Weekly Audio News for Feb. 16, 2005

by | Feb 16, 2005 | Audio News | 0 comments

Grammy Winners Worth Noting – The 47th Annual Grammy Awards
happened Monday night if you weren’t aware. (The classical awards are
always completely ignored on the telecast, so I usually don’t bother
watching.) There are so many different awards now it is mind-boggling.
There are 31 “Fields” and all sorts of categories within each field.
There’s even a field for Surround Sound now – a nice addition. “Genius
Loves Company” – the Ray Charles duet SACD – got that, along with seven
other Grammies. That one was one of several awards to discs we did not
give five stars to, but then again several other awards were also our
Discs of the Month. Here’s some that might interest our readers:

Various rock awards to: Code of Silence – Bruce Springsteen; Vertigo –
U2; Slither – Velvet Revolver; Whiplash – Motorhead; Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow
– Brian Wilson; American Idiot – Green Day. Various jazz awards to:
Unspeakable – Bill Frisell; R.S.V.P. – Nancy Wilson; Speak Like a Child
– Herbie Hancock; Illuminations – McCoy Tyner & others; Concert in
the Garden – Maria Schneider Orchestra; Land of the Sun – Charlie
Haden. Best Musical: Wicked; Best Soundtrack: The Lord of the Rings –
The Return of the King (Howard Shore); Best Album Notes: Complete
Recordings of Woody Herman on Mosaic Records (Loren Schoenberg); Best
Engineered Classical: Higdon: City Scape & Concerto for Orchestra
(Jack Renner); Best Classical Album: John Adams: On The Transmigration
of Souls (also got Best Classical Contemporary Composition & Best
Orchestral Performance); Best Opera: Mozart: The Marriage of Figaro –
Rene Jacobs (HM); Best Choral Performance: Berlioz: Requiem – Robert
Spano (Telarc); Best Instrumental Soloist with Orchestra: Annie-Sophie
Mutter with Andre Previn cond. – Previn: Violin Concerto &
Bernstein: Serenade; Best Soloists Without Orchestra: David Russel,
guitar – Aire Latino; Best Chamber Music: Prokofiev: Cinderella, Ravel:
Mother Goose Suite – Argerich & Pletnev, pianos; Best Classical
Crossover: LAGQ’s Guitar Heroes; Best Long Form Music Video: Concert
for George Harrison.

New DVD Copy Protection
– Macrovision has released a new copy-protection technology to prevent
copying using software still widely available since the original
copy-proofing was broken in l999. RipGuard is the name of the new copy
protection. A coalition of studios and with IBM, Microsoft and Intel
are working on another content-protection system for the upcoming HD
DVD, called Advanced Access Content System.

Code-Free DVD Players
– Not copying but watching certain DVDs at all is blocked by Regional
Encoding of discs going to various parts of the world. As with copy
protection, some enterprising users find alternatives. Interesting
Thing of the Day (which by the way is a fascinating free daily feature)
has a short article on this at https://itotd.com/index.alt?ArticleID=460

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