SACD vs DVD-A (Business/Marketing reason)

[RGA]

Hi,

I don't want to start another heated SACD vs DVD-A debate on sound quality and watermarks etc etc I simply want to ask your opinion of who SHOULD win, based on business reasons.

I think peronally that SACD should have had this in the bag. I mean, It was developed by two electronics giants - the same two that invented the CD in the first place. One of them also owns one of the largest record labels, namely Sony Music. The disc could be played on any CD discman/home based/car based system as well - just about any system out there at the moment! It doesn't need a monitor/TV set to use either.

Sony and Philips could manufacture the hardware chip for SACD into EVERYTHING it makes - DVD players, CD players, mini systems, midi systems, PS3 etc The software isn't THAT much more either - and they could have subsidied it slightly to make it even cheaper. That's my feeling ...

Of course they could put it in all their cheap players -- but SACD and DVD-A are kind of a funny thing. CD was targetted to the masses not the high end -- most of the high end when CD came out sneered at the lousy sounding CD format -- but CD had convenience on it's side and size and a host of other very obvious advantages -- and they;ve improved such that even die hard vinylphiles own some sort of CD player -- if you love music you have to buy a cd player because you just can't get Loreena McKennit on Vinyl and paying $50.00Cdn to get Madonna "Ray of Light" on Vinyl when you can pay $9.99 on cd when the thing is a digital transfer anyway --- well that's tough for many to keep spending this way.

So CD is a success. Take Laserdisc. It was vastly superior to VHS and Beta and it came out 1 year BEFORE CD players. I bought one of these players and several movies - it never really took off as many people have never even heard of it know nothing about it and lookj at you like a deer in headlights -- no different that SACD I might add. LaserDisc was advertised to the high end audio video market and this market is a tiny tiny fraction of the movie home entertainment market at that time.

back in the laserdisc Days Players were more than double the price of cd players, and the movies were 5 times more expensive - few to no places rented them. High end buyers bought them.

Fast forward to DVD. Expensive for a while -- but not any longer. you can buy DVD player for $39.00 at Wal-mart and a whole surround system for $199.00 and a once $1599.00 Sony 27 inch tv can be had for $349.00.Cdn. $499.00 for the Wega.

Someone made an error in the marketing business plan thinking that because there is such a big boon in Home theater that meant there was a big boon in Audiophiles or videophiles. That was the first mistake. Most people simply don;t care -- if it's dirt cheap they'll buy it and if it's convenient they;ll buy it -- See iPod/mp3.

SACD and DVD Audio ONLY players tanked royally. The only people who would be interested in these things are Audiophiles - not EVERYBODY who just so happens to have a surround sound sytem (and the other idiotic thing was that so many of those SACD players were only two-channel. The Average Joe Six-pack probably listens to Church and hall mode.

SACD and DVD-A SHOULD have been targetted to ME and people like ME who if you convince me in your demo room that it's better then I will pony up and BUY it some way somehow. LaserDisc convinced me despite the pain in the ass Flip the disc - it had letterbox (which tape did not) it had better picture and better sound (though that was not as big a draw to me ast the widescreen and the running commentaries.

SACD - Some titles were better than others but the selection is crap and the transfers or remasters in 2 channel have not been ovelry convincing and some that a number of stores keep trotting out like the Eagles are positively dreadful. This is ok too -- I decided that well Sony isn't that great anyway so i'll wait a while for when the better CD player makers get on board they'll raise the bar and I'll get one then. That never really happened. So now they get a token placement in the odd DVD player - joe Sixpack still doesn;t know what the hell it is, no one is SEEKING them -- the store demos were not convincing.

I have a feeling most SACD player and software owners have SACD by accident. They went in to Sony and bought the $150.00 DVD player to watch MOVIES not listen to music and for the progressive scan feature and happened to get a SACD chip in the player and then they HAPPENED to buy a CD that also happens to play SACD...like HDCD I happen to own a few HDCDs but I didn't look for it. The only way they can sell SACD is by making hybrids - and now Sony may stop doingt that even.

Selling superior audio recordings to non audiophiles is a dead idea -- trying to convert the masses who mostly buy bottom of the line receivers with a Magnaviox surround system into audiophiles is a waste because why would they pay $24.00 for a SACD when the CD is $11.00 and then they can't copy it for twelve of their friends either. OOPS.

And the problem is further compounded that the Audiophile community is not necessarily filled with videophiles. Selling superior audio Quality to people who don't necessarily have or ever want a surround sound system is tough because we Audiophiles are kept beaten over the head that we need matching surround speakers. So RGA Audio Note who contemplates SACD says well I need to get a Pair of Audio ntoe E's for the corners and use my J's as center speakers and then at minimum get some AN K's for the rear -- This alone is a $10,000US upgrade including taxes. I then have to buy a dreaded receiver and if i don;t do that then you may as wlel add another $10,000.00 in appropriate amplication.

Or I can do what joe Sixpack did and buy a magnavox and RCA receiver for cheap -- and a SACD player and then I groan because no matter how good the SACD player could be it would be railroaded by the rest of the system. I have spoken to so many audiophiles who even if SACD offerred a prospect they might be interested in the financial upgrade is positively enormous. Couple that with the poor store demos, the lack of titles then I as an audiophile decided to simply wait -- all the magazines kept saying one would win -- so I figure as do many audiophiles that we'll wait. Problem is that with everyone waiting -- SACD slows production.

Having said all this I have made a commitment to ensuring that my next DVD player will play these formats -- because I have heard some discs that sounded better than the Redbook CD just in two channel -- But I also wonder if the cd player portion was deleiberately made to sound worse -- to make SACD sound better.

I'm not against Higher resolotion I welcome something better than CD -- my comments are strictly about the failure to properly read the market or even see the RIGHT market -- and now SACD is kind of screwed themselves up -- I doubt they can recover.

[Pyrrho]

Of course they could put it in all their cheap players -- but SACD and DVD-A are kind of a funny thing. CD was targetted to the masses not the high end --...

You must either be young or have a very poor memory. When CD came out, it was marketed as a high end product, and was priced accordingly. It took a while before there were any CD players priced below $1000, which made them far from a product for the masses, particularly when one factors in inflation for what $1000 back then would be equivalent to today.

...
Take Laserdisc. It was vastly superior to VHS and Beta and it came out 1 year BEFORE CD players. I bought one of these players and several movies - it never really took off as many people have never even heard of it know nothing about it and lookj at you like a deer in headlights -- no different that SACD I might add. LaserDisc was advertised to the high end audio video market and this market is a tiny tiny fraction of the movie home entertainment market at that time.
...

Laserdisc never took off because it was ALWAYS expensive, both for the players and the movies themselves. The disc size and weight required a much more robust mechanism than a CD or DVD transport, and the discs themselves were much more expensive to make. These factors kept prices out of reach for most people. Most people could easily see the improvement in the picture, but were unwilling to spend a fortune for a player and for each and every disc.

As for SACD and DVD-A, there are many factors keeping them from catching on, including:

1) Two competing formats lead to confusion, and although "universal" players are common now, many manufacturers still refuse to embrace both.
2) There are not very many discs available in either format.
3) These is no convenience factor helping either one, unlike CD, which was far superior in convenience to anything that existed before.
4) There have been too many efforts to keep people from being able to make copies, and presently, people are accustomed to being able to make digital copies of digital sources.
5) Many people are content with the sound of CDs, and many are content with things like DPL II for surround.
6) Surround formats generally require sitting down and just listening to them for them to be better than two channel stereo recordings, which can be heard with headphones. Many people use portables, and SACD and DVD-A are not generally thought to be an advantage for such use.

There may be other reasons, but those are reasons that I can think of off the top of my head.