The Wall Street Journal has an excellent piece on the new format:
Warner, the world's fourth-largest music company, is in the final stages of securing technical licenses that will enable it to sell a bundle of music and extra features on a single DVD, according to people familiar with the matter. The DVD would include a music album that plays in both stereo and surround-sound on a standard DVD player -- plus video footage that plays on a DVD player or a computer. There will also be song remixes, ring tones, photos and other digital extras that can be accessed on a computer.
The company plans to make the new format available to its subsidiary record labels for product-planning purposes as early as next week and to introduce the discs to consumers with a handful of titles in October. A full-blown launch is planned for early next year. The hope is to fuel increased sales of both new product and catalog titles, in the process lifting the industry just as the 1982 introduction of the CD boosted sales as consumers replaced cassettes and vinyl albums.
Referring to the new format as “DVD album” is clueless, even for the record industry. Album means “two good tracks and ten tracks of filler.” Yes, I understand it’s not the final name, but you didn’t catch Microsoft referring to Longhorn as Microsoft Heifer before it became Vista.
Then there’s the matter of a price point higher than already-overpriced CDs. Filling the disc with shovelware might answer the question “what do we do with the extra capacity?” or “how do we clog up the hard drives of pirates?” but ring tones (??), remixes, and interviews are worth zero to most buyers, plus or minus a few cents. Besides, consumers have more pressing questions these days, such as “does this refrigerator come with an iPod dock?”
As for offering better sound, consumers wouldn’t be opposed to the idea. It’s just that they have [expletive deleted - Ed] in their ears and don’t care about anything better than, oh, 128 kbps.
Unlike previous failed formats, DVD album could kill off the CD if the entire industry got behind it. However, it is still a physical format, which puts it on the wrong side of history. Bricks and mortar record stores may long for a new format -- especially one that arrives before that last going out of business sale -- but it’s easy to resist the idea of buying your record collection all over again.
