This is gonna KILL SACD.

Wilkes,

Sorry about the comment, I just assummed you were a vendor.

A Klingon,

Thanks for the comments, you should check out Elton Johns Goodbye Yellow Brick Road SACD, it is impressive. The DVDA I really enjoy is the Metallicas Self Titled Black DVDA. "Enter Sandman" is amazing.

Mike Oldfields Tubular Bells SACD is also worth checking out.

As to Pink Floyds Dark Side of the Moon is ok. I still listen to LPs and find my High DEF LP version sounds better.

I guess it all comes down to who is remastering the music. That brings me around to a comment on my original post.

Let me re-phrase it a little better.

1. Just because something is re-released in either format DVD-A or SACD, does not mean that its worth re-releasing.
2. Re-mastering into Surround can really distroy the original "concept" of the music.

If you have a conceptually perfect Stereo image as created by the artist and his engineer, how can an engineer 5 10 15 20 years after the music was released really justify re-mastering the content into surround sound without the assistance of the artist. I know it will be done and has been, and hopefully the engineer has a similar "FEEL" for what the artist wanted to do.

Now however, with new music the artists has the oppertunity to record in surround and can experiment like say The Beatles did with their ground breaking recordings in Stereo.

I find your comment about "Only Having a 2 channel system" rather funny. Yes, I have a hi end surround sound system, I can simulate 7 channel stereo have multiple 5 channel inputs,,,da da da da da da da,,,,, I drive my 23 year old nephew nuts,,,,,when I typically listen to this system in Stereo Mode. There is NOTHING WRONG with "Only Having a 2 channel system"

One thing I would like to see the record companies do on DVDA is to release old releases in Native Stereo format and leave the original content alone.

Sorry to be long winded.

Robert

 

Couldn't agree more about the Stereo option.
The only way anything should be done in surround is from a remix of the original multitracks. Creating a 5.1 from a stereo master is, to my mind, an abomination!

 

The idea of recording in the DVD-A format even without MLP or Full res surround is great. I don't own a DVD-A player, but I'd like to mix in surround or high res stereo on the cheap.


As for SACD being an 'also ran' that should be like a 'never ran' in the case of PC use. Why would anyone in their right mind create anything SACD PC related with all the MP3 mess going on right now? I wouldn't, can't blame anybody for not making cheap tools for SACD/PC. This tool can't kill something that doesn't exist.


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Allow me to go off-topic a bit
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As for not being able to mix DSD, that's true, but technology eventually solves everything. At the moment Merging Technologies has made it possible on their latest gear to mix PCM at 32 bits with a sampling freq of 352kHz well beyond DVD-A, those tracks are later converted to DSD. Yeah it defeats the purpose, but time will tell, SACD is still young. I'll make an early prediction that the availabilty of such tools will help DVD-A blossom in the indie market, while the big dollar labels continue to either push SACD or come onboard if they already haven't. The number of SACD titles Vs DVD-A titles seems to tell me that, if someone has numbers to tell me otherwise, I'm SURE they will.

As for ultra sonic noise, not all speakers are even capable of reproducing that noise, ditto for the amps and pre-amps. So far it hasn't been an issue. It's all about the quality of sound in the audible range for both fomats. Both formats hype the freq response too much anyway. The tweets on my speakers can reach out to 23kHz, at least 3-5 Khz beyond what I can reliably hear. My SACD player cuts off everything above 50Khz, and what's in between that hasn't hurt my enjoyment a bit.

I also find it puzzling that wilkes? makes statements about the future of DVD-A. What future? I'm no DVD-A hater, but regardless of what some see as strengths of DVD-A and weaknesses of SACD, think about this.


Every magazine I read, every online article I read, people that actually record, mix and put music out on the market are talking about SACD/DSD. For every producer that really truly digs DVD-A, there are ten gushing about SACD. Rolling Stone put 1.3 million SACDs in their Dec 17 issue, not DVD-A. Every place that sells music CDs has SACDs in store whether they know it or not. I see the Stones and Dylan re-masters, along with other hybrids mixed in with regular CDs at various stores.

I can't say the same for DVD-A. DVD-A gets a special section with SACD, or it isn't carried.

Audiophiles - all the buzz is SACD, it doesn't matter that all SACDs might start life as PCM. Perception is everything. Audiophiles like dedicated players, there is no such thing as a dedicated DVD-A player. It will play DVD-V and must support the video portion of DVD-A. Audiophiles do have some impact on formats. All the ultra high-end machines are universal DVD-A/SACD or dedicated SACD, how many mega buck players are DVD-A only? Someone tell me.

Sony's first machines were stero only to PANDER to the audiophile. Sony made sure to keep the video portion out of SACD not only during the first years, but well beyond until SACD II to further pander to the audiophile, and it worked.


And to confuse things further, the video spec for SACD was stated back in 1999, it's just not in use at the moment. SACD II forces all players to support that feature by........ 2007? as per Sony/Philips, but don't quote me on that date.

DVD-A could survive, but not as a music format in my opinion. The folks that push it could end up doing something else with it, marketing it another way. In the end, Joe Blow consumer will decide the fate, dual discs flippers aside, SACD in the form of hybrids have already snuck in everywhere. Ask Joe Blow what Super Audio CD means and I'm sure he'll usually have a good guess, mention DVD-audio and I'm sure some DVD-Video answer will come.


In the end, it's not about what I like or don't like, of the two formats, SACD is the one, I considered DVD-A dead four years ago. They could both die and end up in Mini Disc land being that zillions of people are happy with crappy sounding MP3. But I hope and pray that one will survive and push hi res music in stereo and multi-channel into the real big time. I just don't see DVD-A doing it.


- Tony



http://www.epinions.com/user-sslabs

 

Some very good points made here.
I honestly believe the biggest reason that a lot of stores carry SACD over DVDA is the dual layer thing, where most of the buyers just don't even realise they are getting SACD as they are buying for the CD layer.
When the dualdisc format is more widespread, that will really help DVDA. For exactly the same reasons as the hybrid CD/SACD discs helped SACD.
The thing that held DVDA back was the industry's insistence on waiting for the copy protection to get sorted out properly, which it now is. CPPM combined with MLP encoding will ensure that it cannot be ripped.
There is also a lot of confusion over the 2 DVD formats. Again, most end users are under the impression that DVD-Audio is either Dolby Digital or DTS, and they just are not aware of the real DVD-Audio format's existence. Even the stores themselves are guilty of this. I've lost count of the amount of times that I've been "told" that DVDA is DTS, or that I don't need DVDA as long as I buy a reciever which has DTS decoders built in!
My belief is still that DVDA will be (eventually) the bigger format purely because the end users can create high res content for this using $99 applications such as discWelder Bronze. Show me any DSD app that will do this!
The point about MP3 is also well taken - it does make me wonder why we even bother sometimes, it really does.
As you say, time will tell - and when users buy a replacement DVD player, the chances are that the new one will be DVDA compatible - even Philips have now become DVDA/MLP licensees.
The HF content is a worry though, as it is very capable of damaging equipment due to the high energy levels. If your speakers cannot reproduce this, the noise will still be (inaudibly) damaging your amps.

Still, as I said, you do raise a number of very good points.
The best of all is that one will survive. I still back DVDA to be the long term good bet, especially given Sony's huge losses last year. My guess is it's only a matter of time....but we will see.

 

Please excuse this one paragraph as i have just broken my enter key (bloody Man United only drew against Leeds left me angry). Anyway, my question is this. I read through these forums all the time as Wilkes and A_Klingon will know and I haven't seen this mentioned yet. DVD-A, like its big brother DVD-V, is so far restricted to the capacity of a DVD disc. We are all probably aware of the increasing need for larger volume media to store more and more data (music/vieo/whatever). With the Red laser based systems currently in use, the limit is pretty close. However, with the introduction of the Blu Ray and other Blue Laser systems that offer 20GB + of storage, will there be any foreseable problem with integrating DVD-A into a blue laser system. My assumption is based on the knowledge that mpeg2 will still be used on the Blue Laser systems, regardless of the type of disc (ie: mpeg2 is still used on both DVD+R/- with no effects). I presume DVD-A will still stay in the same format on these new discs if it is introduced. I know im jumping the gun a bit, but any thoughts on this? Also, i took your advice Klingy and got myself a Pioneer DVD565K, what an amazing system. Its got the component out Y/Pb-Pr?/Cb-Cr that i need to connect into the VGA of my projector (which i just changed to the Optoma H56 which is soo good id recommend everyone to get one). My last question is on the merging of the DVD-Video with the DVD-Audio quality. Say we move into a Blue Laser system, there will be a lot more room for the higher quality video as well as higher quality audio. Do you see DVD-A/V being combined in a multi-channel format for the Home Cinema enthusiast like myself. I have a THX certified 7channel amplifier (6.1) with some quality speakers and would reall love fro once to get the sound quality it deserves, not the pretty poor AC3 6channel sound and the fairly decent DTS. Again my apologies for the lack of paragraphs. Thanks in advance, Chris

 

More good points.
I guess the answer will depend on the available bitrate from the blu-ray system.
DVDA needs 9.6 Mb/sec for 24/96 surround with MLP encoding as mandatory, 'cos the uncompressed bitrate of 24/96 surround is 13.something Mb/sec, I forget exactly what.
As for linking Videos to the High res component, I can already do this using DiscWelder Chrome, and the feature will be fully enabled in the version 2 upgrade due out any day now.
Don't know the 565K, but I do have the 565A universal player and it is truly superb.

 

I think the players are the same, maybe i stuck K on by mistake ;-)

On the available transsfer rate its atleast 36MB/s and expected to be anywhere up to 80+ MB/sec with later Blue Laser models.