SACD and DVD-Audio, Doomed Formats?

[David DelGrosso]

Originally Posted by deacongreg

Which is why we need a "true universal player." One that will play what you are talking about David, plus our old SACD/DVD - A titles.

Good luck with that.

i totally agree that "one" player that plays all, would be very nice to have.

Unfortunately, the hardware manufacturers are NOT going to add the proprietary SACD and DVD-A surround codecs into these new HD disc formats, unless the record industry surprises us with a huge commitment to producing more discs.

Personally, I'd rather have all my favorite albums re-issued one more time, as HD-DVD Audio discs.... with 2.0 and 5.1 PCM 24/96 audio tracks, plus video bonus material!

PEACE

DD

[deacongreg]

Originally Posted by David DelGrosso

Good luck with that.

i totally agree that "one" player that plays all, would be very nice to have.

Unfortunately, the hardware manufacturers are NOT going to add the proprietary SACD and DVD-A surround codecs into these new HD disc formats, unless the record industry surprises us with a huge commitment to producing more discs.

Personally, I'd rather have all my favorite albums re-issued one more time, as HD-DVD Audio discs.... with 2.0 and 5.1 PCM 24/96 audio tracks, plus video bonus material!

PEACE

DD

Wow, I could go for that as well. And for me, since I do not have any sacd/dvd - a hardware, only software, that would be good. However, there still would be the need then to have a universal player. Since, you are probably right that the manufacturers will not add the codecs, which sucks. So, I guess we are backing to hoping.

Peace to you as well David

[Mcintosh Man]

Hi,

I have been a member of this forum for a few months now and this topic is the right one for my first post.

Since I have a SACD Player I kind of hope that Record Labels, like Telarc, will carry on producing SACD's. In my region SACD are not easy to find and are very expensive.
I either buy them directly from Telarc or at the annual show "Festival Son et Image" in Montréal.

I'm not very happy by SONY decision to make Blu-Ray machines incompatible with SACD format. What about us the Audiophiles that wanted the best in Audio and invested a lot of money in a SACD Player!
With Sony attitude, Record Companies might just abandon the adopters of this format by stopping the release of new records in this format

[David DelGrosso]

Originally Posted by Mcintosh Man

Since I have a SACD Player I kind of hope that Record Labels, like Telarc, will carry on producing SACD's.

In my region SACD are not easy to find and are very expensive.
I either buy them directly from Telarc or at the annual show "Festival Son et Image" in Montréal.

I'm curious... are you enjoying these SACD discs in stereo, or in 5.1 surround?

And do you listen to these discs through the same audio system that your TV is connected to... or a dedicated music-only system?

Depending upon your playback system and listening preferences, there might a win-win solution.

DD

[ncpl]

FWIW - I paid my entry fee a few years ago to the Meridian DVD-A 'club' and for a while, I naively enjoyed my 80+ DVD-A's thinking this was the future. It sounded great.

The blue formats were always coming but I thought that at least the format would be backwards compatible. When MLP was rebadged as Dolby and included in the specs I thought "Great !.....when I buy a nice shiny new HD player, I'll be able to play my DVD-A and blue discs (whichever one or both)"

However, what am I looking at now ? Even for Meridian, the godfather of DVD-A hardware, support for the format in their last 2 products has been dropped i.e. the F80 and G95. Where does this leave me (and the many like me)?

As mentioned above, it'll mean yet another unit on the rack. It also means that in 5-10 years time, finding a machine to play these quirky old formats on will be like trying to find an 8-track or DAT player now.

May as well sell the discs I have for what they're worth now.

It also means that I am TOTALLY disinclined to early adopt either of the new formats (despite the headline here a while back calling for all us audiophiles to early adopt !!!). I think it is disgrace that 'the industry' fights it out yet again with the consumer as the eventual loser.

Grumpy for a 1st post ?...you bet

[kennyt]

ncpl,

Being a fellow Meridian owner, I have an idea the price you paid to enter that 'club' and the price you could pay to enter the HD DVD AND Blu-ray camp is <$600 US, a small price to pay to be on the cutting edge of video!

Many of us with the magazine run both formats, and all have bought these players at our own expense to do so. I agree whole heartedly with you on the DVD-A/SACD issue (I currently have five players for one or both of each of these around) and yes, I wish they had taken off.

I have some early notification that Sony is already working with some folks in the industry (will post later today once I've researched it some more) to release MC Audio on Blu-ray! If we all thought DVD-A was good, Blu-ray should be able to do even more, imagine totally lossless compression of your favorite music!!!