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Re: ATRAC compression

Subject: Re: ATRAC compression
From: Walter Knapp <>
Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2002 23:05:40 -0400
KACastelein and DJLauten wrote:

> I am wondering if Matt's comment comes from the perspective of music
> creators - are they the Professionals who might be experiencing the
> problems because they are manipulating sound and do not want to start
> with a compressed file?  Is Walt's return comment coming from a very
> different perspective - from one who is looking for high quality
> recordings of natural sounds?  Certainly Marantz must take into
> consideration the music industry in their planning much more than the
> natural sounds recording industry - that is where the money is, no?
>       While it might be true that ATRAC is not a problem in "our" field,
> is it really not a problem in any other field?

Music is no longer recorded in a way that could use MD. It's recorded
with many more channels and a soundfield mixed from those. Multitrack is
where it's at in music. They don't record a stereo soundfield, they mix
one from the individual instruments. Even the proposed solid state stuff
does not have the capacity for this sort of thing. Studio's use large
arrays of HD's and will probably continue that route.

So, yes, the music professionals have a problem with MD, but it's not
really ATRAC.

The actual big professional market for MD is in ENG.

> True, but wasn't MD once an untried technology with little track record?
>   Someone had to start trying one!  If I recall correctly from my music
> recording days, the first MD's weren't so good.  But nontheless someone
> used them to establish a track record.

Yep, I hear a lot of talk but not many volunteers. Those who think solid
state is the wave of the future, go out and buy one. Or maybe one of
each brand..

> I must agree with Walt though that it sure would be nice if someone
> stuck to some form of storage media/recorder for a long time and we can
> get over this endless debate as to what to use in the field!  Sure would
> be easier to make decisions.....but something tells me Walt that the
> company making it wouldn't make too much money on a workhorse machine
> that lasted forever and they would eventually run themselves out of
> business because they made such a good product! ; )  What irony!

I'd be happy if they made machines that stuck to the same format and
operating software. Even if once in a while you wore them out. As long
as the price per year of use is reasonable.

Walt



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