CLONE OF CONTENTION

The 1987 Summer Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago will linger in memory as a strange and amorphous affair, where the pervasive mood was one of uncertainty.

There was no better case in point than the situation involving Digital Audio Tape (DAT) recorders. In spite of the legislative battles in Congress with respect to the inclusion of a so-called copy-code chip in DAT recorders sold in the U.S., Japanese manufacturers at the show decided the time had come to openly display and demonstrate these products. However, as they have done at the last two shows, none of the DAT manufacturers would furnish a retail price for the units nor say when they would begin to deliver them. On the second day of the show, Marantz decided it was time to stop "pussyfooting"; they announced they would be gin to sell their DT84 DAT recorder in October of this year at a retail price of $2,000. This resulted in hurried conferences by the other DAT manufacturers, but after consulting their home offices, none of them jumped aboard the Marantz bandwagon. Big and small, all the DAT companies said that if they started to sell DAT recorders in this country and then Congress decided to make an anti-copy chip mandatory, they would face a technically difficult and extremely costly retrofitting of chips in all the DAT recorders they had sold. Executives of several of the smaller DAT manufacturers stated that if the copy chip became mandatory, they would not bring any DAT recorders into the U.S. In spite of these pronouncements, however, the feeling is that several more DAT producers will soon follow Marantz and market their units at a price of $1,800 to $2,000.

Just to keep the DAT pot boiling, 3M, TDK, and Fuji announced they would begin selling blank DAT recording tapes, which are a special cobalt-doped ferric oxide type. 3M indicated that a C120 would sell for about $13, a C90 for $11, and a C60 for $8. Obviously, with $13 tapes and $2,000 recorders, the DAT system is hardly a "cheapie" mass-market product.

The record companies contend that they (and those who own the copy rights on recorded music) are losing millions of dollars because of rampant, unauthorized home taping. They are very fearful of the DAT recorder because its advanced digital technology makes possible perfect "clones" of any source. It is estimated that pop music accounts for 95% of the total record market in this country; it is equally understood that teenagers are the dominant factor in the pop music market. The record companies envision a scenario in which a group of teenagers buy one $15 CD and then have great fun making copies on their DAT machines. This is why the record companies are urging Congress to make mandatory the inclusion of a copy-code chip in all DAT recorders sold in this country. Then, they could encode their CD recordings with a 3,838-Hz anti-copy notch and thus thwart the dastardly practice of the home taping of CDs.

It is common knowledge that teen agers and adults alike have been buying CDs and copying them onto analog cassette tapes, mostly for use in their portables and their cars. Teenagers are active participants in this copying because it is economically feasible within their generally limited resources.

They have to shell out $14 or $15 for a CD, but they can buy a CD player for as little as $129 and an analog cassette deck with Dolby B NR for $159.

Blank C90 cassettes of reasonably good quality cost just a few dollars.

Teenagers have a number of reasons for copying CDs onto cassettes.

First, many of them cannot afford CD players for their cars. Second, many CDs contain "bonus" selections that are not available on any prerecorded cassette. Third, it is common practice among both teenagers and adults to record specific selections from a number of CDs onto one cassette, going through an involving and time-consuming process to create a personalized program of music.

It would seem to me that there are parallels between this practice and the infamous Disney/Sony videotaping case. The Supreme Court ruled that videotaping was overwhelmingly a time-shifting convenience, and said that such videotaping activities did not constitute copyright infringement. The taping of CDs is in the same category as a "convenience" for personal use.

The process involves musical selectivity and format-shifting to enable play back in an automobile.

Surely it is fantasy on the part of the record companies to support the notion that hordes of teenagers would be taping CDs on their $2,000 DAT recorders, and that they would give (or sell) these tapes to friends-who, of course, would also need $2,000 DAT machines in order to play them. Some say that DAT recorders will undergo the same rapid price erosion as CD players, but there are good reasons why this is unlikely to happen. DAT recorders have high-precision tape transports whose mechanisms are made to very close tolerances. Add the A/D and D/A converters and other advanced digital circuitry, and even after two years, DAT recorders will not be priced any lower than $500 to $600.

Products at this level are hardly mass-market toys for teenagers.

There are other aspects to this DAT situation which might raise a few eye brows. I have several friends, recording engineers, who are already using DAT recorders. They think they are great and enthusiastically endorse them. As a recording engineer, I feel sure that a DAT recorder will be a great convenience for me and very much worthwhile. However, what would the average audiophile do with a DAT recorder? These days, there is really nothing worth recording "off the air." He would probably have neither the requisite skills nor the proper equipment necessary for live recording.

What could he record ... his child's birthday party, the church choir? Some might suggest CDs. But assuming he has no DAT recorder in his car, why would he want to transfer his CDs to DAT? A CD is forever free from wear, while after a certain number of passes a DAT cassette will begin to deteriorate, with edge frilling and oxide wear.

Moreover, the DAT copy would not have the access speed of the original CD. At present, there are no prerecorded DAT cassettes on the market.

To duplicate them economically will re quire a special process. One has been developed by Sony but it currently exists only on paper.

I am not putting DAT technology down. Certainly, for automotive use it is superior to CD players, thanks to its relative freedom from the effects of vibration. The point I am making is that it probably will take a fair amount of time before there is a large population of DAT recorders in place. I am saying that the present DAT controversy in Congress is an overreaction to the for mat's recording capabilities. I think the anti-copy encoding of CDs not only is unwarranted, but is a subversion of 100 years of a tortuous ascent to ever-higher levels of fidelity in the reproduction of music. High fidelity, faithfulness to the original, is an unending quest.

We have reached a very high degree of refinement in the art and science of audio. Let us hope reason prevails and that our music remains unsullied by notches or signal artifacts of any kind.

While DAT got a lot of attention, there were indeed other things going on at the show. A consortium of more than 30 hardware and software companies launched another new technology, CD-V (CD-Video). CDV-Single discs, measuring 5 inches in diameter, provide 5 minutes of analog video and 20 minutes of digital audio. Longer-playing CD-V discs are also available.

Two types of CD-V players will be marketed. One, a so-called dedicated CD-V player, handles standard CDs and the CDV-Single; the other, called a combi-player, accommodates standard CDs, all CD-V discs, and 8- and 12-inch laser videodiscs. Such manufacturers as Sony, Denon, Hitachi, Magnavox, Pioneer, Technics, and Yamaha were showing both types of players, with a general price level of $500 for the dedicated players and $800 for the combi units. The anticipated price of a CDV-Single is $8, and companies like Warner/Elektra/Atlantic, Capitol/ EMI, RCA, CBS, and Polygram expect to have more than 200 titles available by the fall.

Despite the jazzy launch of CD-V and the united front of its supporters, many people questioned the thrust of this product, which again is squarely targeted to the teenage market. As its backers envision it, the CDV-Single is supposed to be a modern replacement for the 45-rpm pop single, with the added attraction of 5 minutes' worth of music video. Perhaps the CD-V people have forgotten that 45-rpm discs sell for $1.79 to $2.49 each, and that re cord players can be as cheap as $49! Many people at the show thought that $8 CD-Vs and $500 dedicated CD-V players will be just a bit too rich for today's teenagers. I agree.

In my opinion, the only salutary thing about CD-V is that it has sparked new interest in the laser videodisc, which for many of us has been the high-resolution video source for many years.

Pioneer has kept the faith, and at the show they introduced their most versa tile, technologically advanced video disc player ever, the LD-S1.

The LD-S1, dedicated solely to 8- and 12-inch LaserDiscs, is loaded with new features. There is a new floating drive system and a new servo "Accu-Focus" system for the laser beam. The unit has a digital memory, employing a RAM chip with a megabit of memory capacity and an 8-bit sampling rate.

Thanks to this chip, the LD-S1 can pro duce freeze-frame stills, scan play, and multi-speed play on CLV extended-play LaserDiscs; previously, Pioneer says, this was possible only on standard-play CAV discs. The digital audio section has a D/A converter for each channel, quadruple oversampling, and digital filtering. Video resolution is a remarkable 420 lines and video S/N ratio is an impressive 48 dB.

The LD-S1 will be available by the time you read this at a price of $2,000.

Another hot product at the CES was also in the video field. JVC and many of its licensees introduced Super VHS, a new generation of VCR units which, with special S-VHS tape, affords 430 lines of picture resolution. JVC will import its HRS-7000 by early fall or sooner at a price of $1,200. Similarly priced units will be available from Panasonic, Toshiba, Hitachi, Mitsubishi, and others. Normal VHS tapes will play on the Super VHS units, but Super VHS tapes can be played only on the new VCRs.

3M, Fuji, and TDK all have Super VHS cassettes ready for market. While re cording a TV broadcast with the Super VHS will yield only the 330-line resolution of the NTSC signal, the 430 lines of resolution will be forthcoming through Super VHS prerecorded cassettes.

Duplicators, among them CBS/Fox, claim transition to the new format will be neither overly expensive nor difficult. When these videocassettes are available, to realize the full potential of Super VHS in respect to color stability and saturation, a TV monitor with Y (luminance) and C (chrominance) signal inputs will be necessary. The 430-line resolution of prerecorded Super VHS will be apparent on good-quality TV sets as well as on monitors.

Next month, a look-see at a number of innovative new audio products.

(adapted from Audio magazine, Sept. 1987; Bert Whyte)

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