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What is DVD-Audio?
Q. What is DVD-Audio?
Q. What is
the physical size of a DVD-Audio disc?
Q. Does
DVD-Audio differ in quality from compact disc?
Q. Most
people are satisfied with their CD collections. Why should I adopt DVD-Audio
playback for the sake of a few audiophiles? 1) A high-resolution stereo track that is often 24 bit and 96 or even 192 kHz resolution. 2) A default DVD-Video compatible surround sound track that is usually a lossy (AKA compressed) surround sound format like DTS (3:1 compression) or Dolby Digital (12:1 compression). 3) A MLP surround sound mix. MLP stands for Meridian Lossless Packing and it is the highest quality audio for surround sound found on DVD-Audio.
We expect that in the future, DVD-Audio discs may include AAC or MP3 samples of other current and previous works by the artist, in addition to information such as fan club web addresses and much more. The unique capabilities of the tray-or-play feature offer the automobile manufacturer an opportunity to merchandise a variety of basic (e.g., DVD-Audio only, no monitor, in two-channel or multichannel applications) and step-up (e.g., DVD-Audio and connected monitor, DVD Audio/Video and connected monitor, DVD-Audio, Dolby Digital, and Dolby Pro Logic II) systems to your customers
Q. How much
do all of these “value added” features cost in term of retail prices for
DVD-Audio discs and players?
As for
players, you can currently find tabletop DVD-Audio players in the marketplace
for less than $200 and as high as $5,000, depending on the make and
manufacturer. For mass-market applications, we expect DVD-Audio to become a
standard feature in many mid- and upper-level DVD-Video players in 2003. In addition, DVD-Audio is migrating to the PC platform, with recent introduction of the Sound Blaster® AudigyTM 2 soundcard from Creative Technology Ltd. and its adoption by leading PC manufacturers. This provides additional impetus for the “universality” of DVD-Audio as an entertainment platform.
Q. What sort
of customer base exists for DVD-Audio?
Q. Tabletop
players and head units for the car are fine. But if DVD-Audio is to be
successful, shouldn’t manufacturers make it compatible with a variety of
platforms, just like the CD?
Q. Speaking
of DVD-Video, will a DVD-Audio disc play in a DVD-Video player?
Q. Will my
collection of compact discs be playable on DVD-Audio hardware?
Q. SACD proponents claim that their single-bit technology with high
sampling frequency is far superior to the high bit rate and sampling frequency
of DVD-Audio. What do you say? A DVD-Audio disc can use up to 24-bit word lengths, affording it a potential dynamic range as high as 140 dB?compared to the 93 dB dynamic range of a CD. This is almost 1,000 times the resolution of a compact disc! DVD-Audio can also sample the music waveform up to192,000 times per second, resulting in finer resolution and improved performance in reproducing high frequencies and transients. This sheer specification advantage that DVD-Audio offers over compact disc results in a rich, natural listening experience where all of the nuances of the original performance are reproduced in their entirety during playback—a level of quality heretofore unavailable from any packaged digital media. An SACD depicts an audio tone digitally by expressing it as a single-bit word sampled 2.8 million times per second. Its proponents claim that the higher digital sampling rate of SACD provides it with a technical advantage in the marketplace because it more closely represents the original analog waveform. PCM supporters counter this by noting that 24-bit, 192 kHz DVD-Audio is capable of reproducing a frequency response of nearly 100 kHz and a dynamic range of 140 dB—capturing and reproducing in their entirety all of the nuances of human auditory perception. Additionally, the longer PCM word lengths (referred to as the bit rate) employed by DVD-Audio result in superior low-frequency (bass) performance.
Although the
DSD coding used on SACD theoretically provides for a wide bandwidth, in practice
the very heavy noise shaping used to recover mid-frequency resolution means that
a large part of that bandwidth is unusable. SACD players are obliged to sharply
filter out audio above 50 kHz. Even with the noise shaping used to enhance its
performance, SACD is only capable of delivering 120 dB dynamic range (again,
compared to 140 dB for DVD-Audio). On the other hand, the single-bit word length of SACD introduced new challenges to that process, which mandated its developers to establish a high-level noise threshold at 100 kHz; theoretically beyond the perceptual range of the human ear. However, critical listeners and the scientific community alike agree that although most humans cannot hear tones above 22 kHz, the actual composition of those higher harmonic frequencies do indeed affect the perception of lower harmonic tones located within the human audible range. As a result, critics claim that SACD audio can be burdened by undesirable levels of “supersonic noise” that can actually “color” the music, detracting from the original performance. Which is preferable: more bits, or higher sampling frequency? To render a specific judgment as to which format is technically superior is difficult indeed. Many respected audio engineers agree, however, that if faced with a choice between a high bit rate or a high sampling frequency to produce the highest quality results possible, they would choose the higher bit rate solution, especially given the fact that PCM coding introduces much less distortion into the signal.
Q. Doesn’t
SACD have nearly twice as many titles as DVD-Audio? The majority of SACD discs, on the other hand, offer two-channel playback only, as they were originally intended solely for stereophiles. SACD software does not include a companion Dolby Digital soundtrack to provide compatibility with the more than 200 million DVD players in use today. In addition, SACD does not include multimedia features such as moving and browsable slide shows, concert video footage, artist interviews, and the like. SACD is essentially a higher quality version of a packaged media (compact disc) that consumers are already rejecting.
Q. SACD
proponents claim that their discs are compatible with the CD players I have in
my home. DVD does not offer backward compatibility and that is important to
consumers. What’s the best approach? Additionally, depending on the quality and performance of your CD player, hybrid SACD discs that do include a CD layer may or may not be playback compatible.
Q. Are
DVD-Audio discs playable on compact disc players?
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