Whilst DVD-Video is no longer state-of-the-art and does not meet market expectations in terms of video or audio resolution, there is a growing movement within the professional audio industry that promotes Blu-ray Disc as a potential HD replacement for the audio CD. Full.HD has spoken to Stefan Bock, managing director of Munich-based msm-studios about their ground-breaking work developing Blu-ray as an HD audio only carrier. "At MSM, we believe the future for the music industry includes Blu-ray," explains Stefan Bock. "It offers consumers access to high resolution audio but unlike other recent developments it's not just a format for the high end market. "Blu-ray is the successor to DVD-Video and it could well serve as the successor to SA-CD and DVD-Audio. It does not need any adaption - basic Blu-ray serves us well today," he continued.
But is Blu-ray an audio format? "Well, not exactly," Stefan commented. "Primarily, the format is designed around video content; however there are ways to create audio discs using custom-developed Java programming. Such a Pure Audio Blu-ray Disc can be played back without a TV screen and it will deliver top quality audio on every standard Blu-ray player. It can easily switch between stereo and surround play back and it provides CD-like remote control operation."
msm-studios believes that the Pure Audio Blu-ray concept offers such potential that it has proposed it as a standard to the AES (Audio Engineers Society). Furthermore, the studio has developed a web kit which enables content owners to create their own Pure Audio Blu-rays with a little help from msm-studios. All a content owner needs to do is to encode their audio masters, generate a PQ sheet, prepare the list of track titles and supply their sleeve artwork. msm-studios will then create an audio Blu-ray Disc capable of playing on any BD player without a TV screen.
mShuttle - for those that find it all too physical
Another interesting development at msm-studios sees the launch of mShuttle - a feature that enables the content owner to load compressed versions (MP3, AAC, etc) of the same music on each Blu-ray alongside the high resolution audio data. "Once the Blu-ray player is IP connected to your home network you can access these compressed files and copy them to your music servers, iPods and other portable devices," Stefan Bock explains. "No illegal downloads - just local shuttles within your own LAN." "Blu-ray has the potential to rejuvenate the packaged music market - it can offer great high resolution market today and it can provide the convenience of downloadable music all from one disc."
For more information, go to www.pureaudio-bluray.com.
