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111-477: The album was re-released on CD in 2001 by Garden of Delights, featuring two bonus tracks absent from the 1972 release. In 2002 after a gap of 30 years another album was released by the reformed band. The album was called "Peace" and contained a more New Age fare compared to the 1972 Krautrock. This article about a German band or other musical ensemble is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Compact disc The compact disc ( CD )

222-400: A CD-DA layer. The optophone , first presented in 1931, was an early device that used light for both recording and playback of sound signals on a transparent photograph . More than thirty years later, American inventor James T. Russell has been credited with inventing the first system to record digital media on a photosensitive plate. Russell's patent application was filed in 1966, and he

333-494: A Red Book CD; thus, the mono source material is usually presented as two identical channels in a standard Red Book stereo track (i.e., mirrored mono ); an MP3 CD , can have audio file formats with mono sound. CD-Text is an extension of the Red Book specification for an audio CD that allows for the storage of additional text information (e.g., album name, song name, artist) on a standards-compliant audio CD. The information

444-474: A 150-minute playing time, 44,056 Hz sampling rate, 16-bit linear resolution, and cross-interleaved Reed-Solomon coding (CIRC) error correction code —specifications similar to those later settled upon for the standard compact disc format in 1980. Technical details of Sony's digital audio disc were presented during the 62nd AES Convention, held on 13–16 March 1979, in Brussels . Sony's AES technical paper

555-664: A 70 percent share of the market when it decided to pull the plug on the format in 2010. Sony still develops magnetic tape storage technologies along with IBM , and are one of only two manufacturers of Linear Tape-Open (LTO) cartridges. In 1998, Sony launched the Memory Stick format, the flash memory cards for use in Sony lines of digital cameras and portable music players. It has seen little support outside of Sony's own products, with Secure Digital cards (SD) commanding considerably greater popularity. Sony has made updates to

666-603: A CD. VCDs are playable in dedicated VCD players, most modern DVD-Video players, personal computers, and some video game consoles. The VCD standard was created in 1993 by Sony, Philips, Matsushita , and JVC and is referred to as the White Book standard. Overall picture quality is intended to be comparable to VHS video. Poorly compressed VCD video can sometimes be of lower quality than VHS video, but VCD exhibits block artifacts rather than analog noise and does not deteriorate further with each use. 352×240 (or SIF ) resolution

777-453: A Super Famicom with a built-in CD-ROM drive, named the "Play Station" (also known as SNES-CD ). However, a day after the announcement at CES, Nintendo announced that it would be breaking its partnership with Sony, opting to go with Philips instead but using the same technology. The deal was broken by Nintendo after they were unable to come to an agreement on how revenue would be split between

888-783: A completely separate financial entity owned by Sony, so as to retain the project and maintain relationships with Philips for the MMCD development project (which helped lead to the creation of the DVD ) In 2021, the WIPO 's annual review of the World Intellectual Property Indicators report ranked Sony's as ninth in the world for the number of patent applications published under the PCT System . 1,793 patent applications were published by Sony during 2020. This position

999-479: A diameter of 20 cm (7.9 in) and a sound quality superior to that of the vinyl record. However, due to the unsatisfactory performance of the analog format, two Philips research engineers recommended a digital format in March 1974. In 1977, Philips then established a laboratory with the mission of creating a digital audio disc. The diameter of Philips's prototype compact disc was set at 11.5 cm (4.5 in),

1110-417: A disc played from beginning to end slows its rotation rate during playback. The program area is 86.05 cm and the length of the recordable spiral is 86.05 cm / 1.6 μm = 5.38 km. With a scanning speed of 1.2 m/s, the playing time is 74 minutes or 650 MiB of data on a CD-ROM. A disc with data packed slightly more densely is tolerated by most players (though some old ones fail). Using

1221-457: A focus on reducing the major losses from the television business. In February 2014, Sony announced the sale of its Vaio PC division to a new corporation owned by investment fund Japan Industrial Partners and spinning its TV division into its own corporation as to make it more nimble to turn the unit around from past losses totaling $ 7.8 billion over a decade. Later that month, they announced that they would be closing 20 stores. In April,

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1332-513: A format war with DVD-Audio . Still, neither gained a major foothold with the general public. CDs had been preferred by consumers because of the ubiquitous presence of CD drives in consumer devices until the early 2000s when the iPod and streaming services became available. In 2015, Sony introduced LDAC , a proprietary audio coding technology which allows streaming high-resolution audio over Bluetooth connections at up to 990 kbit/s at 32 bit/96 kHz. Sony also contributed it as part of

1443-400: A former member of the task force, gives background information on the many technical decisions made, including the choice of the sampling frequency, playing time, and disc diameter. The task force consisted of around 6 persons, though according to Philips, the compact disc was "invented collectively by a large group of people working as a team". Early milestones in the launch and adoption of

1554-469: A graphics signal (typically, the CD+G player is hooked up to a television set or a computer monitor); these graphics are almost exclusively used to display lyrics on a television set for karaoke performers to sing along with. The CD+G format takes advantage of the channels R through W. These six bits store the graphics information. CD + Extended Graphics (CD+EG, also known as CD+XG) is an improved variant of

1665-662: A joint task force of engineers to design a new digital audio disc. After a year of experimentation and discussion, the Red Book CD-DA standard was published in 1980. After their commercial release in 1982, compact discs and their players were extremely popular. Despite costing up to $ 1,000, over 400,000 CD players were sold in the United States between 1983 and 1984. By 1988, CD sales in the United States surpassed those of vinyl LPs, and, by 1992, CD sales surpassed those of prerecorded music-cassette tapes. The success of

1776-563: A joint task force of engineers to design a new digital audio disc. Led by engineers Kees Schouhamer Immink and Toshitada Doi , the research pushed forward laser and optical disc technology. After a year of experimentation and discussion, the task force produced the Red Book CD-DA standard. First published in 1980, the standard was formally adopted by the IEC as an international standard in 1987, with various amendments becoming part of

1887-399: A life insurance company in 1979, one of its many peripheral businesses. Amid a global recession in the early 1980s, electronics sales dropped and the company was forced to cut prices. Sony's profits fell sharply. "It's over for Sony", one analyst concluded. "The company's best days are behind it." Around that time, Norio Ohga took up the role of president. He encouraged the development of

1998-453: A linear velocity of 1.2 m/s and a narrower track pitch of 1.5 μm increases the playing time to 80 minutes, and data capacity to 700 MiB. Even denser tracks are possible, with semi-standard 90 minute/800 MiB discs having 1.33 μm, and 99 minute/870 MiB having 1.26 μm, but compatibility suffers as density increases. A CD is read by focusing a 780 nm wavelength ( near infrared ) semiconductor laser through

2109-476: A malfunctioning CD writer . Error scanning can reliably predict data losses caused by media deterioration. Support of error scanning differs between vendors and models of optical disc drives , and extended error scanning (known as "advanced error scanning" in Nero DiscSpeed ) has only been available on Plextor and some BenQ optical drives so far, as of 2020. The digital data on a CD begins at

2220-573: A powerful exporter during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, supplying the U.S. Military with bomb parts used in the Vietnam War . It also helped to significantly improve American perceptions of "made in Japan" products. Known for its production quality, Sony was able to charge above-market prices for its consumer electronics and resisted lowering prices. In 1971, Masaru Ibuka handed the position of president over to his co-founder Akio Morita. Sony began

2331-731: A slogan known as "make.believe" in 2009. Despite some successes, the company faced continued struggles in the mid- to late-2000s. In 2012, Kazuo Hirai was promoted to president and CEO, replacing Stringer. Shortly thereafter, Hirai outlined his company-wide initiative, named "One Sony" to revive Sony from years of financial losses and bureaucratic management structure, which proved difficult for former CEO Stringer to accomplish, partly due to differences in business culture and native languages between Stringer and some of Sony's Japanese divisions and subsidiaries. Hirai outlined three major areas of focus for Sony's electronics business, which include imaging technology, gaming and mobile technology, as well as

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2442-590: A television of at least 55 inches (140 centimeters) with a price higher than $ 2,500 as well as second largest TV brand by market share and, as of 2020, the third largest television manufacturer in the world by annual sales figures. Although not being a part of any traditional keiretsu , Sony has a weak tie to the Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (SMFG), which traces its roots to the Mitsui zaibatsu . This connection dates back to

2553-460: A variation of this technique called pulse-density modulation (PDM), while Matsushita (now Panasonic ) chose pulse-width modulation (PWM), advertising it as MASH, which is an acronym derived from their patented Multi-stAge noiSe-sHaping PWM topology. The CD was primarily planned as the successor to the vinyl record for playing music, rather than as a data storage medium. However, CDs have grown to encompass other applications. In 1983, following

2664-570: A wholly owned subsidiary through a takeover bid. On 1 April 2021, Sony Corporation was renamed Sony Group Corporation. On the same day, Sony Mobile Communications Inc. absorbed Sony Electronics Corporation, Sony Imaging Products & Solutions Inc., and Sony Home Entertainment & Sound Products Inc. and changed its trade name to Sony Corporation. Sony has historically been notable for creating its own in-house standards for new recording and storage technologies, instead of adopting those of other manufacturers and standards bodies, while its success in

2775-451: A worm gear is used, a second shorter-throw linear motor, in the form of a coil and magnet, makes fine position adjustments to track eccentricities in the disk at high speed. Some CD drives (particularly those manufactured by Philips during the 1980s and early 1990s) use a swing arm similar to that seen on a gramophone. The pits and lands do not directly represent the 0s and 1s of binary data . Instead, non-return-to-zero, inverted encoding

2886-600: Is a digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. It uses the Compact Disc Digital Audio format which typically provides 74 minutes of audio on a disc. In later years, the compact disc was adapted for non-audio computer data storage purposes as CD-ROM and its derivatives. First released in Japan in October 1982,

2997-580: Is a Japanese multinational conglomerate headquartered in Minato, Tokyo , Japan. The Sony Group comprises entities such as Sony Corporation , Sony Semiconductor Solutions , Sony Entertainment (including Sony Pictures and Sony Music Group ), Sony Interactive Entertainment , Sony Financial Group , and others. Sony was established in 1946 as Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo by Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita . This electronics company, known for creating products such as

3108-506: Is described in a document produced in 1980 by the format's joint creators, Sony and Philips. The document is known colloquially as the Red Book CD-DA after the color of its cover. The format is a two-channel 16-bit PCM encoding at a 44.1 kHz sampling rate per channel. Four-channel sound was to be an allowable option within the Red Book format, but has never been implemented. Monaural audio has no existing standard on

3219-505: Is largely offered in two forms, either chips embedded in smartphones or plastic cards with chips embedded in them. Sony plans to implement this technology in train systems across Asia. In 2019, Sony launched the ELTRES, the company's proprietary low-power wide-area wireless communication ( LPWAN ) standard. Until 1991, Sony had little direct involvement with the video game industry. The company supplied components for other consoles, such as

3330-443: Is organized into the following business segments: Game & Network Services (G&NS), Music, Pictures, Electronics Products & Solutions (EP&S), Imaging & Sensing Solutions (I&SS), Financial Services, and Others. Usually, each business segment has a handful of corresponding intermediate holding companies under which all the related businesses are folded into, such as Columbia Records being part of Sony Music Group ,

3441-407: Is playable in standard CD players, thus making them backward compatible. CD- MIDI is a format used to store music-performance data, which upon playback is performed by electronic instruments that synthesize the audio. Hence, unlike the original Red Book CD-DA, these recordings are not digitally sampled audio recordings. The CD-MIDI format is defined as an extension of the original Red Book . For

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3552-510: Is protected by a film of lacquer normally spin coated directly on the reflective layer. The label is printed on the lacquer layer, usually by screen printing or offset printing . CD data is represented as tiny indentations known as pits , encoded in a spiral track molded into the top of the polycarbonate layer. The areas between pits are known as lands . Each pit is approximately 100  nm deep by 500 nm wide, and varies from 850 nm to 3.5  μm in length. The distance between

3663-444: Is routinely extended to 80 minutes and 700  MiB ( 734,003,200  bytes), 90 minutes 800  MiB ( 838,860,800  bytes), or 99 minutes 870  MiB ( 912,261,120  bytes) by arranging data more closely on the same-sized disc. The Mini CD has various diameters ranging from 60 to 80 millimetres (2.4 to 3.1 in); they have been used for CD singles or delivering device drivers . The CD gained rapid popularity in

3774-480: Is stored either in the lead-in area of the CD, where there are roughly five kilobytes of space available or in the subcode channels R to W on the disc, which can store about 31 megabytes. Compact Disc + Graphics is a special audio compact disc that contains graphics data in addition to the audio data on the disc. The disc can be played on a regular audio CD player, but when played on a special CD+G player, it can output

3885-573: Is up from their previous ranking as 13th in 2019 with 1,566 applications. Best known for its electronic products, Sony offers a wide variety of product lines in many areas. At its peak, it was dubbed as a "corporate octopus", for its sprawling ventures from private insurance to chemicals to cosmetics to home shopping to a Tokyo-based French food joint, in addition its core businesses such as electronics and entertainment. Even after it has unwound many business units including Sony Chemicals and Vaio PC, Sony still runs diverse businesses. As of 2020, Sony

3996-408: Is used: a change from either pit to land or land to pit indicates a 1, while no change indicates a series of 0s. There must be at least two, and no more than ten 0s between each 1, which is defined by the length of the pit. This, in turn, is decoded by reversing the eight-to-fourteen modulation used in mastering the disc, and then reversing the cross-interleaved Reed–Solomon coding , finally revealing

4107-579: The ATRAC brand, against the more widely used MP3. Until late 2004, Sony's Network Walkman line of digital portable music players did not support the MP3 standard natively. In 2004, Sony built upon the MiniDisc format by releasing Hi-MD . Hi-MD allows the playback and recording of audio on newly introduced 1 GB Hi-MD discs in addition to playback and recording on regular MiniDiscs. In addition to saving audio on

4218-824: The Android Open Source Project starting from Android 8.0 " Oreo ", enabling every OEM to integrate this standard into their own Android devices freely. However the decoder library is proprietary , so receiving devices require licenses. On 17 September 2019, the Japan Audio Society (JAS) certified LDAC with their Hi-Res Audio Wireless certification. Currently the only codecs with the Hi-Res Audio Wireless certification are LDAC and LHDC , another competing standard. Sony demonstrated an optical digital audio disc in 1977 and soon joined hands with Philips, another major contender for

4329-483: The Compact Disc + Graphics (CD+G) format. Like CD+G, CD+EG uses basic CD-ROM features to display text and video information in addition to the music being played. This extra data is stored in subcode channels R-W. Very few CD+EG discs have been published. Super Audio CD (SACD) is a high-resolution, read-only optical audio disc format that was designed to provide higher-fidelity digital audio reproduction than

4440-635: The Crystal LED Display. Sony used the Compact Cassette format in many of its tape recorders and players, including the Walkman , the world's first portable music player. Sony introduced the MiniDisc format in 1992 as an alternative to Philips DCC or Digital Compact Cassette and as a successor to the Compact Cassette. Since the introduction of MiniDisc, Sony has attempted to promote its own audio compression technologies under

4551-522: The Red Book . Introduced in 1999, it was developed by Sony and Philips, the same companies that created the Red Book . SACD was in a format war with DVD-Audio , but neither has replaced audio CDs. The SACD standard is referred to as the Scarlet Book standard. Titles in the SACD format can be issued as hybrid discs; these discs contain the SACD audio stream as well as a standard audio CD layer which

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4662-535: The Video8 format . Video8 and the follow-on hi-band Hi8 format became popular in the consumer camcorder market. In 1987 Sony launched the 4 mm DAT or Digital Audio Tape as a new digital audio tape standard. Sony held a patent for its proprietary Trinitron until 1996. Sony introduced the Triluminos Display, the company's proprietary color reproduction enhancing technology, in 2004, featured in

4773-752: The vinyl revival . During the 2010s, the increasing popularity of solid-state media and music streaming services caused automakers to remove automotive CD players in favor of minijack auxiliary inputs, wired connections to USB devices and wireless Bluetooth connections. Automakers viewed CD players as using up valuable space and taking up weight which could be reallocated to more popular features, like large touchscreens. By 2021, only Lexus and General Motors were still including CD players as standard equipment with certain vehicles. CDs continued to be strong in some markets such as Japan where 132 million units were produced in 2019. The decline in CD sales has slowed in recent years; in 2021, CD sales increased in

4884-716: The 120 mm size was adopted. The adoption of EFM in June 1980 allowed 30 percent more playing time that would have resulted in 97 minutes for 120 mm diameter or 74 minutes for a disc as small as 100 millimetres (3.9 in). Instead, the information density was lowered by 30 percent to keep the playing time at 74 minutes. The 120 mm diameter has been adopted by subsequent formats, including Super Audio CD , DVD , HD DVD , and Blu-ray Disc. The 80-millimetre (3.1 in) diameter discs (" Mini CDs ") can hold up to 24 minutes of music or 210 MiB. The logical format of an audio CD (officially Compact Disc Digital Audio or CD-DA)

4995-603: The 1950s when it was the only bank the company dealt with. Sony is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange (in which it is a constituent of the Nikkei 225 and TOPIX Core30 indeces) with an additional listing in the form of American depositary receipts listed in the New York Stock Exchange (traded since 1961, making it one of the oldest Japanese company to be listed on an American exchange), and

5106-496: The 1990s, quickly outselling all other audio formats in the United States by 1991, ending the market dominance of the phonograph record and the cassette tape . By 2000, the CD accounted for 92.3% of the entire market share in regard to US music sales . The CD is considered the last dominant audio format of the album era , as the rise of MP3 , iTunes , cellular ringtones , and other downloadable music formats in

5217-611: The 2000s designed as successors to the CD: the Super Audio CD (SACD) and DVD-Audio . However neither of these were adopted partly due to increased relevance of digital (virtual) music and the apparent lack of audible improvements in audio quality to most human ears. These effectively extended the CD's longevity in the music market. With the advent and popularity of Internet-based distribution of files in lossy-compressed audio formats such as MP3 , sales of CDs began to decline in

5328-502: The 2000s. For example, between 2000 and 2008, despite overall growth in music sales and one anomalous year of increase, major-label CD sales declined overall by 20%. Despite rapidly declining sales year-over-year, the pervasiveness of the technology lingered for a time, with companies placing CDs in pharmacies, supermarkets, and filling station convenience stores to target buyers less likely to be able to use Internet-based distribution. In 2012, CDs and DVDs made up only 34% of music sales in

5439-405: The CD was the second optical disc technology to be invented, after the much larger LaserDisc (LD). By 2007, 200 billion CDs (including audio CDs, CD-ROMs and CD-Rs) had been sold worldwide. Standard CDs have a diameter of 120 mm (4.7 in), and are designed to hold up to 74 minutes of uncompressed stereo digital audio or about 650   MiB ( 681,574,400  bytes) of data. Capacity

5550-467: The CD's introduction, Immink and Joseph Braat presented the first experiments with erasable compact discs during the 73rd AES Convention . In June 1985, the computer-readable CD-ROM (read-only memory) and, in 1990, recordable CD-R discs were introduced. Recordable CDs became an alternative to tape for recording and distributing music and could be duplicated without degradation in sound quality. Other newer video formats such as DVD and Blu-ray use

5661-475: The DAC. Even when using high-precision components, this approach was prone to decoding errors. Another issue was jitter , a time-related defect. Confronted with the instability of DACs, manufacturers initially turned to increasing the number of bits in the DAC and using several DACs per audio channel, averaging their output. This increased the cost of CD players but did not solve the core problem. A breakthrough in

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5772-523: The Memory Stick format with Memory Stick Duo and Memory Stick Micro . The company has also released USB flash drive products, branded under the Micro Vault line. Sony introduced FeliCa , a contactless IC card technology primarily used in contactless payment , as a result of the company's joint development and commercialization of Near-Field Communication (NFC) with Philips. The standard

5883-406: The U.S. market and launched the new industry of consumer microelectronics." By the mid-1950s, American teens had begun buying portable transistor radios in huge numbers, helping to propel the fledgling industry from an estimated 100,000 units in 1955 to 5 million units by the end of 1968. Sony co-founder Akio Morita founded Sony Corporation of America in 1960. In the process, he was struck by

5994-451: The US for the first time since 2004, with Axios citing its rise to "young people who are finding they like hard copies of music in the digital age". It came at the same time as both vinyl and cassette reached sales levels not seen in 30 years. The RIAA reported that CD revenue made a dip in 2022, before increasing again in 2023 and overtook downloading for the first time in over a decade. In

6105-521: The US, 33.4 million CD albums were sold in the year 2022. In France in 2023, 10.5 million CDs were sold, almost double that of vinyl, but both of them represented generated 12% each of the French music industry revenues. Sony and Philips received praise for the development of the compact disc from professional organizations. These awards include: A CD is made from 1.2-millimetre (0.047 in) thick, polycarbonate plastic, and weighs 14–33 grams. From

6216-620: The United States. By 2015, only 24% of music in the United States was purchased on physical media, two thirds of this consisting of CDs; however, in the same year in Japan, over 80% of music was bought on CDs and other physical formats. In 2018, U.S. CD sales were 52 million units—less than 6% of the peak sales volume in 2000. In the UK, 32 million units were sold, almost 100 million fewer than in 2008. In 2018, Best Buy announced plans to decrease their focus on CD sales, however, while continuing to sell records, sales of which are growing during

6327-412: The board. Eventually, Sony President Ohga decided to retain the project after being reminded by Kutaragi of the humiliation he suffered from Nintendo. Nevertheless, due to strong opposition from a majority present at the meeting as well as widespread internal opposition to the project by the older generation of Sony executives, Kutaragi and his team had to be shifted from Sony's headquarters to Sony Music ,

6438-406: The bottom of the polycarbonate layer. The change in height between pits and lands results in a difference in the way the light is reflected. Because the pits are indented into the top layer of the disc and are read through the transparent polycarbonate base, the pits form bumps when read. The laser hits the disc, casting a circle of light wider than the modulated spiral track reflecting partially from

6549-451: The center of the disc and proceeds toward the edge, which allows adaptation to the different sizes available. Standard CDs are available in two sizes. By far, the most common is 120 millimetres (4.7 in) in diameter, with a 74-, 80, 90, or 99-minute audio capacity and a 650, 700, 800, or 870 MiB (737,280,000-byte) data capacity. Discs are 1.2 millimetres (0.047 in) thick, with a 15 millimetres (0.59 in) center hole. The size of

6660-407: The center outward, components are: the center spindle hole (15 mm), the first-transition area (clamping ring), the clamping area (stacking ring), the second-transition area (mirror band), the program (data) area, and the rim. The inner program area occupies a radius from 25 to 58 mm. A thin layer of aluminum or, more rarely, gold is applied to the surface, making it reflective. The metal

6771-496: The compact disc (CD) in the 1970s and 1980s, and of the PlayStation in the early 1990s. Ohga went on to purchase CBS Records in 1988 and Columbia Pictures in 1989, greatly expanding Sony's media presence. Ohga would succeed Morita as chief executive officer in 1989. Under the vision of co-founder Akio Morita and his successors, the company had aggressively expanded into new businesses. Part of its motivation for doing so

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6882-450: The compact disc has been credited to the cooperation between Philips and Sony, which together agreed upon and developed compatible hardware. The unified design of the compact disc allowed consumers to purchase any disc or player from any company and allowed the CD to dominate the at-home music market unchallenged. In 1974, Lou Ottens, director of the audio division of Philips, started a small group to develop an analog optical audio disc with

6993-572: The company announced that they would be selling 9.5 million shares in Square Enix (roughly 8.2 percent of the game company's total shares) in a deal worth approximately $ 48 million. In May 2014 the company announced it was forming two joint ventures with Shanghai Oriental Pearl Group to manufacture and market Sony's PlayStation game consoles and associated software in China. In 2015, Sony purchased Toshiba's image sensor business. It

7104-425: The company's struggling media businesses, encouraging blockbusters such as Spider-Man while cutting 9,000 jobs. He hoped to sell off peripheral business and focus the company again on electronics. Furthermore, he aimed to increase cooperation between business units, which he described as "silos" operating in isolation from one another. In a bid to provide a unified brand for its global operations, Sony introduced

7215-423: The diagonal of an audio cassette. Heitaro Nakajima , who developed an early digital audio recorder within Japan's national public broadcasting organization, NHK , in 1970, became general manager of Sony's audio department in 1971. In 1973, his team developed a digital PCM adaptor that made audio recordings using a Betamax video recorder. After this, in 1974 the leap to storing digital audio on an optical disc

7326-469: The discs, Hi-MD allows the storage of computer files such as documents, videos and photos. In 1993, Sony challenged the industry standard Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound format with a newer and more advanced proprietary motion picture digital audio format called SDDS (Sony Dynamic Digital Sound). This format employed eight channels (7.1) of audio opposed to just six used in Dolby Digital 5.1 at

7437-487: The early years owes to a smooth capitalization on the Digital Compact Cassette standard introduced by Philips , with which Sony went on to enjoy a decades-long technological relationship in various areas. Sony (either alone or with partners) has introduced several of the most popular recording formats, including the 3.5-inch floppy disk , compact disc and Blu-ray disc. Sony introduced U-matic ,

7548-471: The film studio. According to one report, Sony was set to make a final decision on the possibility of the merger of the TV, film, & gaming businesses by the end of its fiscal year in March of the following year (2017). In 2017, Sony sold its lithium-ion battery business to Murata Manufacturing . In 2019, Sony merged its mobile, TV and camera businesses. On 1 April 2020, Sony Electronics Corporation

7659-424: The financial sector. In 2021, Sony transformed into a holding company, handing over the name Sony Corporation to its subsidiary as the electronics company. Sony, with its 55 percent market share in the image sensor market, is the largest manufacturer of image sensors, the second largest camera manufacturer, and is among the semiconductor sales leaders. It is the world's largest player in the premium TV market for

7770-516: The first few years of its existence, the CD was a medium used purely for audio. In 1988, the Yellow Book CD-ROM standard was established by Sony and Philips, which defined a non-volatile optical data computer data storage medium using the same physical format as audio compact discs, readable by a computer with a CD-ROM drive. Video CD (VCD, View CD, and Compact Disc digital video) is a standard digital format for storing video media on

7881-463: The first four UK albums by the Beatles were released in mono on compact disc. The growing acceptance of the CD in 1983 marks the beginning of the popular digital audio revolution. It was enthusiastically received, especially in the early-adopting classical music and audiophile communities, and its handling quality received particular praise. As the price of players gradually came down, and with

7992-813: The format included: The first artist to sell a million copies on CD was Dire Straits , with their 1985 album Brothers in Arms . One of the first CD markets was devoted to reissuing popular music whose commercial potential was already proven. The first major artist to have their entire catalog converted to CD was David Bowie , whose first fourteen studio albums (up to Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) ) of (then) sixteen were made available by RCA Records in February 1985, along with four greatest hits albums; his fifteenth and sixteenth albums ( Let's Dance and Tonight , respectively) had already been issued on CD by EMI Records in 1983 and 1984, respectively. On 26 February 1987,

8103-490: The global market, which required labeling their products with a short and easy brand name. While looking for a romanized name, they at first strongly considered using their initials, TTK. The primary reason they did not is that the railway company Tokyo Kyuko was known as TTK. The company occasionally used the syllabic acronym "Totsuko" in Japan, but during his visit to the United States, Morita discovered that Americans had trouble pronouncing that name. Another early name that

8214-530: The hole was chosen by Joop Sinjou and based on a Dutch 10-cent coin: a dubbeltje . Philips/Sony patented the physical dimensions. The official Philips history says the capacity was specified by Sony executive Norio Ohga to be able to contain the entirety of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony on one disc. This is a myth according to Kees Immink , as the EFM code format had not yet been decided in December 1979, when

8325-505: The introduction of the portable Discman , the CD began to gain popularity in the larger popular and rock music markets. With the rise in CD sales, pre-recorded cassette tape sales began to decline in the late 1980s; CD sales overtook cassette sales in the early 1990s. In 1988, 400 million CDs were manufactured by 50 pressing plants around the world. Early CD players employed binary-weighted digital-to-analog converters (DAC), which contained individual electrical components for each bit of

8436-476: The label side of the disc. Scratches on the clear side can be repaired by refilling them with similar refractive plastic or by careful polishing. The edges of CDs are sometimes incompletely sealed, allowing gases and liquids to enter the CD and corrode the metal reflective layer and/or interfere with the focus of the laser on the pits, a condition known as disc rot . The fungus Geotrichum candidum has been found—under conditions of high heat and humidity—to consume

8547-510: The lands and partially from the top of any bumps where they are present. As the laser passes over a pit (bump), its height means that the round trip path of the light reflected from its peak is 1/2 wavelength out of phase with the light reflected from the land around it. This is because the height of a bump is around 1/4 of the wavelength of the light used, so the light falls 1/4 out of phase before reflection and another 1/4 wavelength out of phase after reflection. This causes partial cancellation of

8658-419: The laser's reflection from the surface. By measuring the reflected intensity change with a photodiode , a modulated signal is read back from the disc. To accommodate the spiral pattern of data, the laser is placed on a mobile mechanism within the disc tray of any CD player. This mechanism typically takes the form of a sled that moves along a rail. The sled can be driven by a worm gear or linear motor . Where

8769-428: The late 1980s culminated in development of the 1-bit DAC , which converts high-resolution low-frequency digital input signal into a lower-resolution high-frequency signal that is mapped to voltages and then smoothed with an analog filter. The temporary use of a lower-resolution signal simplified circuit design and improved efficiency, which is why it became dominant in CD players starting from the early 1990s. Philips used

8880-520: The marketbase and became the worldwide standard for consumer VCRs. Betamax is, for all practical purposes, an obsolete format. Sony's professional-oriented component video format called Betacam , which was derived from Betamax, was used until 2016 when Sony announced it was stopping production of all remaining 1/2-inch video tape recorders and players, including the Digital Betacam format. In 1985, Sony launched their Handycam products and

8991-557: The mid-2000s ended the decade-long dominance of the CD. The format was later adapted (as CD-ROM ) for general purpose data storage and initially could hold much more data than a personal computer hard disk drive . Several other formats were further derived, both pre-pressed and blank user writable, including write-once audio and data storage ( CD-R ), rewritable media ( CD-RW ), Video CD (VCD), Super Video CD (SVCD), Photo CD , Picture CD , Compact Disc-Interactive ( CD-i ), Enhanced Music CD , and Super Audio CD (SACD) which may have

9102-420: The mobility of employees between American companies, which was unheard of in Japan at that time. When he returned to Japan, he encouraged experienced, middle-aged employees of other companies to reevaluate their careers and consider joining Sony. The company filled many positions in this manner, and inspired other Japanese companies to do the same. Moreover, Sony played a major role in the development of Japan as

9213-536: The polycarbonate plastic and aluminium found in CDs. The data integrity of compact discs can be measured using surface error scanning , which can measure the rates of different types of data errors, known as C1 , C2 , CU and extended (finer-grain) error measurements known as E11 , E12 , E21 , E22 , E31 and E32 , of which higher rates indicate a possibly damaged or unclean data surface, low media quality, deteriorating media and recordable media written to by

9324-507: The prior art by Optophonie and James Russell, the information on the disc is read from a reflective layer using a laser as a light source through a protective substrate. Prototypes were developed by Philips and Sony independently in the late 1970s. Although originally dismissed by Philips Research management as a trivial pursuit, the CD became the primary focus for Philips as the LaserDisc format struggled. In 1979, Sony and Philips set up

9435-543: The raw data stored on the disc. These encoding techniques (defined in the Red Book ) were originally designed for CD Digital Audio , but they later became a standard for almost all CD formats (such as CD-ROM ). CDs are susceptible to damage during handling and from environmental exposure. Pits are much closer to the label side of a disc, enabling defects and contaminants on the clear side to be out of focus during playback. Consequently, CDs are more likely to suffer damage on

9546-432: The same physical geometry as CD, and most DVD and Blu-ray players are backward compatible with audio CDs. CD sales in the United States peaked by 2000. By the early 2000s, the CD player had largely replaced the audio cassette player as standard equipment in new automobiles, with 2010 being the final model year for any car in the United States to have a factory-equipped cassette player. Two new formats were marketed in

9657-611: The sound chip for the Super Famicom from Nintendo , and operated a video game studio, Sony Imagesoft . As part of a joint project between Nintendo and Sony that began as early as 1988, the two companies worked to create a CD-ROM version of the Super Famicom, though Nintendo denied the existence of the Sony deal as late as March 1991. At the Consumer Electronics Show in June 1991, Sony revealed

9768-598: The specific use of archival data storage, in 1986 and 1988 respectively. In the early 1990s, two high-density optical storage standards were being developed: one was the MultiMedia Compact Disc (MMCD), backed by Philips and Sony, and the other was the Super Density Disc (SD), supported by Toshiba and many others. Philips and Sony abandoned their MMCD format and agreed upon Toshiba's SD format with only one modification. The unified disc format

9879-511: The standard in 1996. Philips coined the term compact disc in line with another audio product, the Compact Cassette , and contributed the general manufacturing process , based on video LaserDisc technology. Philips also contributed eight-to-fourteen modulation (EFM), while Sony contributed the error-correction method, CIRC, which offers resilience to defects such as scratches and fingerprints. The Compact Disc Story , told by

9990-512: The storage technology, to establish a worldwide standard. In 1983, the two company jointly announced the Compact Disc (CD). In 1984, Sony launched the Discman series, an expansion of the Walkman brand to portable CD players. Sony began to improve performance and capacity of the novel format. It launched write-once optical discs (WO) and magneto-optical discs which were around 125MB size for

10101-505: The technologies developed for the company's optical disc products. In 1983, Sony introduced 90 mm micro diskettes, better known as 3.5-inch (89 mm) floppy disks , which it had developed at a time when there were 4" floppy disks, and many variations from different companies, to replace the then on-going 5.25" floppy disks. Sony had great success and the format became dominant. 3.5" floppy disks gradually became obsolete as they were replaced by current media formats. Sony held more than

10212-515: The time. Ultimately, SDDS has been vastly overshadowed by the preferred DTS ( Digital Theatre System ) and Dolby Digital standards in the motion picture industry. SDDS was solely developed for use in the theatre circuit; Sony never intended to develop a home theatre version of SDDS. Sony and Philips jointly developed the Sony-Philips digital interface format ( S/PDIF ) and the high-fidelity audio system SACD . The latter became entrenched in

10323-422: The transistor radio TR-55 , the home video tape recorder CV-2000 , the portable audio player Walkman , and the compact disc player CDP-101 , embarked on diverse business ventures. In 1988, Sony acquired CBS Records , and in 1989, it acquired Columbia Pictures . The company also introduced the home video game console PlayStation in 1994, which was the first of the eponymous brand . In Japan, Sony expanded into

10434-491: The two companies. The breaking of the partnership infuriated Sony President Norio Ohga , who responded by appointing Kutaragi with the responsibility of developing the PlayStation project to rival Nintendo. At that time, negotiations were still on-going between Nintendo and Sony, with Nintendo offering Sony a "non-gaming role" regarding their new partnership with Philips. This proposal was swiftly rejected by Kutaragi who

10545-420: The windings (the pitch ) is 1.6 μm (measured center-to-center, not between the edges). When playing an audio CD, a motor within the CD player spins the disc to a scanning velocity of 1.2–1.4 m/s ( constant linear velocity , CLV)—equivalent to approximately 500 RPM at the inside of the disc, and approximately 200 RPM at the outside edge. The track on the CD begins at the inside and spirals outward so

10656-455: The world's first LED-backlit LCD televisions. It was widely used in other Sony's products as well, including computer monitors, laptops, and smartphones. In 2013, Sony released a new line of televisions with an improved version of the technology, which incorporated quantum dots in the backlight system. It was the first commercial use of quantum dots. In 2012, the company revealed a prototype of an ultrafine RGB LED display, which it calls

10767-518: The world's first videocassette format, in 1971, but the standard was unpopular for domestic use due to the high price. The company subsequently launched the Betamax format in 1975. Sony was involved in the videotape format war of the early 1980s, when they were marketing the Betamax system for video cassette recorders against the VHS format developed by JVC . In the end, VHS gained critical mass in

10878-564: Was a loan word in Japanese, which connoted smart and presentable young men, which Akio Morita and Masaru Ibuka considered themselves to be. The first Sony-branded product, the TR-55 transistor radio , appeared in 1955, but the company name did not change to Sony until January 1958. At the time of the change, it was extremely unusual for a Japanese company to use Roman letters to spell its name instead of writing it in kanji . The move

10989-525: Was called DVD and was introduced in 1997. Sony was one of the leading developers of the Blu-ray optical disc format, the newest standard for disc-based content delivery. The first Blu-ray players became commercially available in 2006. The format emerged as the standard for HD media over the competing format, Toshiba's HD DVD , after a two-year-long high-definition optical disc format war . Sony's laser communication devices for small satellites rely on

11100-487: Was chosen because it is half the vertical and half the horizontal resolution of the NTSC video. 352×288 is a similarly one-quarter PAL/SECAM resolution. This approximates the (overall) resolution of an analog VHS tape, which, although it has double the number of (vertical) scan lines, has a much lower horizontal resolution. Sony Sony Group Corporation (formerly Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo K.K. and Sony Corporation )

11211-464: Was easily made. Sony first publicly demonstrated an optical digital audio disc in September 1976. A year later, in September 1977, Sony showed the press a 30 cm (12 in) disc that could play an hour of digital audio (44,100 Hz sampling rate and 16-bit resolution) using modified frequency modulation encoding. In September 1978, the company demonstrated an optical digital audio disc with

11322-477: Was established as an intermediate holding company to own and oversee its electronics and IT solutions businesses. On 19 May 2020, the company announced that it would change its name to Sony Group Corporation as of 1 April 2021. Subsequently, Sony Electronics Corporation would be renamed to Sony Corporation. On the same day the company announced that it would turn Sony Financial Holdings (currently Sony Financial Group), of which Sony already owns 65.06% of shares, to

11433-546: Was facing increasing criticism over his work with regard to entering the video game industry from within Sony. Negotiations officially ended in May 1992 and in order to decide the fate of the PlayStation project, a meeting was held in June 1992, consisting of Sony President Ohga, PlayStation Head Kutaragi and several senior members of Sony's board. At the meeting, Kutaragi unveiled a proprietary CD-ROM-based system he had been working on which involved playing video games with 3D graphics to

11544-461: Was granted a patent in 1970. Following litigation, Sony and Philips licensed Russell's patents for recording in 1988. It is debatable whether Russell's concepts, patents, and prototypes instigated and in some measure influenced the compact disc's design. The compact disc is an evolution of LaserDisc technology, where a focused laser beam is used that enables the high information density required for high-quality digital audio signals. Unlike

11655-513: Was joined by Akio Morita to establish a company called Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo ( 東京通信工業 , Tōkyō Tsūshin Kōgyō , Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation) . The company built Japan's first tape recorder , called the Type-G. In 1958, the company changed its name to "Sony". Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo founders Morita and Ibuka realized that to achieve success and grow, their business had to expand to

11766-414: Was not without opposition: TTK's principal bank at the time, Mitsui , had strong feelings about the name. They pushed for a name such as Sony Electronic Industries, or Sony Teletech. Akio Morita was firm, however, as he did not want the company name tied to any particular industry. Eventually, both Ibuka and Mitsui Bank's chairman gave their approval. According to Schiffer, Sony's TR-63 radio "cracked open

11877-514: Was published on 1 March 1979. A week later, on 8 March, Philips publicly demonstrated a prototype of an optical digital audio disc at a press conference called "Philips Introduce Compact Disc" in Eindhoven , Netherlands. Sony executive Norio Ohga , later CEO and chairman of Sony, and Heitaro Nakajima were convinced of the format's commercial potential and pushed further development despite widespread skepticism. In 1979, Sony and Philips set up

11988-578: Was ranked 88th on the 2021 Fortune Global 500 list. In 2023, the company was ranked 57th in the Forbes Global 2000 . Sony began in the wake of World War II. In 1946, Masaru Ibuka started an electronics shop in Shirokiya, a department store building in the Nihonbashi area of Tokyo . The company started with a capital of ¥190,000 and a total of eight employees. On 7 May 1946, Ibuka

12099-427: Was reported in December 2016 by multiple news outlets that Sony was considering restructuring its U.S. operations by merging its TV & film business, Sony Pictures Entertainment, with its gaming business, Sony Interactive Entertainment. According to the reports, such a restructuring would have placed Sony Pictures under Sony Interactive's CEO, Andrew House, though House would not have taken over day-to-day operations of

12210-492: Was the pursuit of "convergence", linking film, music and digital electronics via the Internet. This expansion proved unrewarding and unprofitable, threatening Sony's ability to charge a premium on its products as well as its brand name. In 2005, Howard Stringer replaced Nobuyuki Idei as chief executive officer, marking the first time that a foreigner had run a major Japanese electronics firm. Stringer helped to reinvigorate

12321-471: Was tried out for a while was "Tokyo Teletech" until Akio Morita discovered that there was an American company already using Teletech as a brand name. The name "Sony" was chosen for the brand as a mix of two words: one was the Latin word " sonus ", which is the root of sonic and sound, and the other was " sonny ", a common slang term used in 1950s America to call a young boy. In 1950s Japan, "sonny boys"

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