Is DVD-Audio or Super Audio CD (SACD) In Your Future?

[James Fee]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://forum.ecoustics.com/bbs/messages/34579/130868.html' target='_blank'>http://forum.ecoustics.com/bbs/messages/34579/130868.html</a><br /><br /></div><i>"When you look at the excitement that Dolby Digital and dts 5.1-channel soundtracks from DVDs can generate played over a good home theater system, it's not surprising that Sony/Philips and the DVD developers decided that an upgraded multichannel audio format was overdue. After all, the CD is stereo, limited to two channels. And despite Sony's original claim, in 1983, of CD's "Perfect Sound Forever," complaints have surfaced over the years about certain limitations in the CD's technical standards"</i><br /><br />I can safely say that this shipped has sailed without me. I can't see replacing my huge CD and MP3 collection. Maybe they have improved in the last year, but the Fleetwood Mac Rumors DVD-A remastered into 5.1 sounded fake. :sleeping:

[Felix Torres]

Neither.
After one too many rock concerts (but what a concert!) my hearing is just good enough for CD stereo.
Any extra sound quality is wasted on me. 8)

[James Fee]

Still, I would love to fill my digital music player with music off DVD-A discs! :DReally? What for? You have some sort of surround ear buds? ;)

[Tim Williamson]

I just picked up the Switchfoot CD which is a dual-side CD/DVD. I have yet to check out the DVD side, but I think that's a pretty cool feature to have with audio CDs.

[Philip Colmer]

I've got Sting's Sacred Love album in SACD and it does have a depth to it that you don't get when you are listening in stereo. Similarly, Tubular Bells and Blue Man Group's Audio, both in DVD-A. There has been criticism of Tubular Bells and the remix thereof and this ties in with the article referenced here - as with a film, the best surround mix is one where you aren't conscious of the sound coming from a specific speaker but where you are enveloped.

The DVD-A discs I've got both come with DVD layers and the SACD is a hybrid. My Pioneer DVD player gives me access to the higher quality content but the extra "versions" ensure a wider audience until there are more "universal" players out there.

I suspect that it is probably going to remain a niche market, however. Most purchasers of DVD players are buying them for the movies and don't give a :!: about higher quality audio - I wouldn't mind betting that a significantly high percentage of DVDs are played back in stereo!

--Philip

[jeffd]

I'm still absolutly stunned we havnt seen much in the way of dvd mp3 players. I think the digital audio market has lost its innovation again and everyone is blindly making hd based players.

[James Fee]

I mean for the higher sound resolution. If you start with a CD, then the MP3/WMA can't possibly sound better then that. I want the best I can get. Plus I like to rip all my disc's into MP3's to play on my PC with it's Creative Gigiworks speakers. :twisted:Maybe if you used a lossless format, but I don't think a "standard" mp3 could be much better than they are. The difference between a WAV file created from an CD and a MP3 is still great. The conversion just kills any benefit IMO. I'd wager that lossless would sound pretty good.

[Felix Torres]

I'm still absolutly stunned we havnt seen much in the way of dvd mp3 players. I think the digital audio market has lost its innovation again and everyone is blindly making hd based players.

You mean something like this?
http://www.apexdigitalinc.com/proddetail.asp?category=Portables&amp;subcat=&amp;linenumber=98

Or this?
http://product.samsung.com/cgi-bin/nabc/product/b2c_product_detail.jsp?eUser=&amp;prod_id=DVD-L25%2fXAA&amp;selTab=Specifications

There are *some* portable DVD players with MP3 playback out there.
WMA and WMV playback is still rare but you can find those, too.

What I'm not sure is how expensive the blank 1.8" 2Gb mini-DVDs are...

[jeffd]

felix, more like neither of those. I aportanble dvd movie player with mp3 support would be useless, to bulky.. to expensive, and the battery life usualy sucks all. The mini dvd player isnt all that mini and id rather have a full sized player and get 3/4th of my dvd back. sony also tried with a portable dvd mp3 player/burner, but on batteries the brick lasted a little more then 2 hours. its also discontinued before anyone actually found out about it. ^^

[Felix Torres]

felix, more like neither of those. I aportanble dvd movie player with mp3 support would be useless, to bulky.. to expensive, and the battery life usualy sucks all. The mini dvd player isnt all that mini and id rather have a full sized player and get 3/4th of my dvd back. sony also tried with a portable dvd mp3 player/burner, but on batteries the brick lasted a little more then 2 hours. its also discontinued before anyone actually found out about it. ^^

If what you want is a dvd-based audio only portable player, that is not coming until either of the two competing dvd-audio formats builds enough market momentum to justify it and right now that is not happening. All the media hype is on compressed audio so consumers are barely aware of dvd-based audio and those of us that *are* aware aren't buying. So its chicken and egg time for now.
DVD-based compressed audio players might take off if lossless codecs became popular but most folks find plain old 128kbps mp3 audio quality acceptable so the extra disc capacity doesn't buy them anything.
Which is too bad, I could find a use for a dvd-based wma-lossless portable player myself, which is why I'm tracking what's out there. But battery life is no big concern for my use.

On battery-life, do consider that quoted times are for video playback; audio playback life may be longer...

[James Fee]

But even if you get a lossless WMA file that PERFECTLY reproduces a CD, it still only CD quality sound. I want the best a human ear can hear. I want DVD-Audio quality WMA's! :twisted:Oh I don't disagree with that, just that converting DVD-A into MP3 would be a waste of time.

Does WMA support 5.1?

[Philip Colmer]

Does WMA support 5.1?
The latest version does.

--Philip

[Felix Torres]

Does WMA support 5.1?

WMA supports up to 9 or ten channels of audio. (The spec is open to more but I think 9.1 is the most MS Research has bothered to demo.)

It also supports lossless encoding and it has a super-low data-rate encoding for voice intended for downloadable audio books. (Something like 4kbps, I think...)

[James Fee]

So one could take a DVD-A with 5.1 and make a lossless copy of it in 5.1?

[Felix Torres]

So one could take a DVD-A with 5.1 and make a lossless copy of it in 5.1?

If you have a way to capture the tracks, Windows Media Encoder is free.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/9series/encoder/utilities.aspx

(Do audigy cards come with six track recording software?)
Go for it!

[Gator5000e]

Most of the new Acuras come with DVD-A players as standard equipment. The player won't play SACD discs - as usual Sony created an uncompatable competing standard. Most of the DVD-A discs I have purchased sound superior to the regular CD on this system and my home system. When the disc are properly mastered, they sound awesome on the proper system.

There are some great DVD-A discs including the Eagles live album, the Donald Fagen solo discs, a couple of Steely Dan discs, Roundabout by Yes, and a few others. I agree the Rumors disc does not sound as good as I thought it would although I heard instuments in the mix I had not heard before. The George Benson Breezin disc is not as good as I had hoped either.

There is a great Acura owners site called Acurazine.com where many owners have submitted reviews of DVD-A discs. There are a lot in the TL forum and it's worth viewing. DVD-A is a great format but I don't think it is catching on as is evidenced by the lack of discs.

[Jason Dunn]

There's a general rule of thumb that consumers will not move to a new media format until that media format is 10x better than the previous version. "Better" is defined as smaller, cheaper, higher quality, etc. It's easy to see why people moved from casette tape to CD, but CD audio to DVD-A or SACD? Most people don't have the audio equipment needed to hear the difference anyway, so I think it's going to be a long time before a new digital audio standard is adopted. In fact, I think the next medium for digtal audio won't be physical at all - it will be high-definition audio FILES....not discs. CDs will be around for another decade or so.