More on DVD-Audio and SACD 643
Spock the Baptist writes "This article at CNN covers the drive of manufacturers to get the public to convert from the CD format to two relatively new formats, DVD-Audio, and Super Audio Compact Disk. The manufacturers cite the superior audio quality, and 3-dimensionality of the new formats' reproduction as the reasons for customers to embrace these formats. The article also goes on to say: "An added bonus for record companies and retailers, who are engaged in a battle against piracy, is that the relative complexity of DVD-Audios and SACDs makes them much harder to copy. At the same time, that might turn some consumers off the format.""
well well well (Score:4, Insightful)
Two: Someone will break your "copy protection" two weeks before you release it and this will not effect me any more than playing DVDs on my linux box does now.
Cheers!!
Re:well well well (Score:2)
But - to get me to buy a new player and a new library of music.. it's going to take an awful lot. Has anyone heard a DVD-Audio disc? Is the sound really that much better?
Re:well well well (Score:5, Insightful)
You'll definitily need to buy a new player to play those, but why would you buy a new library of music? It would seem logic to me that those players are backward compitable, it uses an DVD drive, and DVD drives can play CD's...
Re:well well well (Score:3, Informative)
Re:well well well (Score:5, Insightful)
That might constitute a bad example. I think that record companies distributed Heavy Metal bands on vinyl far longer than any other genre because the improved quality of CDs just didn't make any discernable difference to either the listeners or to the music.
Let's face it: primarily the record companies moved us all to CDs to allow them to let slide their back catalog of LPs and secondarily because CD sound is better. I don't want to hear that the sound is better from any "audiophiles" either. Audiophiles are the same morons who bought distilled water from discWasher for $5 for 4 ounces and buy "directional" speaker cables today and who use a green magic marker on the rim of their CDs. And then claim to be able to hear phase-shift distortion in CD music.
Re:well well well (Score:5, Insightful)
Amen. Glad someone else thinks as I do. I guess everyone needs to feel that they're special, eh? :) I recently got a Dolby Digital capable stereo system (the old shelf-top Aiwa crapped out, $200 for ~3 yrs, not bad). Panasonic's shelf-top, Dolby Digital 5.1 system for $250 at Circuit City seemed a decent buy. I'm happy with it - my DVDs sound discernably more clear than through the analog RCA jack connection. I don't have the rear surrounds hooked up (doesn't make sense in my apt.), but having a cleaner sound is nice.
... c'mon. How many folks out there are perfectly happy listening to 128kbps MP3s now, and you're selling more hi-fi sound than CDs? Nevermind the signal processing that systems like Bose's live audio do to translate a normal stereo signal into multiple surround channels, in an effort to "encompass" the listener with the music ... think what you might about those technologies, but they already exist and I dare say we don't need much of anything better!
Now, talking with my bro this morning (owner of a multi-thousand dollar home theatre system w/ THX EX, DTS ES, and all the other acronyms) and I have to say - I doubt that the subtle differences between Dolby Digital 5.1, THX, and DTS are even perceptible, lest you have a special room that you've sound proofed, dampened, accounted for any possible standing waves, etc.
Same goes for the higher quality D/A conversion on the SACD and such
Cheers.
Re:well well well (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not one to buy 'directional' speaker cables, or even debate the merits and shortcomings of coaxial vs. optical digital cables, but I *do* know there is definately a discernable difference between Dolby Digital and DTS (DTS kicks ass!) and that DVD-A is far, far superior to CDs.
For me, it's not a question of if I *would* buy DVD-A discs, its whether the music I like is available on that media. the only thing that seems to be out on DVD-A is jazz, and one token disc from every other genre. I can't wait until the format becomes more prevalent.
Re:well well well (Score:3, Insightful)
I can listen to 128kbps rips just fine. It might have something to do with the fact that 90% of my listening is done on cheap computer speakers with enough ambient noise around me to dull out any sound source. Not everyone listens to music in quiet rooms, or while wearing ear covering headphones. I like music in the background while I work, but I'm not going to go nuts about the quality.
As far as something that sounds better than a CD? I sure as hell don't care. CDs sounds just fine to me.
Re:well well well (Score:5, Interesting)
My only friend who has a SACD player also has a $20K+ stereo (and I mean *stereo* -- no surround nonsense) with external amps, gold-tipped cables, etc... He played Brubeck's Take 5 on normal CD and on SACD for me. The change to the cymbals was unbelievable; it sounded like they were in the room.
Granted, I don't know how much amp/speaker investment is required before you can hear the difference. But if the investment is low and the price of these fancy CD-replacements drops, I'd be interested. As for copy protection, anyone who thinks new formats will prevent copying is a fool.
-Mr. Bonobobo
Re:well well well (Score:4, Funny)
I recently installed a soundsystem for our corperate boardroom. a $1500 THX certified amp with decoder in it and a seperate ADC for the coaxial and toslink (blinkey led light) digital audio. so for grings I plugged in the digital audio AND the analog audio from the DVD player. this is a crappy $295.00 sony dvd player.. only progressive scan and the other bullcrap being thrown about.
funny.. the ADC in the $295.00 dvd player sounds EXACTLY the same as the >$500.00 seperate ADC purchased that claims it is precision and all this other baloney only to impress morons with fat checkbooks.
There is some truth out ther in the land of audiophiles.. they are the people spending weeks doing math and CAD to build their own speakers... they are NOT the people that use anything but $0.19 a foot lamp cord for speaker wire (Note to all you "Experts" you CANNOT hear any difference between your $12.00 a foot no ox directional, stereo certified digital speaker wires and my $12.00 per 100 foot roll lamp cord... I've done double blind tests, I used to work sales in a high end audio shop, YOU CANT TELL so stop lying to us!)
Re:well well well (Score:4, Interesting)
I know very well what the differences are between THX,DTS, even regular THX and THX EX (and DTS v. DTS ES). I can run down all the salient points between composite, component and s-video connections. I'm there, man. The thing is - the end effect should be a noticeable difference in what you experience. And that isn't really there. Maybe its there between DTS/THX and Dolby Digital. Given the right equipment, blah, blah, blah. But, in the environment that many people setup their home theater systems, the differences are lost quite easily.
Know how to avoid standing waves in your home theater setup? How 'bout measuring the distance between furniture objects, walls and speakers to provide the appropriate distance for sound waves to expand appropriately? Know how to tell if the audio you're listening to has a compressed signal? Not digitally compressed to save space - compressed to change the way the sound waves come out of the speakers. These are the things that ya need to know about. If every audiophile were an audio engineer, these are the things they *would* know about. But, its far easier to spend the money on high-end audio equipment than it is to get into a decent audio engineering school, isn't it?
Cheers.
Re:well well well (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:well well well (Score:3, Interesting)
Insightful? (Score:4, Informative)
The reason headphones work is that all of the sound is going into your ears: no possibility for cancellation. Personally, I much prefer loudspeakers for "thre dimentionality."
Re:well well well (Score:3, Insightful)
Look at VHS, at the local stores, almost all VHS videos are $6 crap movies now. Everything most people want is only carried in DVD format.
Of course then you can simply stop buying music altogether.
You are right on #2 though, once someone cracks it and gets it out onto the net, you can then just burn the song to regular DVD. It won't sound as good, but unless you are the most anal of audiophiles, you probably won't care.
Re:well well well (Score:5, Funny)
Re:well well well (Score:5, Funny)
Q: Is home-taping killing the music industry?
A: Yes Yes Yes. Instead of making billions and billions of dollars, the music industry is only making billions of dollars.
Re:well well well (Score:5, Funny)
Re:well well well (Score:4, Insightful)
Audio copy protection (or any copy protection, for that matter) can't be uncrackable unless a "black box" is involved - which pretty much means hardware encoding/decoding (although you still could rip the audio stream if that wasn't protected). Encoding in software is pretty much an exercise in futility - you know what goes in, you know what comes out, and you can watch the conversion taking place by stepping through the program or dumping a trace.
Re:well well well (Score:5, Informative)
A small bit of research (Google for "dvd audio" and "copy protection") reveals that beyond an encryption scheme ala CSS, the audio information will also be watermarked. Can't imagine that the audiophiles out there will like that - I imagine that they'll be able to "hear" the difference :). In any case, the technologies involve CPPM (prerecorded media) and CPRM (recordable media). Some notion of how many times a particular file can be copied (usually zero, I imagine) will be watermarked in the audio stream, from what I was able to pick up. Of course, this depends on a chip being used that will detect the watermarking. These chips already exist and are already being deployed into systems - you may have it and not even know. I'm sure its not something that's advertised on the card next to the price at Best Buy!
So, besides breaking any encryption, looks like something will need to be done to remove or neuter the digital watermark being used. At that point, recording the digital stream from whatever "approved" equipment you have, using something like this: UA-1D USB digital audio adapter [edirol.com] should be dead simple.
Players (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Players (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Players (Score:3, Interesting)
According to Creative's Audigy 2 DVD-A FAQ, [soundblaster.com] DVD-A is not region-locked. I don't recall seeing any region markings on the SACD's I've seen, but I've never really paid attention. Every time I walk past that display in my local Best Buy, I swear I hear a little voice in the rear speakers, whispering "It's another Betamax."
Re:Players (Score:2, Informative)
The sound quality from DVD-A's versus CD's is absolutely amazing. I have the remastered Metallica's Black album, and it is great. You can hear so much more of the depth of the music that it is great to listen to. Of course, if your system consists a a pair of $10 computer speakers, you won't hear a huge difference because you are being limited by your system.
There are a lot of albums that are being re-released on DVD-A, in a lot of styles, I think in a few years everything may be released in one of the two formats. For more info, a good site I have found is DVD Planet [dvdplanet.com].
players (Score:5, Interesting)
Not so far away (Score:5, Informative)
Also I wouldn't count out a hack of both audio-CD and DVD-audio data on the same disc, using different wavelength lasers. This would totally solve the backward compatibility problem, as well as make it easier than regular DVD-audio to rip.
Can't say much for the other up-and-coming format mentioned, as I know nothing about it.
Sampling rate, bits per sample and channels (Score:3, Insightful)
No human can hear above 20000 Hz.
So a higher sample rate is superfluous.
And a 16 bit quantization is essentially perfect for all music except that with an extreme dynamic range, and even then, only if you are anal.
The 96 KHz sample rate on DVD audio is insane. And as for 5:1 surround sound, please note humans only have 2 ears...
Re:players (Score:5, Informative)
(Some SACDs are two-channel, made to enhance stereo sound.)
This statement needs some explaining. Seems like a way to push a solution for a problem that does not exist (or pure FUD). This can be done in pure digital already on a standard CD or simply encoded or enhanced prior to putting it on the disk. Adding fake reverb, chorus, and delays more often then not leads to garbage.
The ONLY advantages I see for the consumer is the claim of increased storage per disk, and the 5.1 mode. Even then, headphones, your car, boom box etc will get no increase in quality out of this. I assume on SOME titles it might be useful, the other 99.99% of snap, crackle, and pop that comes from the RIAA will not.
The CNN article seems to be based of a press release so the real details are sketchy..
I seem to be having problems getting this thing to post. is
Great... (Score:5, Funny)
Now I'll have to buy the White Album again.
--
CD's are good enough and cheap. (Score:5, Interesting)
I would like to be able to buy compilation disks with ALL of a groups albums on it, at CD quality, though..
Re:CD's are good enough and cheap. (Score:3, Interesting)
The other one marketed by sony, plays only a special devices, which do play DVD movies and CD audio, but WON'T play this simple DVD music format (not quite sure how it recognizes it versus a standard DVD but I'm sure it wouldn't be that tricky to say if video DNE don't play) Anyways, Which do you think will catch on?
Re:CD's are good enough and cheap. (Score:5, Informative)
Apparently... (Score:5, Funny)
Kinda like a bad constipation
Don't forget DTS Audio DVDs (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Don't forget DTS Audio DVDs (Score:3, Funny)
Has a DTD been published for this format yet? Or does each manufacturer have their own?
At last (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, wait!
DVD vs HD (Score:4, Insightful)
It just seems like another attempt to jack up prices by introducing a new medium. I know that it provides superior quality, blah blah blah, but really: is it worth $30 a pop? I'd rather download the movie (I'm not saying I'd pirate it, although I do sometimes) legitimatly, amd I'd pay $5, or maybe even $10 if they would just let me do it.
Re:DVD vs HD (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:DVD vs HD (Score:3, Insightful)
$30 a pop? What DVD's are you buying. Most of the ones I see are between $17 and $23. Some of the special editions with a shitload of content are near $30. Box sets are more. I find you get a lot of content for the higher priced DVD's. Plus, as you said, the quality is amazing.
I'd rather download the movie (I'm not saying I'd pirate it, although I do sometimes) legitimatly, amd I'd pay $5, or maybe even $10 if they would just let me do it.
You'd want to download a movie for $5 or $10, and watch it most likely on a small computer screen?
Uhhh I'll take DVD any day over that hassle.
Copying (Score:5, Interesting)
Copying isn't a problem though - although you just get the CD quality track. I've already backed up a few, and it's fine for, say, your car if you don't want your discs ripped off. I don't really need 5.1 sound in my car anyway.
Re:Copying (Score:3, Insightful)
The Big-5 keep telling us that CD's are reasonably priced at $17. That we're stealing bread out of Britney Spear's babies, or something. We come back and say, "Hey, Cd's cost pennies to make, where the hell is my money going".
They respond by saying it's all in the marketing, the advertising, distribution (that they own 100%) to cover the 90% of the bands that lose money for them, etc, etc, etc.
Well if that's the case, they should make these SACD's the EXACT same price of CD's. They should discontinue the normal CD, and only sell the Hibred CD. No one should complain, as long as they can play them in normal CD players.
Since the marketing and distribution costs stay the same (it's not like they have some a multi million dollar ad campaign out there promoting SACD's) then the only cost difference should come from producing the product. I doubt it would cost them much more to only press SACD)
The result? Instant converts with every sale. Have a normal cd player? No big deal, it still plays. Itching to hear the magic of SACD? Then buy a player in the future.
I don't see why they're pussyfooting around this one.
LPs still sound better ... (Score:5, Insightful)
The only hope the labels have is to release exclusive content on SACD and artists arent gonna stand for that
the 'slide
Re:LPs still sound better ... (Score:3, Funny)
Didn't someone say that about 8 tracks? (Score:2)
- People aren't going to buy into another format change just yet. Especially since it'll involve buying a whole new system to get the "benefits". 16bit/44.1 audio CDs are here to stay, for at least another 10 years. I mean jeez, most people actually think mp3's and CDs burned from them sound good enough!!!
Seems to me I heard the same argument about 8-track cassettes a few years ago. Actually, that was about 1985 or so, and I don't believe I've seen an 8-track cassette for sale since the late 80's. Except of course in a yard sale for a nickel.Re:LPs still sound better ... (Score:5, Insightful)
For most people, MP3-derived CDs are good enough. I wouldn't do it myself, but that's because I don't listen right from CDs for the most part.
If I was, oh, making a background music CD for use in gaming, or a compliation of songs for a car-drive, I'd probably use MP3s as a holding format. The quality would be good enough for what I wanted it for.
The only hope the labels have is to release exclusive content on SACD and artists arent gonna stand for that
Some will. And saying "then they're not artists" is a cop-out.
The labels can just shift things over to SACD; playing with the prices would help, too. If it looks like a CD and plays like a CD, but it's cheaper and contains a bonus high-quality part, most consumers would buy it. (If it's marginally more expensive, some would STILL buy it.)
Translation guide (Score:5, Funny)
"warm" = crackly
"proven" = bigger, less convenient, less versatile
"superior" = elitist
"music" = jazz and classical
Re:Translation guide (Score:5, Insightful)
It's fine to know a lot about audio. I applaud people who are experts in a field (well, most fields, anyway). But one shop has already lost my business because the fools who ran the shop were elitist assholes who refused to admit the mere possibility that I can tell the difference between Megadeth played on a shitty $300 setup and Megadeth played on a $2,000 system.
After an awful experience purchasing a (great) HSU subwoofer from this store, I then proceeded to drop over $2,000 at a competitor, Ensemble Audio in Arlington, MA, because the salesfolks there were both audiophiles (in the literal sense) and great guys (in letting me listen to my music the way I wanted to). I highly recommend them, by the way.
Power to the free market!
Re:LPs still sound better ... (Score:3, Insightful)
The whole point is that a cloud of analog noise sounds better than a cloud of digital noise. You will have harmonic distortion either way you go. With analog, you get better sounding distortion.
Security though obscurity... (Score:3, Insightful)
A few other small caveats (Score:5, Insightful)
I like CD's
I don't want to buy a proprietary system of playing my music.
I don't care much about updating my entire audio system until it's cheap. Yes, this would require further home audio investment to get the full kick of it's features.
Call us back in 5-10 years when the tech has supplanted itself and it's easily copy-able for fair use. Thanks!
Sorry... (Score:5, Insightful)
Duh... I spent about alot of money replacing my favorite vinyl with CDs a few years ago. Not going to do it again. Besides, CD's seem big and bulky these days compared to an Ipod, these new disks don't solve that problem. The only format that will replace CDs in my mind is some form of digital file (mp3, but hopefully better quality)
No. (Score:5, Interesting)
Keep slicing down the pie even further. DVD-CD appeals to the 5% or so of people who actually bother to play their stuff in a 2 channel+ environment. Sure, they'll make stuff like this for gold/platinum musicians, but is it really worth it?
In all truth, I still know people who never bought into the CD hype and still think record players using vacuum tubes sound the best.
Do they really think it'd be that much more difficult to extract 6 channels of audio instead of 2? People like me who are interested will more likely download it from online than pay a 30 or 40 dollar premium on it.
Don't worry, I have my wiffle bat ready for any RIAA spokesperson already on the way to my door.
Re:No. (Score:2)
Reinvent the Wheel (Score:3, Insightful)
Why buy new SACD's that were converted from the original stereo source?
Until the recording industry starts releasing SACD's that meant to be SACD's in the first place, it is pointless...
Not much difference encoded at 128kbps (Score:3, Funny)
Bullshit technology (Score:4, Interesting)
These greedy bastards just want to suck an extra, uneeded device from us as well as reintroduce copy protection that ignores fair use.
I will ignore those SACDs and DVDAs until they are digitally copyable so that a scratch in my favorite record/song no longer will set me back 15 to 20 bucks.
Re:Bullshit technology (Score:5, Insightful)
The public only switched from LP and cassette to CD because it was several magnitudes of order better. (No more rewinding and fast-forwarding tapes that tend to wear out, or accidently get erased when someone runs by them with the vacuum cleaner. No more flipping the record over to hear the other half of the album. No more background hiss or pops and clicks.)
In fact, I'd wager that the actual ability for CD to reproduce sound more faithfully than the other formats was the *last* thing on people's list of reasons to switch, truth be told. (Most of the consumers who raved about CDs sounding so much better were really referring to the afore-mentioned lack of pops, clicks, tape hiss, or warbling effects of a turntable not spinning at the perfect speed, or tape transport mechanism slipping. They weren't really referring to improved high-frequency response, etc.)
(Heck, most of the CD players people first purchased were built onto sub $200 boom-boxes, that certainly weren't paragons of quality audio reproduction!)
The public simply won't switch formats again, simply on claims of "better than CD quality" sound. Most people won't even be able to notice the improvements, when they go to check this new technology out.
Re:Bullshit technology (Score:5, Informative)
This is not to say that DSD will really make much of a difference to the average user in terms of how their music sounds. Most people on basic stereo's will probably never heard the difference.
For reference, Regular DVDs use the exact same PCM as CDs. DVD-A uses a higher bitrate, but it is still PCM.
Personally I'm of the opinion that most mass produced CDs don't even stress the limit of potential "quality" of the CD format (PCM). I have a few extremely well recorded and phenomenal sounding CDs that indicate to me the potential of the CD format, but most CDs are mediocre recordings. Why should improving the format (DVDA or SACD) make a difference? If recording quality doesn't increase, it won't matter at all.
Spyky
Re:Bullshit technology - Moderated as interesting? (Score:3, Insightful)
Say what? (Score:2, Interesting)
For most applications, CD-quality is good enough.
Headphones? (Score:4, Interesting)
bet you only use 2 ears too (Score:3, Funny)
Re:bet you only use 2 ears too (Score:3, Funny)
I dont eeeeven want to know where the subwoofer goes!
I moved from casettes to CDs for non-quality reaso (Score:5, Insightful)
My point being - what non-quality reasons are there for me to move to these new formats?
I've already moved my mucic to a network: I can access all of my music anywhere there's a net connection and there are no jewel cases to lose.
Be damed if I'm going back to physical media just to gain 'headroom' or for a third channel...
Selling "Superior Quality"? (Score:2, Insightful)
Or a better way to phrase it: Why are they trying to sell "sound quality" to a group of people who seem perfectly content with 128kbps mp3s?
With the exception of Audio-philes, who spend countless dollars on just the right setup, who will be able to tell the difference? DVD-A in my car with the factory system? Seems like over kill.
Who needs multichannel anyway (Score:3, Funny)
Cost...? (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems to me, the cost of CDs is a sore point with some (many?) consumers already. Why would anyone think think those same consumers would rush out to adopt a new technology that's likey going to be more expensive?
Audio Concept (Score:5, Informative)
"In the design of an audio system the quality of the sound is determined by the weakest component." (An old McIntosh training manual page).
If my CD's only encode say 20Hz to 20Khz having speakers that can produce say 10Hz to 30Khz does me no good. The inverse is also true, if my DVD-AUDIO cd has 10Hz to 30KHz and I have speakers that only do 30Hz to 10KHz WHO CARES.
Take any speaker set you buy for under $200 a speaker and I have news, you frequency response, dB response, and all that crap the audiophiles go nutz over is not going to match the sounds on the DVD-AUDIO CD.
Any component in the audio system (walkman, integrated amps, component pieces, etc..) can be the target of a bitchy old red head! "You are the weakest link, Good Bye!"
I have a client that is gaga for audio. He's gotta have more than $40k in his system. Tube amps, at $2k turn table, the works! He invited me over to listen to a fidelity test of Pink Floyd the Wall a year or to ago. We first listened to it on an all digital system with the recent release of the Wall. Sounded great, it was an all Carver system with Infinity speakers (Basically the best system that say Best Buy could put together.) We have fun shot pool and 2 hours later ate with the rest of the guests (there were like 40 of us there.) then we went upstairs to the "Fidelity Room" He had speakers that were like $2000 bucks a piece and had a self tuning equalizer setup (It was cool to see) and then we played a few select tracks off the CD. Sounded the same. Again we went and shot-the-shit so to speak for another hour as he prep his vinyl and the difference was night and day. The we listened to some tape recording of it (I think they were called DAT recordings) and that was damn good too! Both were far better than CDs. Anyways, a few days later after I had bought my home theater setup (Onkyo setup I bought while I was working at a Circuit City back in highschool, a 646 integrated amp with infinity speakers) and he brought over the Vinyl and Dat components. We listened to the CD, Record, and DAT tapes and guess what? They all sounded the same.
Plain and simple it's like a car, the ability to top out at 300 mph is usless when the speed limit is 55. DVD-AUDIO and Super CDs are worthless unless the system they are played on can keep up.
Great idea for audiophiles I am sure but to the common consumer... useless.
I have to admit the extra features would be cool, perhaps embedded album art and lyrics would be a nice touch but again I see no reson to change unless I have the equipment that can match the fidelity.
My two cents (along with at least 40 spelling errors)
Re:Audio Concept (Score:5, Interesting)
Cheers.
Melancholy Elephants (Score:5, Interesting)
I mean literraly there are only so many chords and note combinations possible. Unless something radical comes along I think that we will only have new instruments to rely upon.
Heck not even new instruments. If you use the same melody as a previously published song, you're likely to face legal action. Four notes are enough to infringe, and there are fewer than 50,000 possible combinations [everything2.com].
The theoretical limit on the number of distinct works is the subject of a short story called "Melancholy Elephants" by Spider Robinson [baen.com]. Read it and weep.
time for a stereo upgrade... (Score:4, Insightful)
Thank God (Score:3, Funny)
Buy it for your pet bat. (Score:5, Interesting)
These new formats are ploys to sell new hardware and foist copy-protection on us, at higher prices. Do us all a favor and don't buy into this crap.
Re:Buy it for your pet bat. Sorta (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Buy it for your pet bat. (Score:3, Interesting)
Not this noise again! The point of having higher resolution is NOT for your freaking pet bat. There are two primary reasons that improved fidelity may result. Both of these reasons relate to various characteristics of the high resolution formats, either Sony's DSD or 96kHz/24-bit PCM on DVD audio. (FYI, DSD == Direct Stream Digital, the moniker for the SACD modulation format, which is different from PCM digital audio.)
More info is available via Google and/or Google Groups on the rec.audio.* groups.
Note: none of the above speaks to the critical questions of marketability: is it worth it to the end consumer? What does the consumer gain? What does the consumer lose?
This is NOT just another format scam (Score:3, Informative)
Who knows? Maybe even SACDs sound way better and are worth a transition. I mean, right now, it's easy to tell the difference between someone sitting next to you playing guitar, and a recording of someone sitting next to you playing guitar. Maybe this is a step towards truly realistic sound reproduction. Why is everyone so cynical? Why can't you be excited about new technology? Hell, as long as the new players are backwards-compatible, who cares?
DVD-A *is* superior... (Score:3, Interesting)
The big benefit comes from being able to listen to music in something better than stereo. Regardless of quality, a good 5.1 surround mix is more pleasing to the ear because it lends new dimension to the music. If this format becomes widespread, I think we'll see more musicians taking advantage of the sourround sound effects to provide better experience. Many of the DVD-A discs I own also provide additional video content as well, and information about the artist that a lot of people might find interesting.
You don't have to be a crazy audiophile to get this, either (although I am). Most places sell all-in-one kits that are more than high enough quality for the average person, and can be purchased for under 400$, or even 300$ in some cases. They generally come with a DVD player, and some sort of 5.1-capable receiver. That's all you need.
Yeah, the current quality sucks! (Score:4, Insightful)
No, dumbasses at the RIAA et al, people want portability and freedom. Why don't they get this yet? How many songs are downloaded/ripped to a LOWER quality format (128kbit) for the sake of convenience?
This just proves that they either just don't get it, or they are fearing that they are losing that sweet sweet control that they have had for so long. Or both.
OK, here it is. You want to get the music fans back? Take the incredibly massive archives of music that you "own", digitize them, and offer the files at a reasonable price. How many Ratt CDs have you sold over the past 10 years? But you know what - if I could get all those songs at $0.15 per song I would do it. That was my high-school years. Offer ridiculous compilation albums in MP3 format. "Top 100 songs of the 80s" for $20. Customize, you pick 100 songs for $20. I am not talking the latest releases, how about anything older than 5 years old. Those songs are just sitting there. Generate some interest in music instead of bitching and moaning that nobody is interested in the drivel that you put out. Hell, offer a CD full of old MP3s with every new CD that you buy. Something! Anything! Just stop trying to control your customers with force.
How come I can think up several plausible solutions off the top of my head, but they are blind to the fact that digital file formats for music are here to stay?
Re:Yeah, the current quality sucks! (Score:3, Insightful)
You want to get the music fans back? Take the incredibly massive archives of music that you "own", digitize them, and offer the files at a reasonable price.
The control will be lost, same as with P2P, indies, web casting, copyright extensions, work for hire, vcr/tivo, HDTV, region encoding, local low power radio stations, and bascially anything digital. The main goal for years has been the same, control and distribution of content. The "piracy" issue is a smaller factor but a much larger front for this as it provides them a legal card to play to and maintain the control.
SACD is worth buying, IMHO (Score:3)
We're going to be able to copy SACDs and DVD-A's just like we're able to copy DVDs now -- it's simply not possible to make a player that outputs a digital bitstream to a D/A converter without being able to copy the bitstream. I agree that I'm miffed because it won't be convenient -- I think region encoding is horrid...but seeing as I don't copy my DVDs and CDs that much anyways, it's not a problem for me. I buy a CD or DVD, I keep it in excellent condition, and I play it when I want to! It's been that way since I was buying vinyl, with the exception of region encoding.
I for one, am hoping that SACDs catch on and that artists start producing multi-channel, super hi-fi albums on a regular basis (Peter Gabriel is reportedly experimenting with multi channel music). And no, DVD-A doesn't count as super hi-fi in my book (it's still PCM encoded albeit with an expanded dynamic range).
Only thing that would make me think twice is if they made region encoding any more of a nuisance than it already is.
Availability (Score:4, Informative)
Audio quality from either source is a vast improvement over CD, particularly for those with 5.1 setups. Stereo quality is also noticeably better, particularly on SACDs.
SACD is a "ghost" format, in that it can be put on the same disc with crappy PCM audio. Cost can be about the same as normal CDs (I just saw a couple of Sony Classical CDs with SACD labels at Borders for $15), or substantially more. Usually there are "expensive" SACD discs next to the demo units in large stores. Almost every large electronics store seems to have an SACD demo unit and a few disks; it's a more attainable format.
SACD seems to have fewer multichannel discs, but more really great recordings (Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue" etc) than DVD-A. Sony's music library really strong argument for the format.
DVD-A is really, really impressive. When people who don't like my music mention how utterly phenomenal a recording is, I've got to think it's a difference that is noticeable.
The down side to DVD-A is that it is universally more expensive than CD, with prices in line with DVD movies; Best Buy sells most of its DVD-A titles (racked with DVDs, not music) for $18 - $22, which is simply insane. Amazon.com does better, with prices more in line with normal CDs. Best Buy is the only retail chain I've been in with any selection of DVD-A titles, and the selection seems in general to be smaller than that of SACDs.
A friend of mine with a recording-studio background has explained that it's very easy to make an SACD from a multitrack analog master tape, 20 or 30 year old recording, so those will likely be the mainstay of SACD releases for some time.
I think this is a lost cause (Score:5, Insightful)
SACDs and DVD-Audios, when coupled with the right speakers, sound superior to regular CDs.
"if you're working around the house, then it (the enhanced sound) doesn't really matter."
In order to get the benefit, you have to be sitting right in the middle of the stereo (or surround) field of your new $600 Klipsch speakers, with a new $500 deck, $550 reciever, and maybe a nice preamp. Also, the difference in dynamic range between 16 bits (CD) and 24 (DVD-Audio), while nice, isn't even going to be noticed on any piece of music destined for the radio, because they compress it into oblivion before it gets anywhere near the station, let alone your reciever.
(Pop in any rock album from the last 10 years. Watch the levels -- they won't vary more than about 10dB. Do the same with a Beethoven Piano Sonata. The levels are all over the place.)
You've also got to care. The only people who are interested in this are classical music fans (so we can hear the difference between the 300-year-old Stradivarius and the 275-year-old Stradivarius), and the muscians, producers, and engineers who think that everyone's an audiophile too.
I'm not even sure that I'd want to hear Britney on SACD. It would probably rupture my eardrums.
What if they made it cheaper? (Score:3, Interesting)
That seems unlikely, but let's say they released DVD-As/SACDs for $12, and left CDs at $15-20. DVDs were deliberately priced low to make the format attractive, and that seems to have contributed to its success.
Now, It seems unlikely to me that the labels would do such a thing. If they were that smart, they would already have their own pay-napster and be making $10/month off from millions of people. But if they did, they just might get to that "critical mass" needed to make one of those new formats the next CD.
Dynamic range (Score:5, Informative)
Which does *NOT* mean that it *cannot* make most music sound better.
Even with standard audio CDs, they (meaning the braindead sound engineers who optimize for radio play rather than home audio) only use roughly 25% of the dynamic range of a CD. Threshold-minus-16db to jet engine, yet vocals and drums have roughly the same level. So what will we get with DVD audio? A wider range, with better granularity, and drums will *STILL* share the mix with vocals.
No real incentive exists to use this format, unless the RIAA manages to force the public, via legislation or simply eliminating all other choices. None. Or, if sound engineers start doing their "real" job rather than pandering to the PR pimps (which I can't blame them for, really - I too, and I suppose most people, have had to make choices between "do it wrong or look for a new job").
Note that I do not mean to say that DVD-A doesn't *crush* standard 16-bit 44.1khz PCM audio, as POTENTIAL quality goes. But it will get used just as poorly as its predecessor.
Superior audio quality as marketing argument? (Score:3, Insightful)
They've got to be kidding right? Anybody who has ever used the Internet *know* that 99% of the "consumers" are happy with crappy 128 kbit MP3s encoded in Xing. Most of them can't even hear the difference between those MP3s and audio CDs.
Consumers don't care about quality. Manufacturers have to come up with something truly revolutionary, or most people will stick to CDs like how people stick to MP3 and refuse to use Vorbis.
CD's are BIG (Score:3, Interesting)
Triv
No switch until.. (Score:5, Insightful)
8track->cassette->CD
Super8->VHS->DVD
LP's are in there somewhere, along with all the lost formats (DAT, ElCassette, Minidisc, etc)
With each new toy, there was a real form factor change along with a fidelity change.
A 5" round thing that looks like a CD, plays in what looks like a CD player, plays only music, plays music at no real discernable quality gain, yet costs significantly more, and carries the potential of no copying...
That's dead before it leaves the gate.
At least come up with some new player and format. Maybe a solid state chip or something. Not just another "CD".
Uninformed (Score:3, Interesting)
I can appreciate the improved resolution of DVDA and SACD. The argument about the 22khz limit is quite subtle and lots of people miss the point. If a digital filter operating at 22khz isn't designed perfectly (which isn't easy), it does artifact the music in the audible range. What the 96khz and 192khz resolutions bring is the ability for even the cheapest audio system with substandard filters to escape the artifacts because they are shifted way up beyond normal hearing range, instead of being smack bang in the middle of the program material.
You won't be ripping SACD or DVDA anytime soon, or even playing them on PC's. Neither has a PC based player today to my knowledge. DVD-A uses Meridian Lossless Packing codec, and the only way to get an MLP codec on a PC today is to spend $$$ on DVD-A authoring software. I'm not even sure if that is encode/decode or encode only. I have also read that the DVD-A disk format is not compatible with the DVD-V format per se i.e. a DVD-ROM cannot read the DVD-A tracks.
Anyone ripping a DVD-A today is simply ripping the DVD-V compatible Dolby 5.1 track included on some DVD-A's.
The Sony SACD technology is based on DSD and operates at incredibly high frequencies. You couldn't design a system to be more unfriendly to digital audio (or pirates). At the recent AES show Sony were showing off OEM modules to people for encoding and decoding SACD. The reason is that off the shelf chips just don't work with their design. It's a major pain in recording studios as well, since nothing is designed to work with their standard, and only Sony can author SACD's today to my knowledge. About the only good thing SACD has (apart from the sound) is the backwards compatibility with dual layer discs in ordinary CD players.
None of this gets around the fact that in the current economic environment (1) consumers are happy with MP3's and CD's and their existing systems (2) studio's aren't going to ditch their existing 24 bit 48 khz limited equipment, especially Pro Tools rigs and (3) much of the catalog of SACD and DVD-A is boring old music for stereophiles!
Article FUD (Score:5, Informative)
SACD:
1. Each SACD MUST include at least a Stereo SACD section. The multichannel and CD (Redbook) parts are optional.
2. An SACD with a CD layer is completely backwards compatible.
3. Not all current SACD's include the CD layer. The reasons for this are most likely due to manufacturing capacity. Sony currently has two pressing plants in Japan that just came online with Hybrid SACD pressing capability, so expect this to change.
4. Nothing prevents you from recording off of the analog outputs or ripping the CD layer (if it exists).
5. More manufacturers than Sony are producing SACD equipment. There are many new universal players (DVD, DVD-A, SACD, CD, VCD, etc) from the likes of Onkyo, Pioneer, Apex, and Yamaha either on the market now or in the works.
6. SACD uses whats called "Direct Stream Digital" (DSD) as it's recording process. DSD is a 1bit system with a sampling rate of over 2 million samples a second.
7. No TV is required to access the disk, track access is provided in a CD like fashion.
8. All SACD's include text titles on the disc for track, artist, and album information.
DVD-Audio:
1. DVD-Audio is backwards compatible with DVD players. However, the backwards compatibility is achieved by putting a lower resolution Dolby Digital and/or DTS version in the VIDEO_TS part of the DVD.
2. The actualy DVD-A material resides in a separate directory on a DVD called AUDIO_TS
3. DVD-Audio does not have to include a stereo track. IMHO this is a bad thing.
4. Linear PCM is the technology behind DVD-Audio. Max sample rates are 24bit/96khz for 5.1 and 24bit/192khz for stereo.
5. LPCM is compressed and encrypted with MLP (Meridian Lossless Packaging). The compression is obviously lossless.
6. Dolby Digital and DTS are lossy encoding methods akin to the beloved MP3.
7. Some labels are including a "Macrovision Like" copy protection scheme on the DVD-A tracks.
8. You can rip the DD or DTS side, but you cannot rip the MLP LPCM audio (yet). You may not even be able to record the analog audio if watermarking is included.
9. The interface for a DVD-Audio disk may require a TV to navigate. There is no set structure allowing you to have easy access in a "CD Track" like nature. This is entirely up to the producer of the disk.
Each format is a bit more expensive than current CD prices. Heck current CD prices are higher than they should be, but a new format should be expected to have higher prices initially.
Personally I prefer the features of SACD, and I would love to see hybrid discs become the norm for all new releases as long as the price is equivalent.
-tj
plain old DVD players cannot reproduce DVD-Audio (Score:5, Informative)
A DVD-Video player will not recognize and play the ultra-high fidelity PCM and MLP encoded audio tracks on a DVD-Audio disc. To play these tracks, a DVD player is required that meets the DVD-Audio specification. These players can be identified by the DVD-Audio logo.
This seems to be an extremely common misconception, one that is even perpetuated by Best Buy employees. Ironically, they sell DVD-Audio discs but not the players!!
info found on www.digitalaudioguide.com
It's the production, stupid (Score:3, Informative)
I'd like to point out that in identifying your weakest link, in addition to the recording and reproduction equipment, you have to consider the recording environment, artistic decisions and listening environment.
The demonstrations of DVD-A and SACD I've expereinced have been quite impressive. I believe the reason for this is that more care is put into production of these disks and the demo playback equipment is top shelf. People expect them to sound better. I believe almost the same expereince is possible with conventional CD.
Most of you bozos listen to music primarily in your car or as background party music or maybe at work with the HVAC rumbling overhead. The listening environment is the limiting factor for anyone not sitting upright in their acoustically treated livingroom somewhere out in the quiet boonies.
And finally, to make music get attention on the radio, much of it is keyed up and deliberately distorted in the mixing and mastering process. I suppose you could say, "I want to hear the music exactly as intended by the artist." Well, I've got news for you, most artitsts listen to music in their cars just like you do.
How many of you use Celerons? (Score:5, Funny)
However, there ARE people who can hear the difference. Why make fun of them wanting something that sounds better?
All you people making fun of them...what kind of computer to you have? After all, most people would not notice the difference between a ~1 GHz Celeron with a GeForce2 MX, and the latest Athlon or P4 and a GeForce 4 Ti4600. Anyone who has spent more than $1000 on their computer setup needs to shut up about the audiophiles.
Re:How many of you use Celerons? (Score:3, Interesting)
I peaked out at about 8 out of 10 correct IDs, a 94% confidence. After that, my ear burned out and the confidence dropped with a series of bad guesses- I was ignoring good advice to not attempt to do a full course of 16 trials in one sitting, much less while fatigued and incapable of continuing to hear at that level. I got mad after that and blew off ANOTHER set of 16 trials real fast, and got 77% confidence I was hearing that one, even after burn-out. This is still with traffic outside and all.
I'm sorry- this stuff is not easy to consciously hear, but it has its subliminal effect and it IS real. Sometime I'm gonna take a recording of an acoustic space like my room, listen at a good volume at 3 in the morning rather than (cringe) 5 in the afternoon when I did those tests, and ace the annoying little buggers. For now, however- odds are, you're wrong.
Wow, lots of lead ears! & SACD DVD-A? (Score:5, Informative)
Given all that, the two competing formats are interesting especially from an engineering perspective (as I understand it). I'm definitely not expert on the formats, but here's my (half-baked) take on the current situation.
DVD-A seems like an obvious winner for more multimedia capability and the appearance of backwards compatibility (its DVD after all, right?). Cool. However, DVD-A requires lots of electronics to process the signal including sophisticated D-to-A converters (a la the CD medium where they've been trying to perfect this D-to-A process for many years). This is the 16-bit... 18-bit... 20-bit progression you've probably heard of re: CD players. It's doable, but its kind of brute force from a pure engineering perspective, and from an audio perspective, it's less than ideal because the format guarantees a reasonably long signal path through all these converters and electronics.
Enter Sony's SACD. SACD takes a radically simpler approach which puts the quality of the sound as the primary driver in the format. As I understand it, SACD format is based on an ongoing stream of bits (no words to chunk and convert). There's still work to be done, but the signal path is much shorter since the electronics are much simpler (vanilla compared to DVD sound processing). Some (many?) studios use SACD in the studio record and process music before down-converting it to CD format. So, SACD is about the music.
Given those two issues, SACD could lead to phenomenally better sound even in cheaper units SACD players (than roughly equivalent DVD-A players) if (once?) volume sales and production arrive. Simpler, cheaper, and higher quality than CD (or DVD-A for the most part). So, I'm kind of taken with the SACD approach for the new audio standard. Perhaps DVD's themselves can upgrade (higher capacities for higher resolution movies) without worrying about DVD-A so much. Good sound for movies is nice, but at least get better than 640x480 resolution for the movies!
So, here's one vote for a next generation audio format. And there are my (random, not entirely informed) two cents on the competing formats.
Re:Wow, lots of lead ears! & SACD DVD-A? (Score:3, Insightful)
I have a mid range Yamaha reciever with Dolby Pro Logic 2 and some other 5 channel modes. It is possible to get decent multichannel sound out of a regular audio cd with the optical input and if the source material is good quality. A bad quality disc is still bad in multichannel. Not a good apples to apples comparison because it was not indented to be multichannel.
Quality; deliberate degradation of CD track? (Score:5, Interesting)
2) More to the point, is there any way to STOP CD publishers from deliberately introducing degradation into the CD track in order to make the SACD sound better by comparison? Not that they would ever do such a thing, of course... but I'd like to see at least a truth-in-advertising disclosure if they did.
Re:Quality; deliberate degradation of CD track? (Score:4, Interesting)
Anyhow here are a few points:
1) the mixers and mastering engineers are still learning how to use multi channel formats. Just as early stereo records sound awkward,expect similar awkwardness in the early years of these formats.
2) I don't think most of the folks here have heard these formats, so it's stupid for them to argue whether or not they sound better.
3) With multichannel formats, spatial imaging is easier to attain than in stereo. The surprising result is that speaker and listener placement is actually less critical than it is in stereo. So unlike with stereo, you can move around the room and still have good imaging.
Wait a minute... (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, I'll buy one... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:My personal experience with DVD-A (Score:3, Insightful)
It's very likely that you wern't listening to the DVD-A track, so much as the AC-3 track that's on there for people who don't have a DVD-A player, and just pop it into their DVD-V player.