Audio Video News

John Mellencamp's latest album, Life, Death, Love and Freedom is coming out in an interesting format included with the usual CD release. (And downloads available from hearmusic.com. Use the code LDLF8 for two free cuts.) The new release will come as a CD and DVD package.  What's the big deal?

Life, Death, Love and Freedom, on Starbuck's Hear Music label, was produced by T-Bone Burnett. Burnett and a group of engineers developed a new process called XO?E - or CODE, for those of us not fluent in Greek. The specs for CODE are 96K/24-bit PCM. Not exactly new, but already supported by DVD, so easy to implement. DVD Audio, but not DVD-Audio. Get it?

The CD/DVD package also has something that's perhaps more compelling. They're including MP3 files of the songs. All MP3 codecs are not created equal, and these files were tailored for better sound than a computer's ripping software typically delivers.

While some artists are heading to Blu-ray, Mellencamp knows that there are already DVD players in lots of little pink houses. -Leslie Shapiro

See the behind-the-sceens video here