On quite a lot of CDs there are a few seconds of "countdown" between tracks, where the CD player displays -00:02, -00:01, and then starts playing the track. Usually these coundowns are silent, but on some CDs, live CDs especially, they occasionally contain audio in the form of the band talking to the audience or warming up for the next song, etc. however, if you want to listen to this "lead-in" to the song as well as the song, you normally have to press the 'backskip" button until the CD reaches the desired point and play from there. My new addition to the standard CD player would enable the user to, at the tap of a button, immediately skip back to the beginning of the countdown and play from there. In this way you can actually hear the song as it was heard by the live audience - complete with false starts, arguments between band members, and all those other things that usually get "skipped" by.
-- Rubi, Jan 20 2004

[jutta] Thanks. I should have done that, but I forgot to. It definitely looks better this way.
-- Rubi, Jan 21 2004


I've got a few CDs where the countdown is used to hide stuff, even entire songs (Crossing The Red Sea With The Adverts, for example). If you implement an easy way to play that back, then they'll only find more obscure ways of hiding tracks, like requiring you to hold a chipmunk up to the loudspeakers to filter the sound through its teeth.
-- kropotkin, Jan 21 2004


[kropotkin] - does a chipmunk work better than a marmot? Chipmunks are very wiggly, but marmots get heavy fast.
-- bungston, Jan 21 2004



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