Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Are SACDs and DVD-A Formats Dead?

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Posted by Paul Trimboli (Member # 1509) on 07-22-2007, 12:21 AM:

So have both of these formats died off? Anything still being released in them?

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 07-22-2007, 02:07 AM:

SACD as far as I know is not dead. I belong to the BMG Music Service club and they are constantly offering SACD selections to the members. The London Symphony label had just recently released the complete set of Beethoven's nine symphonies in SACD and I have a recording of the 3rd symphony from the set I bought from BMG.. It sounds awesome when I played it on my Denon DVD player that is capable of SACD audio playback.

The other format consisting of a CD on one side and A DVD on the other is the format that is now defunct, I have a few of these CD/DVDs and as much as I wanted to download some of the music to my iPod using iTunes on my Powerbook G4 laptop computer, I was afraid to do so because of the thickness of the disc and the possibility it would get jammed in my disc drive.

-Claude

Posted by Frank Dubrois (Member # 3042) on 07-22-2007, 03:51 AM:

I think these formats have their fans. I love the way the music sounds in this format, but unfortunately, not many people have been able to experience it. Sadly, I think it will go the way of the laserdisc. Right now, it basically has the same following of the laserdisc, where the standard CD's have the following of what VHS had.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 07-22-2007, 11:05 AM:

The smart thing Sony did with SACD was to record both regular CD and SACD opn the same disk maling it automatically backwards compatable to play on a regular CD player. That was definately an advantage for th SACD format! Mopt all DVD-A's have regular CD data on on side and DVD-A on the other... many of mine are a 2-channel mix DVD-A on one side and 5.1 DVD-A on the other. I personally find that DVD-A sounds lot better than SACD. My Pioneer Elite player has seperate D to A's for each format... Not many players made that way any more.

Mark

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 07-22-2007, 12:22 PM:

Why bother with D/A converters...I would leave the audio in its "pure digital" form to capture each and every bit!

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 07-22-2007, 06:17 PM:

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
My Pioneer Elite player has seperate D to A's for each format.

Why? How would it reduce the quality of the DA to have the ability to convert more than one format? Does this mean I should have 1 Mac for Final Cut Pro, another Mac for Firefox, and yet another to read e-mail?

Plus, I bet the early Sony Playstation model SPC 1001 has a better DA for regular CDs than your Pioneer Elite or most other CD players in the world. Google it. They can be sold to audiophiles for up to $6000. Dead serious. I'll sell you mine for only $5500.

Posted by Scott Jentsch (Member # 1681) on 07-23-2007, 09:06 PM:

In the mainstream, both formats are dead in the water. However, titles are still being released, as Claude mentioned.

Unfortunately, and for no explainable reason I can think of, Sony did not take advantage of their ability to release hybrid SACD's by releasing every title on a hybrid SACD instead of on a standard audio CD. If they had done this, they might have gotten the installed software base they could have used to their advantage. I have a few of these hybrids and it's great to be able to get double-use from them! Live performance are especially cool in multi-channel!

The biggest killing factor for SACD was the advent of portable music and playing music on computers. One of SACD's license stipulations is that SACD's could not be played on a computer, so no one could make a player/ripper for SACD. That restriction was timed perfectly with the burst of popularity of MP3 and portable players, essentially making SACD a dinosaur in its infancy.

In regards to delivering SACD digitally instead of converting to analog before sending to the receiver, the receiver would need to have a DSD (Direct Stream Digital) input in order to keep the SACD signal intact. SACD is not PCM in that the audio data is a serial stream, not a parallel set of bits like PCM is. Converting SACD (DSD) to PCM negates many of the high-res advantages that SACD had held as their primary advantage.

DVD Audio was hampered by the fact that you almost always have to have your display on in order to choose the menu items to play the music. There was also many fewer titles (in my estimation) in the DVD-A format than in SACD.

My Pioneer universal player (not Elite) has an issue where it does not choose the DVD Audio track by default for the excellent Lord of the Rings Complete Recordings set, so you have to dive into the Disc Navigation to ferret it out. I think that was a bug in the player that was corrected in later models, but it's a hassle to turn on my projector just to play some music!

I've heard from people in the industry that there is a better chance for high resolution audio to be released on HD DVD (and maybe Blu-ray) than for SACD or DVD Audio to ever see the light of day in mainstream circles.

With HD DVD's Managed Copy feature (if it ever sees reality), you could potentially have high resolution multi-channel music stored on a central server and able to be chosen from your couch and/or PC through the right media extender box.

Maybe someday, mainstream multi-channel music will be a reality...

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 07-23-2007, 09:52 PM:

quote: Joe Redifer
Why? How would it reduce the quality of the DA to have the ability to convert more than one format?

Most home multi players use a simple DSP system to do the decoding of all the formats and this is far from having the best of all three worlds. The Pioneer Elite and several other players use the Sony bitstream D to A for SACD decoding, a 24 bit Burr Brown for regular CD's and yet another D to A chip for DVD-A. This way each format can be decoded peoperly. A simple DSP while being able to decode many different things usually cannot be optimised for many different formats without bookoo dollars being spent on writing the decoding software. Players with one DSP does all are generally aimed more at the mass market because of the lower cost to implement.

quote:
My Pioneer universal player (not Elite) has an issue where it does not choose the DVD Audio track by default for the excellent Lord of the Rings Complete Recordings set, so you have to dive into the Disc Navigation to ferret it out. I think that was a bug in the player that was corrected in later models, but it's a hassle to turn on my projector just to play some music!

Scott,
If it is a bug you might be able to get the firmware upgraded to correct the problem!!

quote: Scott Jentsch
Maybe someday, mainstream multi-channel music will be a reality...

God, I hope not... Except for DVD's multi channel sucks!

Mark

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 07-23-2007, 11:42 PM:

All-in-one DSPs needn't be simple. Perhaps they should buy their DSPs from Indonesia instead of China and Thailand.

Posted by Frank Dubrois (Member # 3042) on 07-24-2007, 01:05 AM:

quote: Joe Redifer
Plus, I bet the early Sony Playstation model SPC 1001 has a better DA for regular CDs than your Pioneer Elite or most other CD players in the world. Google it. They can be sold to audiophiles for up to $6000. Dead serious. I'll sell you mine for only $5500.

True or not, I dunno, I'm not gonna drop any cash on a first generation PS1. It seems that some people on ebay can't even get $20 for them, so it's either a REALLY good investment right now, or total [bs]

Posted by Damien Taylor (Member # 4255) on 07-24-2007, 08:05 AM:

quote: Joe Redifer
the early Sony Playstation model SPC 1001 has a better DA for regular CDs than your Pioneer Elite or most other CD players in the world.

True, but you have to let them warm up for like a week before you play anything on them. This is a problem because the internal PSU warped the plastic CD tray and laser components in first gens. They could fail after as little as a thousand hours of use. Most units out there probably can't read CDs anymore and are for parts.

Wrong forums I know, but just out of curiosity, does anyone know if the idler wheel in 8-Track recorders is meant to have a rubber sheath, I'm getting some slipping on some tapes and i wasn't sure if it was supposed to be bare metal.(JVC ED-1240)

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 07-24-2007, 05:53 PM:

My SPCH 1001 still works great.

Here's a link for you, Frank.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 07-24-2007, 07:07 PM:

Joe,

Now you're talk'n like Bobby! I haven't a clue which one would sound better. Lets leave em both on for a week and you bring the Play Toy-1 to Salt Lake City for a CD player shoot out... where we have some REAL power amps and decent speakers to use. As for where to make the D to A's lets just say Krakatoa.... built in easy bake silicon chip oven over there...

Warnng... If the Play Toy-1 does sound better I'm keep'n it and putt'n U back on Amtrack to Denver [Big Grin]

P

Mark

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 07-24-2007, 09:37 PM:

I refuse to participate unless we use Monster® Cable™.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 07-24-2007, 09:52 PM:

You bring it we use it. I have Kimber of some sort in the system at the moment.

Mark

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 07-24-2007, 10:11 PM:

YOU DON'T OWN ANY MONSTER® CABLE™???? YOU SHOULD FEEL ASHAMED OF YOURSELF.!!!1!! Now I know my system sounds better than yours, and the hardware/amps/speakers don't even matter. That's right, even my little bookshelf system will sound better than anything you've got. Why? Monster® Cable™, that's why. It was designed by Jesus.

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 07-24-2007, 10:37 PM:

DynaStation II, a $6,000 CD player that "combines the transport from a Sony PlayStation, an output section using rare New Old Stock tubes, and [has] no remote control"

PDF with more details on the DynaStation II

I see ordinary PS1s have ebay BIN prices in the range of about $30 to $1500. Heh.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 07-25-2007, 08:52 PM:

So this answers some of the "I wonder" questions... Also it looks like the DTS Losless system is still around.

Paramount adds Hi Def Audio to Blue Ray

Holy cow! Uncompressed 5.1 at home... there goes the windows [Eek!]

.

P.S. I would post the whole article except there are tons of links in it....

Mark

Posted by Cameron Glendinning (Member # 3516) on 07-26-2007, 07:48 AM:

quote:
YOU DON'T OWN ANY MONSTERÂ® CABLEâ„¢???? YOU SHOULD FEEL ASHAMED OF YOURSELF.!!!1!!

I HOPE its OXYGEN FREE CABLE!!!!!!!!!!! well at least 97.3 OFC!!!! The 2.7 % is given to you for FREE i assume. I am amazed how many cables go green over time, the clear leads make oxygenation so much easier to see.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 07-26-2007, 09:19 AM:

I don't own any for dang sure!

Posted by Damien Taylor (Member # 4255) on 08-07-2007, 01:36 AM:

Let me go on record(pun intended), as saying, the SACD of the greatest album in human history, "Jeff Wayne's Musical Version Of The War Of The Worlds" Contains audible differences with its regular CD counterpart, conveniently on the same disc.

I'm not talking about remix effects of passages brought up in the mix, or the added SFX. The SACD just had a "clarity" for lack of a better word, the regular CD just sounded kind of flat by comparison.

It would seem like a shame to let this format die, even though its relatively obscure.