10 Reasons Why High Definition DVD Formats Have Already Failed

[robin_v]

There are even other considerations and deliberations.

I suppose every hifi enthusiast reaches the point of choosing between pure stereo or surround sound. This is how I reasoned it through...

I have been a professional musician and know what it sounds like to be in the centre of the sound source. It is a totally different experience to being in front of a sound stage. Perhaps I have associations to working and concentrating on what I'm doing when I'm at the centre of it all?
I feel there is a greater sense of being entertained listening to a well tuned sound stage rather than being at the centre.

Not even in the context of home movies am I comfortable with surround sound. This is mainly due to the fact that we don't have three dimensional video. When push comes to shove we are all still staring at a screen or "stage" and this is where the sound belongs.

A well dimensioned stereo sound stage around a screen is more realistic in the sense that there is a correlation between picture and sound. There is "depth" in the picture and depth in the sound stage too so they are well suited together.

I remember being confused by surround sound when I went to the movies to see The Lord Of The Rings and there were lots of confusing and unrelated sounds on either side and behind me. Nothing that I could relate to on the screen.

Maybe I've just been too involved over the years with perfecting my sound stage that the question of surround sound has passed me by? I won't lose any sleep over it anyway.

By adding side and rear channels one is trying to push a way too large square peg into a round hole. The mere fact that one needs a centre speaker is in itself an indication of an improperly balanced system.

[Resident Loser]

There are even other considerations and deliberations.

I suppose every hifi enthusiast reaches the point of choosing between pure stereo or surround sound. This is how I reasoned it through...

I have been a professional musician and know what it sounds like to be in the centre of the sound source. It is a totally different experience to being in front of a sound stage. Perhaps I have associations to working and concentrating on what I'm doing when I'm at the centre of it all?
I feel there is a greater sense of being entertained listening to a well tuned sound stage rather than being at the centre.

Not even in the context of home movies am I comfortable with surround sound. This is mainly due to the fact that we don't have three dimensional video. When push comes to shove we are all still staring at a screen or "stage" and this is where the sound belongs.

A well dimensioned stereo sound stage around a screen is more realistic in the sense that there is a correlation between picture and sound. There is "depth" in the picture and depth in the sound stage too so they are well suited together.

I remember being confused by surround sound when I went to the movies to see The Lord Of The Rings and there were lots of confusing and unrelated sounds on either side and behind me. Nothing that I could relate to on the screen.

Maybe I've just been too involved over the years with perfecting my sound stage that the question of surround sound has passed me by? I won't lose any sleep over it anyway.

By adding side and rear channels one is trying to push a way too large square peg into a round hole. The mere fact that one needs a centre speaker is in itself an indication of an improperly balanced system.

...is quite valid IMNSHO and I heartily agree...

jimHJJ(...we are however, in the minority...)

[paul_pci]

I agreed with every point in the Audioholics article, but the problem is that there are many different types of failures and Clint doesn't clairify which one or any he's referrring to. There is failure to impress (brighter cleaner image, big whoop); failure to work as designed (this thing doesn't work right); failure to offer anything new or different to the consumer (I don't see a significant difference between this and regular DVDs), and of course, failure as a market success (I'm not going to buy this); failure to fill a niche (I don't need this). Now, if Clint only means market success, then I don't think all those points add up to that type of failure, but if he means failure to deliver something desire, something that works, somethign that a consumer can implement, then yeah, those points add up to failure.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

There are even other considerations and deliberations.

I suppose every hifi enthusiast reaches the point of choosing between pure stereo or surround sound. This is how I reasoned it through...

I have been a professional musician and know what it sounds like to be in the centre of the sound source. It is a totally different experience to being in front of a sound stage. Perhaps I have associations to working and concentrating on what I'm doing when I'm at the centre of it all?
I feel there is a greater sense of being entertained listening to a well tuned sound stage rather than being at the centre.

Not sure what you mean in this comment. Mixing for music and for movies is quite different, but can be the same in some cases. There is no coincidence in nature where we hear everything in front of us. When we attend a live concert, we are listening to a combination of direct sound fromt the front and reflected sound from the front, sides, and rear naturally delayed via distance. When we stand on the street, we hear a airplane overhead, cars passing in front, rear, or to the sides of us. It is only when we listen to a two channel recording played back through two speakers do we have a front only soundstage. This is not natural, nor a particularly accurate way to listen to anything. This kind of thinking is strictly a two channel perspective, in a three deminisional world.

Not even in the context of home movies am I comfortable with surround sound. This is mainly due to the fact that we don't have three dimensional video. When push comes to shove we are all still staring at a screen or "stage" and this is where the sound belongs.

Unfortunately if you watch a video where you just hear everything coming from the front, it would be very uninvolving, and a mismatch to the eyes and ears. The very purpose of surround in both movies and music is to create a more involving sense of immersion much like you get in nature if you stood still and closed your eyes. We are always "looking" on direction, but we are hearing binaurally and that is what surround sound effectively mimicks.

A well dimensioned stereo sound stage around a screen is more realistic in the sense that there is a correlation between picture and sound. There is "depth" in the picture and depth in the sound stage too so they are well suited together.

Unfortunately we just don't hear that way. We don't just hear a soundfield in front of us at no time in nature or real life. Hearing in life is a very immersive experience. We have gotten so used to it I think we ignore that fact and take it for granted. Where the ears are placed in relationship to our heads insures that we hear from the front, rear, and sides of us.

I remember being confused by surround sound when I went to the movies to see The Lord Of The Rings and there were lots of confusing and unrelated sounds on either side and behind me. Nothing that I could relate to on the screen.

There is nothing really confusing about that soundtrack. I think it did an excellent job of portraying audio wise perfectly what is happening in any specific environment that took place on the film. As I am sitting in my office I hear birds chirping outside to my left, the sound of the air conditioning above and to the right of me, I hear the murmur of an array of televisions in front of me, and people far to my right talking just outside of my office by the studio door. All of this audio "chatter" while I am staring forward at my computer screen. I couldn't see anything else but my screen, but I could hear 360 degrees around me.

Maybe I've just been too involved over the years with perfecting my sound stage that the question of surround sound has passed me by? I won't lose any sleep over it anyway.

By adding side and rear channels one is trying to push a way too large square peg into a round hole. The mere fact that one needs a centre speaker is in itself an indication of an improperly balanced system.

Your analogy is completely incorrect, and so are your conclusion regarding the center channel. Side/rear channels have always been part of the equation in movie sound since the introduction of Fantasound by Disney in 1940, perspecta sound in 1950's with Paramount's vista vision film process, Todd AO six track magnetic tape, to Dolby Stereo on 35mm in 1974. By these examples it is not clear to me why you would say "by adding" when They have already been there.

As far as the center channel it is well known why it exists, or it should be. It has less to do with balance as much as it does for clarity and localization. Have you ever heard music, dialog, and sound effects coming out of a two channel system? It sounds very congested, unclear, and in most cases the dialog is unintelligible. A prime case of 6 faucets and one small drain. Worse, with two channels the dialog will eminate from the channel closest to where you sit, not from the screen itself where it should. As you can see, balance has little to nothing to do with a center speakers existance. If you have been working on your front soudfield, you would understand that a phantom centered image only remains stable if you sit exactly equidistant between each speaker. Move one foot left or right, and the phantom image moves with you. That is not what film sound is supposed to do. A center channel even benefits music as well by anchoring the vocalist right in the middle of the front soundfield and without excessive EQ to keep it there.

I am a musician as well, and I just do not understand why music people have such a hard time grasping something that is natural as breathing. We hear in surround (binaurally), why shouldn't music recordings (or film soundtracks) mimick what is in real life?

[GMichael]

Not even in the context of home movies am I comfortable with surround sound. This is mainly due to the fact that we don't have three dimensional video. When push comes to shove we are all still staring at a screen or "stage" and this is where the sound belongs.

By adding side and rear channels one is trying to push a way too large square peg into a round hole. The mere fact that one needs a centre speaker is in itself an indication of an improperly balanced system.

A little off topic but: Oh man, you are so missing out on something very cool. There's something about a mystery movie with a lot of tension and suddenly a twig snaps right behind you. Or in an action/war flick you can hear the bullet casings landing on the ground around you. Bullets flying past you and hitting the wall just past your head. It is so much more involving in 3-D sound.

[superpanavision70mm]

Um, ok well, just because we are watching a screen or stage that does not mean that everything is perceived that way. When we watch a film we are seeing depth of field, which can be re-created through sound and sound design. We are watching a film from a POV vantage point and their are also camera tricks and effects that enable the viewer to take down the 2-D world and live almost within the frame. Sound can aid this process and while it might seem logical to have all the sound come from the front, that idea is just as ignorant as thinking that all of the actors in the film should walk side to side and never have a 3-D effect.