New audio-visual CD will change face of music

New audio-visual CD will change face of music

By Brian Remick

There was a time when you had to explain that "CD" meant
"compact disc."

No one owned them. No one bought them. It took years before
music buyers began to reluctantly purchase their first CD players,
attracted by the futuristic appeal of the mysterious "compact
disc." And before you knew it, the CD market had erupted in a
frenzied wave of consumerism.

Ardent Records is hoping for a similar, if not smoother,
transition.

In cooperation with Philips Media, Ardent is set to release the
newest in musical multimedia technology, the AudioVision CD, and
with it could come a revolution in the music industry.

Pouncing on the surge of multimedia computer sales in the last
year, Ardent has jumped onto the multimedia bandwagon, along with
Geffen and a few other record companies in recent months. Ardent,
unlike the others, however, has an advantage. Not only does the
concept of the AudioVision CD have more potential than any other
product of its kind, but it is also affordable.

AudioVision is not so much new technology as it is a new idea.
Until now, music CDs and musical multimedia CDs remained separated.
Conceivably, playing music CDs in a CD-ROM drive was possible, but
somewhat pointless as it added nothing to the music itself.
Music-based CD-ROM programs, like the recent releases from Peter
Gabriel and David Bowie, while interesting and graphically
innovative, lacked the ability to simply play normal music in a
normal CD-player.

AudioVision CDs allow you to play them just as you would a
normal CD, but there’s an added feature ­ inserting them into
a CD-ROM drive puts a new perspective on the music. Click on the
list of songs on the screen and watch a music video. Click on a
picture of a band member and hear and see an interview with that
band member. Sounds incredibly expensive, right?

Wrong. Ardent promises that these CDs, which are going to lie
right in the same pile as normal CDs, are only going to be a couple
of dollars more ­ in other words, $17.99 or less

Ardent delved deep into their arsenal of no-name bands for the
first two prototypes of AudioVision. The lucky guinea pigs, if you
will, are 2-Minutes Hate and Techno-Squid Eats Parliament.

"It gives small, unknown bands on a rather unknown record label
a lot of exposure," says software designer Clair Boger, who
designed these first two AudioVision CDs. "It levels the playing
field."

Until a major record company picks up on this idea,however,
these CDs may not sell very well – at least, not well enough to
have a major impact on the market.

The CD-ROM software runs only on Macintosh, although IBM
versions are being released in April. On a Power Mac 6100 with 8 MB
of RAM, the videos were somewhat choppy, not quite keeping up with
the sound. While more RAM would make the CD run more smoothly, it
looks as though a faster Mac is the ideal answer. Of course, a
faster Mac doesn’t exactly cost nothing.

In terms of IBMs, Boger says that a 486 with a standard video
card will run the software perfectly, although this remains to be
seen. It might be a good idea to assume that a 486 will run much
the same as a 6100 without immense amounts of memory.

The key is that even if you don’t own a CD-ROM drive, you can
still buy and listen to the CD without paying too much more for it.
Then, if you ever decide to invest in a multimedia system, you can
take full advantage of AudioVision.

It may be awhile before AudioVision CDs have a major influence
on music. Perhaps the music world just isn’t ready for a media that
requires computers. Even so, AudioVision’s hints make the future of
music sound anything but boring.