MUSIC DVDS ON WAY; INDUSTRY BOARD PLANS STANDARD.

Byline: Dave McNary Daily News Staff Writer

The recording industry predicted Friday that music DVDs and players may be available within two years and took a step toward developing standards for the technology, sold as the latest format for movies.

A digital versatile disc music format would mean significantly improved sound over what is available from compact disc players, including multichannel surround sound, the Recording Industry of Association of America said.

``There has to be an obvious progression for consumers to want this,'' spokesman Tom Sites said. ``There's a lot of keen interest in a new digital format.''

The RIAA announced that the industry's international steering committee, a coalition working on DVD issues, expects to have a final draft specification for a music DVD music by December. Listening tests will be conducted in the meantime in studios in Los Angeles, Berlin, London, New York and Tokyo.

``I think music DVD could breathe new life into music listening,'' said Mark Elson, general manager of the Dave's Video specialty audio store in Studio City. ``It will probably be warmly embraced when it goes on sale.''

Movie DVD players and discs have been on sale for several months in Los Angeles and six other metropolitan areas, offering seven times the capacity of a CD-ROM and visual quality equal to that of a laserdisc. But because most of the information encoded on the discs is devoted to visual images, the existing audio standards are not sufficient for music-only discs, the RIAA said.

``We can do better,'' said Hillary Rosen, president of the RIAA. ``We're eager for independent sound experts with `golden ears' to assess the various systems that will be presented to us.''

Elson said demand for the movie DVD players - made by Sony, Pioneer and Panasonic - and discs has been strong. ``We could have sold four times as many players as we've been allocated,'' he said. Titles from Warner Bros., New Line, MGM, United Artists, Sony and PolyGram are available.

Sites said the RIAA's top priority is to ensure that music DVDs do not make CD players and discs obsolete. To that end, the standards will ensure that the new audio DVDs will play on existing CD machines and CDs will play on the new DVD machines by offering the current CD, or ``Red Book,'' standard on one layer and a second layer with DVD audio with other possible features such as text, graphics, video and interactivity.

The RIAA said it needs to move cautiously to reach agreement on issues such as copyright and anti-piracy protection and to give the studios, artists and manufacturers time to prepare for a new product.