delgriffith
05-08-2008, 05:42 PM
Neil Young to release 45 years' worth of music, art, videos on Blu- ray discs
Ellen Lee
7 May 2008
The San Francisco Chronicle
Singer Neil Young said Tuesday that he is tapping the same new technology used
in the latest movies and video games to release his archive of music, photos,
videos and other memorabilia.
Young, in a baseball cap and dark sunglasses, appeared on stage at the JavaOne
conference in San Francisco to introduce the Neil Young Archive.
The archive will take advantage of Blu-ray technology, the high- definition DVD,
to offer a retrospective of Young's songs dating to 1963.
Young said he has wanted to release the archive since the 1980s but had been
held back by technology. Blu-ray offers higher sound quality than CDs and
standard DVDs, more storage capacity, more interaction and, with the latest
players, the ability to access the Web to download additional features.
The first of five volumes, a 10-disc set available in the fall, will include a
chronological collection of 128 tracks, 500 photos, letters, manuscripts! and additional material from 1963 to 1972. Designed as a file cabinet, it lets fans
listen to the music and browse the archive on the screen at the same time.
"We want people to spend the same hours on it like a video game," Young said.
Young, who started thinking about assembling an archive after the release of his
compilation package "Decade" in 1977, said it will contain not just his best,
but also his worst recordings to show the evolution of his career. "I wanted to
tell the whole story, the successes and the failures," he said.
Young said he also wanted to wait until better digital sound quality was
available. He dismissed CDs and digital music tracks - "My heart goes out to
them," he said of people listening to music on their iPods and other MP3 players
- and said their poor sound quality has been destructive to the music industry.
Sun Microsystems' Java technology, the focus of this week's JavaOne conference,
! was use d behind the scenes to produce the archive on Blu-ray.
Until this year, Blu-ray had been locked in a format war against HD DVD, another
kind of high-definition DVD. Despite winning the battle, sales of stand-alone
Blu-ray players have not made many gains, according to a recent report by the
NPD Group, a research firm. Sales of Blu-ray machines fell 40 percent from
January to February and climbed a mere 2 percent from February to March.
Young encouraged listeners to pick up a PlayStation 3, the Sony gaming console
that doubles as a Blu-ray player, which he said is cheaper than other new
players on the market.
Ellen Lee
7 May 2008
The San Francisco Chronicle
Singer Neil Young said Tuesday that he is tapping the same new technology used
in the latest movies and video games to release his archive of music, photos,
videos and other memorabilia.
Young, in a baseball cap and dark sunglasses, appeared on stage at the JavaOne
conference in San Francisco to introduce the Neil Young Archive.
The archive will take advantage of Blu-ray technology, the high- definition DVD,
to offer a retrospective of Young's songs dating to 1963.
Young said he has wanted to release the archive since the 1980s but had been
held back by technology. Blu-ray offers higher sound quality than CDs and
standard DVDs, more storage capacity, more interaction and, with the latest
players, the ability to access the Web to download additional features.
The first of five volumes, a 10-disc set available in the fall, will include a
chronological collection of 128 tracks, 500 photos, letters, manuscripts! and additional material from 1963 to 1972. Designed as a file cabinet, it lets fans
listen to the music and browse the archive on the screen at the same time.
"We want people to spend the same hours on it like a video game," Young said.
Young, who started thinking about assembling an archive after the release of his
compilation package "Decade" in 1977, said it will contain not just his best,
but also his worst recordings to show the evolution of his career. "I wanted to
tell the whole story, the successes and the failures," he said.
Young said he also wanted to wait until better digital sound quality was
available. He dismissed CDs and digital music tracks - "My heart goes out to
them," he said of people listening to music on their iPods and other MP3 players
- and said their poor sound quality has been destructive to the music industry.
Sun Microsystems' Java technology, the focus of this week's JavaOne conference,
! was use d behind the scenes to produce the archive on Blu-ray.
Until this year, Blu-ray had been locked in a format war against HD DVD, another
kind of high-definition DVD. Despite winning the battle, sales of stand-alone
Blu-ray players have not made many gains, according to a recent report by the
NPD Group, a research firm. Sales of Blu-ray machines fell 40 percent from
January to February and climbed a mere 2 percent from February to March.
Young encouraged listeners to pick up a PlayStation 3, the Sony gaming console
that doubles as a Blu-ray player, which he said is cheaper than other new
players on the market.