downloading WAVs

[Gomar]

With less people buying music on CDs, and renting videos as well, and with Internet connections being fast enough, will music be downloaded in the WAV format or stay in MP3/4?

Is compression really needed with HDDs in 4TB sizes, and broadband?
Is there any reason to even use WAV, or even FLAC, if VBR4/3 is 1/10th size, sounds just as good?

Also, why are music CDs still not MP3, and dont come in DVDs or BDs?

 

[GotNoRice]

Is compression really needed with HDDs in 4TB sizes, and broadband?

People like to keep their music on their portable devices, and we're not quite at the point where most phones have 4TB hard drives...

Is there any reason to even use WAV, or even FLAC, if VBR4/3 is 1/10th size, sounds just as good?

WAV doesn't even have provisions for tagging. So unless you like having all your music labeled as UNTITLED TRACK1, UNTITLED TRACK2, etc, WAV is more trouble than it's worth. FLAC and other lossless codecs take so little processing power these days, while also having proper tagging support, that there is no point to use anything else.

Also, why are music CDs still not MP3, and dont come in DVDs or BDs?

The reason music isn't distributed in MP3 is because MP3 sounds like shit. They tried higher-resolution formats with SACD and DVD-A but ultimately people were too lazy to put up with the corporate greed and BS that they tried to force upon consumers with those formats. They didn't want consumers making high-resolution digital copies like they can do with CDs so SACD and DVD-A players are often limited to analog output only - resulting in unnecessary conversions that most likely negate any advantage that was present over a regular CD in the first place. Discs were often sold at 2 or 3 times the price of a CD. They are trying to do the same BS with Blu-Ray.

$50 Blu-Ray movies and SACD/DVD-A albums are one of the main reasons I haven't paid money for a single song or movie since the 20th century.

 

[wonderfield]

The reason to use lossless formats like FLAC and/or uncompressed formats like WAV/BWF is for archival purposes more than it is for sound quality purposes. A lossless file can be transcoded to a lossy format without an additional layer of quality degradation, whereas a lossy file cannot. Transcoding a lossy file to another lossy format can in some cases cause perceptible quality issues beyond those deliberately introduced by the encoder.

 

[Gomar]

The reason music isn't distributed in MP3 is because MP3 sounds like shit.

I beg to differ; I use VBR4 and the sound quality is good enough for play back even on the stereo system with big Yamaha speakers.
I rip from CDs to WAV and then convert to MP3, and then zip all WAVs on the HDD, then burn 5 albums to DVD-R as back-up, and give away the CDs.

I see no reason why music cannot be sold on DVD, BDs, or even downloaded in WAV instead of 128kb MP3.

 

[B00nie]

The reason music isn't distributed in MP3 is because MP3 sounds like shit. They tried higher-resolution formats with SACD and DVD-A but ultimately people were too lazy to put up with the corporate greed and BS that they tried to force upon consumers with those formats. They didn't want consumers making high-resolution digital copies like they can do with CDs so SACD and DVD-A players are often limited to analog output only - resulting in unnecessary conversions that most likely negate any advantage that was present over a regular CD in the first place. Discs were often sold at 2 or 3 times the price of a CD. They are trying to do the same BS with Blu-Ray.

$50 Blu-Ray movies and SACD/DVD-A albums are one of the main reasons I haven't paid money for a single song or movie since the 20th century.

Hear hear. Been boycotting ever since the promised price cuts of CDs never happened. The p2p law suits were the last drop.

I've used iTunes lately for music, first time in 10+ years - but I'm very selective of what I buy as I don't want to pay a cent to the corporate thugs. If there was a direct2artist shop I would only use that for sure.

 

[Megalith]

It's amazing how much music I'd buy if it were served in lossless.

 

[cageymaru]

Hear hear. Been boycotting ever since the promised price cuts of CDs never happened. The p2p law suits were the last drop.

I've used iTunes lately for music, first time in 10+ years - but I'm very selective of what I buy as I don't want to pay a cent to the corporate thugs. If there was a direct2artist shop I would only use that for sure.

I buy my music straight from the artist's website whenever I can. Those lawsuits stopped me from buying music on the CD format long ago. Personally I'd love to just go to their show and support them with a ticket sale.

 

[uOpt]

With less people buying music on CDs, and renting videos as well, and with Internet connections being fast enough, will music be downloaded in the WAV format or stay in MP3/4?

Is compression really needed with HDDs in 4TB sizes, and broadband?
Is there any reason to even use WAV, or even FLAC, if VBR4/3 is 1/10th size, sounds just as good?

Also, why are music CDs still not MP3, and dont come in DVDs or BDs?

If you have plenty space and bandwidth then going 24 bits is the first step to take.

wav is pointless since flac is lossless anyway.

 

[Nenu]

With less people buying music on CDs, and renting videos as well, and with Internet connections being fast enough, will music be downloaded in the WAV format or stay in MP3/4?

Is compression really needed with HDDs in 4TB sizes, and broadband?
Is there any reason to even use WAV, or even FLAC, if VBR4/3 is 1/10th size, sounds just as good?

If it sounded just as good you would have a point.
MP3 is lossy compression, the losses are noticeable.

Also, why are music CDs still not MP3, and dont come in DVDs or BDs?

Because MP3s are not CD and are inferior quality.
They wont want to taint the format.

CD quality audio does come on DVD and Blu Ray.
DVDs and Blu Ray also do higher quality versions, up to 24/192KHz.
Did you research before making your post?

As stated above 24bit media is better than CD quality (16bit / 44KHz), even if it is still at 44KHz.

 

[B00nie]

The biggest reason why CD audio is not released on BD or DVD is that CD players don't play them. It only makes sense to release more advanced formats on BD or DVD. But since those are ridiculously overpriced only a handful of people will actually bother to buy them.

 

[Skripka]

If it sounded just as good you would have a point.
MP3 is lossy compression, the losses are noticeable.



Because MP3s are not CD and are inferior quality.
They wont want to taint the format.

CD quality audio does come on DVD and Blu Ray.
DVDs and Blu Ray also do higher quality versions, up to 24/192KHz.
Did you research before making your post?

As stated above 24bit media is better than CD quality (16bit / 44KHz), even if it is still at 44KHz.

Support is there...doesn't mean you'll ever natively see it.

My last job was doing live archival recording...we still used 16bit 44.1kHz, 2 years ago. Why? Because for the sampling bump there was little discernible gain even on pro level audio equipment (cans, mics, DACs, cabling etc) to justify the massive increase in digital master file size in ProTools.

 

[Nenu]

I especially like the difference higher def formats make, I can tell the difference quite clearly on my kit.
There are some higher def recordings that arent really any different, so its not cut and dry. But its not the formats fault imo, more to do with the mixing quality.
I've heard different CDs of the same songs and the quality difference can be astonishing.
Also worth noting is that some people hear more than others.

Pro level equipment isnt a guarantee that it can extract all the detail for the engineer to hear, its good enough for mixing.
When I was using an Auzentech Prelude soundcard with AV amp and soft dome tweeter speakers, I didnt care much for high def, the difference was there but is was very small.
With a decent external DAC and high quality amp/speakers etc, its a different game.

 

[Gomar]

The biggest reason why CD audio is not released on BD or DVD is that CD players don't play them. It only makes sense to release more advanced formats on BD or DVD. But since those are ridiculously overpriced only a handful of people will actually bother to buy them.

I guess the fad of buying records again is over; it was cool for a while, but the bother of making, playing and storing records is just too much for both customers and producers.

In a few years no one will rent DVDs, nor buy music CDs, it's all going on the net.

 

[B00nie]

I guess the fad of buying records again is over; it was cool for a while, but the bother of making, playing and storing records is just too much for both customers and producers.

In a few years no one will rent DVDs, nor buy music CDs, it's all going on the net.

The next logical step is to eliminate the recording industry alltogether and create a direct sourcing and payments to the artists. A bit like iTunes but with artists getting most of the profits. It's time for the recording industry to die and artists to prosper.

 

[ByblosHex]

The next logical step is to eliminate the recording industry alltogether and create a direct sourcing and payments to the artists. A bit like iTunes but with artists getting most of the profits. It's time for the recording industry to die and artists to prosper.

Then who is going to record the music / maintain the studios? People for free?

 

[B00nie]

Then who is going to record the music / maintain the studios? People for free?

Many artists already do home production. All it takes is a couple of quality microphones and a laptop. The artists can easily hire a production crew themselves for band etc. recordings just as they do now when they go to tour. It's common practice to hire freelancers to do vocals, instrument tracks etc. for hourly rates. Then mix it all up in your digital recording studio called a laptop.

The only problem that remains is promotion which can also be pushed to viral marketing, podcasts, radio, tv etc. Basically anyone can pull a Gangnam style or Justin Bieber from youtube. All it takes is the talent.

Currently the recording industry ties the artists to unbeneficial agreements simply because the artists have no choice. Given the alternative what do you think they'd choose to do, sign up a contract that gives 98 cents out of a dollar to RIAA or pay 20 cents out of a dollar to the independent distributor?