: if they included SDMI, nobody would buy it. Being businesspeople, they thought this might not be a good approach.

    It's refreshing, really.

  • Isn't it more like CD-CDA ? (Compact Disc - Compressed Data Audio)
  • Thanks for pointing that out. I've just fixed it.
  • The edit user script kept putting that space in there. Should be ok now.
  • It makes sense to have clear standards like this to work towards. Once these get incorporated into burning software it should be straightforward to make discs you are confident will be reasonably easy to access across a range of players. Right now you're not sure if a player will read 8.3 format or what.
  • isn't it awful when you're smarter than you're (sic) teachers?

    How would you know?

    with humpy love,

  • You have an extra space in your sig.
    The real ulr is here [insuranceservices.com]
    Not, it's not a goatse link.

    ____________________
  • I started looking in to car mp3 players about two months ago. Awia makes one for $299 that's fits in your dash. This is what I ended up with. With a full cd it takes about 1 minute to read. If you label your mp3s correctly it will play them in order. It supports the same file structure as PC so now I have a backup of all my music on my music drive at home. Cool to fit 10 Pink Floyd albums on one disc. The user exp. is OK for me I couldn't see putting something with a hard drive in my car! I mean what if someone jumps in with a new CD they want to hear? I don't think this standard is going to improve much i guess we will see.... $McK
  • I would like to listen to music while I run on the treadmill at the Y ( and also stare at the SPandex clad chicks in the aerobics room), however, my CD player with 10 seconds of anti-skip memory doesn't work on the treadmill, way too much vibration at 8 miles per hour for it to work.

    So, are these MP3 CD players any better? They should be, tey have a lot less data to pull, 1- seconds of CD data is about 100 seconds of MP3 data, unless the d>a is before the memory?

    Otherwise, I would have to shell out big bucks for an MP3 player.

    Thanks
  • That's the price range I'm talking.

  • >where I can put a DVD, CD audio, CD-R, CD-RW, or a CD full of MP3's in my single component, and let it play

    Um, I think I just bought one of those for my parents, I'm not positive if it plays cd-rw's, but I'm relatively sure it knows all the others. it's the Apex AD660, they sell it at Circuit City [circuitcity.com], among other places, I imagine.

    Ok, I checked, it recognizes CD-RW too.

  • redbook is CDDA (compact disk digital audio iirc)

    Bill - aka taniwha
    --

  • Oh, I can agree with that, though I suspect that the decoder is as stable as mp3 (ie, the format is fixed so only quality is affected, so a good hw implementation could probably be made now). However, xiph.org doesn't seem to be accessable atm to check on the stability of the decoder :(.

    Bill - aka taniwha
    --

  • As noted above me, the format is stable. It's the encoder/decoder that are in flux. ie, just like LAME, they're working with a stable format but unstable process (ie, finding better ways to create/read the format).

    Bill - aka taniwha
    --

  • They already do (though not 6 foot, more like 3-4). Your headphone cord. Don't believe me? Ever wondered where they put the FM antena for walkmen? There's no reason it can't be used to broadcast (other than the FCC and related would have a field day).

    Bill - aka taniwha
    --

  • Some sort of UI standard might be very useful. I have an LG 3350e DVD player which professes to double as an MP3 player. It's lucky MP3 wasn't a major factor when I decided to buy it...

    What I'd expect a CD MP3 player to do when you put in a disk and press play is something along the lines of:

    find $CDMOUNTPOINT/ -name '*.mp3' -exec mpg123 {} \;

    i.e. play each file in the order you find them.

    What the LG does is:
    • Read the entire directory structure -- this takes several minutes for a CD at full capacity
    • Display the directory in an MS Explorer style GUI (thereby requiring the TV to be switched on, bah!)
    • Select each track you want played individually (there will be several hundred on a CD)
    • then press play


    This is hopeless.

    Of course, it's not really a standard that's required, it's someone working on the product who's actually prepared to think about what a consumer might want from an MP3 player, rather than just wanting to be able to put a tick on the spec sheet.
    --
  • Damn. THey would have to go and do this *after* I spend the money to buy my wife one of these things. Oh well, I got the cheap model (MPTrip [easybuy2000.com], only $89+tax), I'm glad I didn't go for the more over-the-top models that were like $200-$300. I'll just buy something spiffy in about 6 months, and hopefully the CD-R "records" I burn in that period will work on all machines. I should make sure all the MP3s have ID3 tags, and probably put WinAmp playlists in all the directories too...
  • And VCD as lots of legitmate uses?

    Well yes - it's a format for storing video on standard CDs. Since it predates DVD by about 5 years, it had a perfectly legitimate use for 5 years. I use it to be able to present MPEG video without needing a PC.

    In these day of "cheap" DVcams, and multiple competing and expensive DVDr standards, I would have said that VCD (and SVCD) is still a useful format for "legitimate" use.

    Oh wait - but you can infringe copyright with it too.
  • Fraunhofer will make damn sure of that.

    --
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • ...IIRC the compression rate is just a wee bit better with WMA than with MP3, while still keeping the same sound quality.


    Well, according to a test in the German CT MP3 was still better.
    The sound quality isn't near that of MP3.
    They tested it with MP3's encoded at 128, 160 and 192 Kbit.
    And yes, even with 128 Kbit MP3 sounded better.

  • Due to lack of standard format, discs containing MP3 or WMA files...

    Why would anyone other than Microsoft care that there's a standard for playing CDs of WMA files? Is the sound quality of WMA files that much better, or is Microsoft hoping someday to leavage their might to surplant MP3s with their own file format?

    Just something I've been wondering since using Media Player on Windows 2000...


    George Lee

  • I think when the _portable_ CD players have a 6 foot antenna coming off of it, then you can be suspicious. Until then, there's no reason to go and think that there is some magical way to send the playlists; unless of course you want to go the whole 9 yards and suspect that winamp is trying to contact and RIAA server with your playlist.
  • Aside from your intelligent amp, that day arrived about a year ago.
  • Well, Ogg Vorbis is great, but still too immature and the format is still in flux, so it wouldn't make sense to include it in a standard format yet.

    However, it seems like this CDA spec is really a filesystem and layout standard - substituting the mp3 files for vorbis files if a given player could decode the vorbis files should not pose too much of a problem.
  • I don't see why they can't just make the CDA format itself .. uh .. format-independent. That is, make no assumption about what type of compression is being used: include a space to indicate what format is being used and let the player decide if it can play that format or not, like AVIs.

    Include a space in the specification for new codecs (store them in RAM rather than ROM), and this could be expanded much further. Imagine DVD players that can be flash updated on-the-fly to play DivX movies written to CDA discs, CD players that handle discs with songs in 20 different formats, and so on. Jeez. That'd be cool. Is there any way we can submit this kind of stuff to them?

    --
  • Just like VCD discs can be played on PCs, just open then .dat file.

    But, uhm, if my VCD player only recognizes .mpg files, how do I open a .dat file? There is a myriad of ways to break compatibility with a fragile player like the MpTrip.

    --
  • How much do you want to bet that the standard contains a protocol for sending your playlist and any watermarks to the RIAA? (Am I just cynical or have I gone over the line to paranoia? Hard to decide).
  • Sony is a hydra of a company, with each head ready to bite the others off. I recall recent news about an amicus brief filed by various powers in the tech industry on Napster's behalf, of which Sony was a cosigner, meanwhile another head of Sony is involved in SUING Napster [Sony is, I believe, a member of the RIAA].

    HP and Ricoh have nothing to gain from underhanded dealing either really, as both make more money if people have more things to burn.

    Oh yeah... "Teechnology"? Another sign of the trend to add an 'e' to every word possible?;)

    -={(Astynax)}=-
  • ok , but at least raalize that if hte decoder is in flux and isn't satisfactorily implemented, then it's in no condition to be put in the firmware of a cd player.
  • You won't see that happen for a long, long time, if ever. And you certainly won't find upgrade flashes that are free.

    The only way these companies stay in business is making sure that every time there is a new standard you have to go out and buy a new player. If you only had to buy one player (and upgrading was free) that would be the end of them. They don't want that. And we all know that consumers exist for the express purpose of serving the needs of big business.

    Oh, and just in case consumers get cocky enough to believe that they are important, there are courts, laws and government bodies. All of which are in place to make sure that we consumers don't get out of line and try to hold back corporations from making money. But, that's just my theory.

  • huh? no standard? (Score:3)

    by hugg ( 22953 ) on Monday December 18, 2000 @12:54PM (#552146)
    So an ISO 9660 filesystem is not a standard? I can see organizing it so that the directories load faster, and maybe a manifest, but the only easy way to navigate 500+ filenames is to have a text display & keyboard.

  • Ogg Vorbis and Firmware (Score:3)

    by rufus t firefly ( 35399 ) on Monday December 18, 2000 @06:57AM (#552147) Homepage
    I'd be interested to know if they are open to other standards... like whether RealMedia can get into the action, or something like Ogg Vorbis could be used.

    I understand where they might get into some issues with RealMedia, since it is a proprietary format (as is WMA, come to think of it), but Ogg Vorbis is a perfectly open standard, to which there aren't any licensing drawbacks or problems.

    Perhaps some flash-upgradable hardware is the way to go. Throw a USB or serial connection on it and provide firmware updates for it; that's definately something that would convince *me* to buy any product.

    ---

  • Is this a way to sell more CD burners? (Score:3)

    by Mr Neutron ( 93455 ) on Monday December 18, 2000 @06:22AM (#552148)
    I wonder if current CD-R/RW drives will be able to produce the CDA format. Otherwise this sounds like a conspiracy to sell CD-R/RW/CDA drives.

    Look for my product announcement next week, ahead of Sony and Pioneer.

    Neutorn

  • Name (Score:3)

    by e-Motion ( 126926 ) on Monday December 18, 2000 @06:19AM (#552149)
    Couldn't they have called it something better? I don't want to have to say "No, not CDDA, CDA. Yes, there is a difference." Let the confusion begin.

  • Smells fishy... (Score:3)

    by b0z ( 191086 ) on Monday December 18, 2000 @06:19AM (#552150) Homepage Journal
    a standards body whose members include HP, Sony, Ricoh and others

    So it sounds good, but what's the security scheme? If it's anything like the DVD region encoding, macrovision, or any other crap I would say that this standard won't be adopted and the RIAA will go crying saying how they tried to use this mp3 technology but the pirates prevented them or some other crybaby excuse. This could be good, but I won't hold my breath as long as companies like Sony are involved.

  • Falling out of touch with /.ers? (Score:3)

    by B14ckH013Sur4 ( 234255 ) on Monday December 18, 2000 @06:40AM (#552151)
    I feel alienated from this group of negative FPers who have nothing good to say. What happenned to reading the article?
    First of all, there are already plenty of CD-players that support playing burned mp3s, they sell for anything between $79 and $199(US).
    Secondly, this is a way to set a standard format for burning the CDs so that the next generation of players can easily supply a user-interface such as Author/Song Title; as well as faster access and search-time for the players. It is not going to be forcing any standards on the mp3s themselves. Quit being foolish naysayers and go do something productive.

  • CDA: Irony Incarnate? (Score:4)

    by Effugas ( 2378 ) on Monday December 18, 2000 @07:09AM (#552152) Homepage
    CDA, known to old school net rats as the Communications Decency Act, being christened the new title for MP3 CDs?

    No, worse:

    CDA, better known to me as Compress Da' Audio: The first major MP3 ripping group that publically released tracks and (I believe) albums too.

    The mind boggles.

    Yours Truly,

    Dan Kaminsky
    DoxPara Research
    http://www.doxpara.com

  • Re:Multiplay - consumer, not technical standard. (Score:4)

    by bugg ( 65930 ) on Monday December 18, 2000 @07:36AM (#552153) Homepage
    You're reading the "Playback Compatiblity Specification for CD and DVD Consumer Devices" which merely discusses how a player will be tested before it gains the seal. The format of the disk is not in the scope of that PDF; look for another.

  • Multiplay - consumer, not technical standard. (Score:5)

    by kyz ( 225372 ) on Monday December 18, 2000 @06:24AM (#552154) Homepage
    Reading the specification [osta.org] is like leafing through a consumer's rights document. All it says is that OSTA will test each player with 5 discs, containing 5 tracks. They will insert the discs, check that all the tracks play in order, and, er, that's it. They then give it a seal of approval.

    I always though OSTA was a hardcore technical standards committee. Where's the specification for supported media formats, and how to play them? Where's the filesystem specs (like UDF [osta.org])? Why are the CD/CD-R/CDRW specs only handwaved?

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