Sacd / Dvda

[Dharris]

Is the format war still going strong? Are there any new multi-channel formats out there?
Salesman in Magnolia told me SACD is no longer. Is this true?

Thanks guys :6:

[Wireworm5]

I think sacd is the best hi fidelity format. There will always be a demand for that. Unfortunately the mass market is not interested in hi fidelity, just us audio geeks. It'll just be a niche market like vinyl. Lots of classical albums available but popular music releases are slow in coming. Then you pay a premium price for it and not everyone can drop 30 to 50 bucks for one sacd when you can buy 3 to 5 cds.

[superpanavision70mm]

Let's all keep in mind several things....

While SACD might slow down a bit...remember that there are also HDCD's still being produced as well as the some XLR, Gold, and some CD's with superbit mapping for a slightly better sound. So, I would have to think that SACD will be around for as long as there is a demand...even if it's only a few of us. Wanna know what killed SACD though? The fact that in the beginning it was not Hybrid, so people couldn't see spending the money on something would only play on a SACD-ready player, which was mostly Sony brand. Aside from the fact that unless you are an audio enthusiast or audiophile you probably don't spend much time listening to music in your listening room/living room etc...rather the majority of people listen to music primarily in the car, at work, or on a CD player/MP3 player.

[Dusty Chalk]

Sony is doing their best to kill SACD by not lightening up on the royalties issue. Hélène Grimaud's last album, Credo was released on SACD. The current one, Reflection, is not. Why? Because the cost/return is too high. And where are all the universal players? All players should be universal at this point. You did that, then the consumer could stop worrying if they bought the right disk -- then, any disk would work, and all would sell. One of the things stopping consumers from buying high-res disks is that they think (correctly) that they need specialized hardware on which to play it, and they're not sure what they have at home. If they really wanted to appeal to the lowest common denominator (am I a LCD?), they could completely remove that decision process. All that would require would be two things: #1 - universal players, all of them; #2 - autoplay programmed into all audio DVD's (be they DVD-A or DVD-V).

Plus, they had their expectations way too high by thinking they could re-create that buying frenzy that happened when CD came to light. It's not a CD replacement, it's a niche market. Market it correctly, and you won't flush wads of cash down the tubes, and you won't be disappointed, and the glass will be 1/8th full rather than 7/8ths empty.

For the last time -- it's not a format war. Or rather -- it didn't need to be a format war. By both sides considering it a format war...what's the expression? If you come to the ring looking for a fight, you'll get a fight. Even if that ring was a treaty table.

[musicman1999]

The arrival of the dual-disc has spelled the end for sa-cd.It seems that Sony is putting its support behind that format.Sa-cd will continue to be a niche format.Many classical labels will continue to release most of their product in that format.

bill

[Woochifer]

SACD is still out there, but its window of opportunity as a mass market format has shut. It will likely soldier on as a niche format because more of the indie labels have adopted SACD as their audiophile format. SACD has done surprisingly well considering how botched the marketing of the format has been. First, Sony introduced it as a standalone two-channel audiophile format with premium pricing on the discs and players. Then, they changed strategies by incorporating SACD into entry level DVD players and CD changers, and rumors were out there that both Sony and Universal were going to standardize all of their new releases around the hybrid CD/SACD disc format. Problem is that Sony never even got around to using that hybrid disc format for most of their SACD releases. Forcing retailers to carry dual inventories pretty much meant that they would stick with CDs.

I think DVD-A has a more uncertain future because it has very limited support from both major labels as well as indie labels. It's best chance of survival is if it can piggyback onto DualDisc, which rose out of the failed effort to create a hybrid DVD-A/CD disc format. Unfortunately, the record companies have largely decided to use the DVD side for video content and issue the multichannel mixes using Dolby Digital rather than DVD-A. Only a limited number of DualDiscs have used the DVD side for high resolution audio.

I think the Achilles heel for both formats was the idiotic copy protection scheme adopted by both formats in response to the record companies' piracy paranoia. It put a lot of arbitrary limitations in how a consumer could integrate SACD and DVD-A into an existing multichannel setup. The less than adequate bass management and time alignment tools available on the players themselves kept me on the sidelines for a long time until I finally decided to buy a SACD player just so that I could enjoy the SF Symphony's Mahler series in its native DSD format.

In addition, the format war between SACD and DVD-A just created confusion in the market, which is never a good thing when launching a new format.

With HDMI 1.2, consumers can finally integrate SACD and DVD-A into their home theater systems using digital connections, while retaining the copy protection that the record companies wanted. However, this might be a case of too little too late. Had a copy protected digital connection standard like HDMI been available from the start, SACD and DVD-A might have had a better shot in the market by removing some of the more arbitrary market barriers that have dragged on those formats from the beginning.

As a whole, I think multichannel music will eventually see the light of day, but the carrier format in all likelihood will be something other than SACD and DVD-A. Blu-ray and HD-DVD both have support for high resolution multichannel audio written into the format from the start, unlike DVD-A, which wasn't finalized until two years after the DVD video format was introduced. Those formats might eventually carry the torch for multichannel music. However, there is another format war to contend with, the HDMI 1.3 connection standard needed to carry the DD Plus, DD TrueHD, and DTS-HD audio signals digitally has not yet been finalized, and record companies have started sitting on a lot of the multichannel mixes already completed on the presumption that the public doesn't care.


I think sacd is the best hi fidelity format. There will always be a demand for that. Unfortunately the mass market is not interested in hi fidelity, just us audio geeks. It'll just be a niche market like vinyl. Lots of classical albums available but popular music releases are slow in coming. Then you pay a premium price for it and not everyone can drop 30 to 50 bucks for one sacd when you can buy 3 to 5 cds.

Cost has not been an issue with DVD-A and SACD for at least the last three years or so, when the major labels lowered the list prices to roughly the same as a new release CD. Only with audiophle labels like Mobile Fidelity are the prices still premium priced.

Sadly, a lot of the multichannel mixes and high resolution remasters that artists have been putting together might not get released anytime soon. I read in S&V that Eliot Scheiner (one of the top 5.1 remixers out there) has already got the masters for four Steely Dan albums ready to go for DVD-A, but Universal is refusing to release it.