Hi @ptss
HDCD is the perfect analogy. HDCD is a pretty complicated format as well. Microsoft bought HDCD but then did nothing at all with it. It's a shame because I would love to have a software scanner to go through all my FLAC files, and decode any HDCD content.
MQA is not involved in DRM either. There is no playback, copy or encryption restrictions on the files or the decoding. Just like HDCD however, you must have compatible hardware. MQA IS attempting to be an authoritative standard so when your MQA light goes up you know you downloaded the file without additional alteration/compression done by the download service.
HDCD was a recording engineer's toolbox. It was up to the engineering team to decide which features, and when and how much they would take advantage of. This is a little different from MQA as everything is done by the hardware vendors. The recording engineers don't really have any control over MQA besides turning it on or not.
HDCD is the perfect analogy. HDCD is a pretty complicated format as well. Microsoft bought HDCD but then did nothing at all with it. It's a shame because I would love to have a software scanner to go through all my FLAC files, and decode any HDCD content.
MQA is not involved in DRM either. There is no playback, copy or encryption restrictions on the files or the decoding. Just like HDCD however, you must have compatible hardware. MQA IS attempting to be an authoritative standard so when your MQA light goes up you know you downloaded the file without additional alteration/compression done by the download service.
HDCD was a recording engineer's toolbox. It was up to the engineering team to decide which features, and when and how much they would take advantage of. This is a little different from MQA as everything is done by the hardware vendors. The recording engineers don't really have any control over MQA besides turning it on or not.