On Tue, Sep 25, 2001 at 06:44:39PM -0500, Brian wrote: > On Tue, 25 Sep 2001, Mike Hicks wrote: > > MH> http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010925/tc/media_universal_piracy_dc_1.html > > Isn't this sort of stuff against the red and yellow book CD standards? Who can say, since they don't say how it works. In fact, they say they won't say, which just leaves one to wonder if it does yet. Most likely, this is some sort of watermarking scheme, where information is coded in the audio data itself. Ahmed Tewfik at the U is one of the leading researchers in this area, coincidentally. However, that only let's them prove where you got your copy, unless they implement something in the burning software itself, and an analog copy is entirely possible. > I > don't understand how they can label these as Compact Discs(tm) when the > very standard that defines it is broken. Seems fishy to me, anyone smell > a class action suit? Not at all. Non-compliance with red-book standard is not even remotely a legal offense. Heck -- any CD that is over 74-minutes in program length does not comply with Red Book. > On another note, most rippers have an option to rip in analog. Really? You have to connect an analog cable from an input to an output? > Yes, it > takes longer, yes, the sound quality is diminished, but if you're ripping > to MP3, you're losing a lot anyway so what's the difference if it comes > from an analog source? Anyone with more audio expertise care to comment? Well, in theory you want to avoid every loss you can, but you're correct in your assessment that the conversion to MP3 (or Vorbis, or *anything* else) will be orders of magnitude more noticable than a conversion through analog. Phil Mendelsohn Chief Engineer Hotdish Mastering -- I used to like HP before computers, and once I even liked Compaq, but I liked DEC better than HP and Compaq put together.