At a Sun Microsystems conference held today in San Francisco, rock-legend Neil Young announced that he will be releasing his highly anticipated (and continuously delayed) archive project on Blu-ray. The first 10-disc set will chronicle 1963-1972, presumably one disc for each year. In addition to including high definition audio recording of all his songs (including previously unreleased works), the discs will include videos, handwritten manuscripts, and other memorabilia.
Young selected Blu-ray as the medium to release his archive, not only because of its huge storage capacity, but also for its ability to be updated via BD-Java and BD-Live. He expects that as more material becomes available, it will be provided to fans via a web interface for download.
He commented, "Previous technology required unacceptable quality compromises. I am glad we waited and got it right".
The first set is expected to be released this fall under the Reprise/Warner Brothers Records brand.
Wow - awesome news.
Great to see the Warner Records name in there.
The four majors NEED to look to Blu-ray to resurrect the ailing CD and music industry.
There's only one way to go forward.
Nice!!! Pocahontas is my favorite N-Young song..... but yeah... this is gonna cost a pretty penny, but will be worth it!!!!!!! I've watch "the last waltz" too many times to count!!!
Neil Young's exciting project ties to this year's Conference theme of "Java + You" by highlighting the role Java technology plays in delivering dynamic content, sophisticated services and application mashups across consumer devices. Today, Java technology is the most widely adopted runtime in the world and is now powering compelling content and rich end-user experiences across all the "screens of your life" on billions of devices – from desktop browsers and computers (800,000) and mobile phones (more than 2 billion) to TVs, Blu-ray Disc players and other connected consumer devices.
More than 15 years in the making, the Neil Young Archive will be a complete biography of the artist's career in a timeline format including a chronology of songs released and unreleased. Through Blu-ray and Java technology, for the first time viewers will be able to navigate through Young's music, movies, videos, personal archives, memorabilia, photographs, letters, handwritten manuscripts and more while the high resolution 192/24 audio is playing, giving a chronological insight into the creative process and an opportunity to bear witness to the evolution of Neil Young's musical soul over the course of his life and work.
The Blu-ray format delivers both unsurpassed 192/24 audio quality and high definition video, capturing the quality of the original analog master recordings in the best digital format available today. The first Neil Young Archive release will be a 10 Blu-ray Disc set available this fall from Reprise/Warner Bros. Records, covering Young's career from 1963-1972.
The interesting thing about releases like this is that while they will sell a tiny, tiny fraction of, say, the National Treasure movies, no one goes out and buys a Blu-ray player JUST because of National Treasure, while this set will surely move some players. We need more stuff like this, even if it won't sell big.
Did I just read high resolution 24/192 audio?
Thank you, thank you, thank you Neil.
Tu eres el hombre!
CNN is talking about it now too - Musical artists such as AC/DC, Bruce Springsteen and Destiny's Child released concert videos on Blu-ray discs, but Young's support of the technology for his ambitious archive project demonstrates more fully the capabilities of Blu-ray as a music medium.
Excellent news to see Warner's name in this! Might this be the format to succeed DVD-Audio and keep high resolution and multichannel music alive until hi-res music downloads take over mainstream? I hope so, and it looks like it.
For those of you who think hi-res music downloads is a vain dream, NIN just released their latest album including a hi-res (stereo) version, as a free torrent! Others can do so off their websites for a usual fee/subscription as they like, but NIN is pioneering what will happen in the future (technology-wise)...at least for music.
Neil Young has been very critical of CD sound and was always looking for a better format to release his material. For a while it looked like he was going to do HDCD releases and then started to re-releasing on DVD-audio. But it seems he found a format that meets his standards, maybe he will be a big promoter of the format in general.
its about time, they need to do more of it on blu!!
neil young isnt for everyone but i like the lads stuff, that is when im in the mood for it,, cant wait to see the price though if its alot then im gonna be leavein it,, blu ray is in its infancy yet and the prices will tumble in around 2 year i guess...
Unbelievable. I have talked about the recording industry doing this EXACT thing for years now (how about 5.1 being included too huh?) and EVERYONE except for maybe three random people COMPLETELY bashed me on how stupid and pathetic of an idea this was and for it to NOT be done WHATSOEVER! Where in the hell have YOU people been?
I wonder if these will be Profile 3.0 discs? Also, I wonder what the chances are of seeing DSD included along with (presumably) PCM and/or DTS-HD MA / Dolby TrueHD.
These will not be Profile 3.0 - a huge part of the experience Neil wants to put together is the ability for the viewer to browse through a phenomenal collection of memorabilia while listening to the music. Also I don't believe DSD is supported by the Blu-ray spec.
I wonder if it will have film or video of any of his voyages on the W. N. Ragland, a converted Baltic
trader he owned (for some 30 years) up until about a year ago.
At a Sun Microsystems conference held today in San Francisco, rock-legend Neil Young announced that he will be releasing his highly anticipated (and continuously delayed) archive project on Blu-ray. The first 10-disc set will chronicle 1963-1972, presumably one disc for each year. In addition to including high definition audio recording of all his songs (including previously unreleased works), the discs will include videos, handwritten manuscripts, and other memorabilia.
