Why have DVD-A, and SACD failed?

[Odyssian]

Originally posted by Hendmik:

The real question that should be asked, is "Why is the music industry so out of touch with its comsumers?"

Because it's too busy suing them?

[coyote]

The REAL flaw in the system is that, where musical performance is concerned, the sound almost always emanates from individual sound sources. This is even a problem with conventional two-speaker stereo, as well as such things as "stereo samples" on keyboards. To come back to my forlorn clarinet from an earlier example, that clarinet does not come from all corners of a room. It emanates from one spot, with reflections coming from various parts of the room. There is absolutely no way to capture it accurately from a listener perspective and then play it back in a way that resembles what the listener would have heard had he been present at the recording.

 

All home audio is nothing more than an illusion of accuracy.

Originally posted by Duddits:

According to the article, many drivers bathing the room in sound enables the system to more accurately reconstruct natural sound, grow the "sweet spot" so the whole room is a sweet spot, and generate cool, new, 3-D sound effects.

[doug osborne]

Originally posted by Kendrix:

...

However, high resolution stereo is of much more interest to me. Most DVD-A and SACD discs provide stereo mixes. So I think we need to separate these two points.

Perhaps this is another aspect of this that is just too confusing for the average consumer.[/QB]

Very important.

 

The key idea here, for marketers, is choice.

 

SA-CD and DVD-A are the first delivery formats in the history of home music that can give us the choice between standard delivery on a $50 player or enhanced delivery on the best systems out there. The only DualDisc I have contains a folder with AAC tracks, surround-encoded AAC track, in fact, of the songs on the DVD-A section, so you can download them on your iPod - talk about choice! The enhanced delivery can be either standard two-channel or up to six-channel surround. The disc, in the end, costs no more to replicate than a plain-vanilla CD, and production costs hopefully can be amortized into the cost of the more-desireable product. What marketer could be stupid enough to screw up this opportunity?

 

Again, even though the hi-rez or surround tracks might not appeal to everyone, the people who do use these tracks drive the industry in technological developement as they have for the last century. Without making these available and encouraging consumers to upgrade their systems to enjoy the benefits wherever possible, development stops and entropy takes over, resulting in an MP3 culture! That kind of limits our opportunities as musicians, engineers, producers, distributors, and consumers.

 

Yes, there are a few record execs who have our ear here, but this is a pretty geeky discussion for them. They have about a three year window for any job, and none of them see success or profit or employment-political capital in high-rez or surround.

[sidereal]

Great thread...

 

To emphasize a couple of points... the discussion centers around (no pun intended) two issues: economics and aesthetics.

 

SACD/DVD-A implementations are a perfect example of an industry thinking in a techologically deterministic fashion rather than understanding Econ 101 - the consumer determins the market. As has been mentioned, it's way, way too complicated for the average consumer. Sure they could get interested, but you'd have to give them a reason to give a damn. More importantly, and as an extention of this, there has been far too little appreciation for the culture of music and the way a consumer integrates music into his or her personal life. People who listen to music generally do other things - clean the house, file their taxes, drive their car, have conversations with their significant other, etc. Even with attentive listening, something true music fans like me do, you're generally not in an intert position. Customers rarely sit there, immobile, and listen to music. For surround to work well in music you need to be positioned in a fairly narrow radius to really enjoy the sweet spot that gives you an extra 15 percent of coolness.

 

Because of this, I've never understood surround for music because I don't think it offers anything compelling enough for the consumer to give a damn. It's complicated, it's format-driven rather than consumer-driven, and it completely misunderstands the culture of music listening.

 

Which leads me to aesthetics... Surround audio, in my opinion, requires a visual component. This is why it works for video games, film, sports broadcasting, and home theater movie rentals. In this type of listening, there is a visual anchor that keeps you intert and attentive. The visual comprises a focal point and around this point surround sound enhances a sense of identification within a narrative. Surround for visual media is an extremely powerful means of enhancing viewer subjectivity. But for music, the experience is entirely different.

[Duddits]

Originally posted by coyote:

The REAL flaw in the system is that, where musical performance is concerned, the sound almost always emanates from individual sound sources. This is even a problem with conventional two-speaker stereo, as well as such things as "stereo samples" on keyboards. To come back to my forlorn clarinet from an earlier example, that clarinet does not come from all corners of a room. It emanates from one spot, with reflections coming from various parts of the room. There is absolutely no way to capture it accurately from a listener perspective and then play it back in a way that resembles what the listener would have heard had he been present at the recording.

 

All home audio is nothing more than an illusion of accuracy.

 

All home audio is nothing more than an illusion of accuracy for sure, but a great number of speakers helps make the illusion more realistic.

 

On first glance, what you're saying seems to make sense -- that musical sources emenate from a single point, why need to replicate them from multiple points?

 

But in fact, acoustically produced sound (even from only one musician) is far more complex than what one or two speakers can typically reproduce. The way sound spreads from an instrument (which is different from how it spreads from a speaker), the physical space between instruments and interaction between their sounds, the interaction of the sound coming from the instruments and the room's acoustics, and natural reverberation, all create a complex 3-d soundfield that does not fold easily into 2 distinct points -- left and right speakers -- even when combined with the acoustics of the room in which they're played back.

 

If you want to recreate a musical event, many speakers, in fact, thousands of them, would help produce a more persuasive illusion than one or two.

 

As insane as that sounds!

[Angelo Clematide]

Originally posted by Duddits:

But is that really the issue? I've met some record execs (e.g. Warner Bros.) who are trying to push these newer formats . It's in their interest since they could generate new money from old music . But even companies like Sony that control both software and hardware haven't been able to successfully steer the public into SACD.

Some reasons we think about:

Buyer has other preferences.

Prices of surround electronics.

Media prices, esp. for younger people.

mp3, the majors ignored that format delivery for years.

Livingroom design.

No need for more channels then two.

Mono in a elevator is enough for me.

Changes in econonomy.

Unemployment.

The cost of a 24-bit/96KHz surround production is to high.

 

Backcatalogue (old music):

A repurposed DVD is not surround, it is pseudo surround. A surround DVD is recorded with at least 5 microphones or can be made synthetically on a DAW, i.e. electronic music.

 

Then, till the backcatalogue will be fully available on DVD-Audio, the format will be obsolete. Life expectation of DVD is 6 years from now.

 

Then for me the most obvious reason not to buy a DVD-Audio is: why should you miss the picture on a DVD-Audio since you can have both with DVD-Video (incl. DD 5.1 surround, dts, THX and HDTV *WMV). Why should you listen today to a symphonic concert without seeing the orchestra.

 

"execs (e.g. Warner Bros.) who are trying to push these newer formats."

There is a lot of useless talk in the upper melonhead floor at majors, that's why they get exchanged every other while. They are just employed to create the shareholder value. Creativity is a exotic word on this floor they heard the first time in the Reiki workshop.

[DP3]

Because downloadable MP3s are where it's at. Most don't care about sound quality, only folks like us.

[declau]

If I play a clarinet, the sound of the clarinet does not emanate from all corners of the room. It emanates from the clarinet!

Actually it does: when you are playing clarinet it is not just the straight sound of the clarinet that gets to me but also the sound reverberating off the walls, or furniture anything in the room affects the way I'm hearing it.

LOL

But that's besides the point. About the DVD-A. I think we should stick to 24bit/96khz STEREO for music (which seems to be a logical progression) and leave the movies in SURROUND.

I like hearing explosions and swooshes etc... all around me but I think hearing a guitarist running around me would make me dizzy.

[DanS]

Croatian Whaling Songs on SACD?

Where can I get 'em?

 

I'll admit I have a few CD's that are SACD 'encoded', but I have not looked into any players, and no one in my circle of musician friends or music listening friends has ever mentioned the format.

 

I just bought a new amp a few months back, and I opted for glorious 2 channel stereo.

[Anderton]

<>

 

I know a few people who have SACD, and they absolutely rave about the quality. I must admit that of all the hi-res formats, DSD tickles my ears the best.

[Curve Dominant]

posted by Valkyrie Sound:

Piss poor marketing from both SACD...

Ya think??

 

I actually thought the SACD marketing was positively brilliant.

 

Decietful, misleading, fraudulant junk science, all spun as "SUPER AUDIO"...from an advertising executive's viewpoint, that's damn good marketing.

 

The marketing was not the problem with SACD. It was the most elegantly subtle marketing hoax in the history of the audio industry (with 96K+ sampling a CLOSE second).

 

"No brickwall filters!!!"

 

"2.8 Gigaherz sampling!!!"

 

"THE CURE TO THE EVILS OF PCM!!!"

 

Very clever and amusing. Sony assumed the public was too ill-informed to understand the technical issues. Well, they were right, but they weren't right in the direction Sony had hoped.

 

That, and the minor factor that the SACD didn't actually sound better than the Redbook CD.

 

(Sorry Craig: you may "like it" but the sonics are factually inferior.)

[Philter]

Originally posted by sidereal:

Great thread...

 

To emphasize a couple of points... the discussion centers around (no pun intended) two issues: economics and aesthetics.

 

SACD/DVD-A implementations are a perfect example of an industry thinking in a techologically deterministic fashion rather than understanding Econ 101 - the consumer determins the market....

 

there has been far too little appreciation for the culture of music and the way a consumer integrates music into his or her personal life. People who listen to music generally do other things - clean the house, file their taxes, drive their car, have conversations with their significant other, etc...

 

Which leads me to aesthetics...

 

Surround audio, in my opinion, requires a visual component... In this type of listening, there is a visual anchor that keeps you intert and attentive. ...

 

Surround for visual media is an extremely powerful means of enhancing viewer subjectivity. But for music, the experience is entirely different.

Great points.

[Philter]

Originally posted by declau:

If I play a clarinet, the sound of the clarinet does not emanate from all corners of the room. It emanates from the clarinet!

Actually it does: when you are playing clarinet it is not just the straight sound of the clarinet that gets to me but also the sound reverberating off the walls, or furniture anything in the room affects the way I'm hearing it.

LOL

But the sound itself emanates from the clarinet. It begins as a single source and then spreads out into the space, reflecting off surfaces and developing.

 

If you record just a clarinet without the sound of the room, and then take the recording and play it in another room, you will end up with reflections off the surfaces in the room where you play the recording.

 

Once you record the reflected sound of the original space, it starts to get weird. When you play that recording back in another room, you're going to have two kinds of reflected sound- recorded reflected sound, and then live reflected sound in the room where you're listening.

[Duddits]

Originally posted by Philter:

If you record just a clarinet without the sound of the room, and then take the recording and play it in another room, you will end up with reflections off the surfaces in the room where you play the recording.

Yes. But what comes out of the actual clarinet and what comes out of the speaker reproducing it are very different. You know this to be true: imagine a clarinetist standing next to a speaker in a room. First, the clarinetist plays a passage on the clarinet. Then, a recording of the passage is played back through the speaker. As you sit there in your easy chair listening to them both, you will hear a world of difference.

[Duddits]

Originally posted by Angelo Clematide:

Originally posted by Duddits:

But is that really the issue? I've met some record execs (e.g. Warner Bros.) who are trying to push these newer formats . It's in their interest since they could generate new money from old music . But even companies like Sony that control both software and hardware haven't been able to successfully steer the public into SACD.

Some reasons we think about:

Buyer has other preferences.

Prices of surround electronics.

Media prices, esp. for younger people.

mp3, the majors ignored that format delivery for years.

Livingroom design.

No need for more channels then two.

Mono in a elevator is enough for me.

Changes in econonomy.

Unemployment.

The cost of a 24-bit/96KHz surround production is to high.

Good points the lot of them!

Originally posted by Angelo Clematide:

Backcatalogue (old music):

A repurposed DVD is not surround, it is pseudo surround. A surround DVD is recorded with at least 5 microphones or can be made synthetically on a DAW, i.e. electronic music.

Some reissues that go back to the original masters are really no different than a surround mix made from new material, with remixers having access to original stems/tracks. But I know what you mean, and there's a lot of HORRIBLE pseudo surround going around. Nile Rogers likened it to the early days of stereo in which mixers didn't know what to do with the "other" speaker and would wind up creating an embellished mono: pan everything to one speaker, and pan one or two instruments to the other. Similarly, mixers throwing horns, backups, etc. onto rear right and left tend to sound gimmicky, and don't exploit surround's true potential.

 

At a Dolby demo in New York:

Dolby folks: "Doesn't this sound great??!!"

Voice in head: "Well, no."

Originally posted by Angelo Clematide:

Then, till the backcatalogue will be fully available on DVD-Audio, the format will be obsolete. Life expectation of DVD is 6 years from now.

Which kind of sums up everything -- for all of their benefits, current high-resolution surround formats are probably transition formats. Eventually, a more robust solution will come along and not seem quite so incremental.

Originally posted by Angelo Clematide:

Then for me the most obvious reason not to buy a DVD-Audio is: why should you miss the picture on a DVD-Audio since you can have both with DVD-Video (incl. DD 5.1 surround, dts, THX and HDTV *WMV). Why should you listen today to a symphonic concert without seeing the orchestra.

Makes sense to me. Perhaps the format that finally wins is one that is high rez video married to high rez audio surround and emerges after the current and equally confusing standards battle in high-rez TVs works itself out.

[doug osborne]

Originally posted by sidereal:

...

 

SACD/DVD-A implementations are a perfect example of an industry thinking in a techologically deterministic fashion rather than understanding Econ 101 - the consumer determins the market.

There are over 60 million surround systems in homes in the world. If that ain't demand (for a product still in its infancy), I don't know what is.

 

...For surround to work well in music you need to be positioned in a fairly narrow radius to really enjoy the sweet spot that gives you an extra 15 percent of coolness.

Actually, the opposite is true. Two-channel stereo by its nature limits you to one tragically narrow spot to hear a phantom image and the stereo spaciousness. A proper surround presentation provides a much wider sweet spot.

 

Because of this, I've never understood surround for music because I don't think it offers anything compelling enough for the consumer to give a damn. It's complicated, it's format-driven rather than consumer-driven, and it completely misunderstands the culture of music listening.

In hundreds of demonstrations where consumers were receiving their first contact with surround music, I have never seen anything but an immediate, positive reaction.

 

Which leads me to aesthetics... Surround audio, in my opinion, requires a visual component. This is why it works for video games, film, sports broadcasting, and home theater movie rentals. In this type of listening, there is a visual anchor that keeps you intert and attentive. The visual comprises a focal point and around this point surround sound enhances a sense of identification within a narrative. Surround for visual media is an extremely powerful means of enhancing viewer subjectivity. But for music, the experience is entirely different.

This would seem to argue for DVD-A over SA-CD, with DVD-A's video component.

 

I agree that the golden age of Hi-Fi ended about fifteen years ago, and people have largely stopped sitting down to listen to music. The arguement would be that surround gives people a compelling reason to sit down, shut up, and listen.

 

Originally posted by Angelo Clematide:

 

Some reasons we think about:

Buyer has other preferences.

Prices of surround electronics.

Media prices, esp. for younger people.

mp3, the majors ignored that format delivery for years.

Livingroom design.

No need for more channels then two.

Mono in a elevator is enough for me.

Changes in econonomy.

Unemployment.

The cost of a 24-bit/96KHz surround production is to high.

Improvements in surround delivery by small, one-speaker systems (not ideal, but interesting systems are available from Niro1, M&K, and others), Dolby Headphone, etc., make surround mixes available to the masses.

 

There is increased Cost of Entry for surround production, but so many other things (recorders, storage media, etc.) have gotten so much cheaper than they were (in historical cost) that this equipment cost is not so much of a barrier anymore. Encoder prices are way out of wack, but hopefully that will change.

 

Backcatalogue (old music):

A repurposed DVD is not surround, it is pseudo surround. A surround DVD is recorded with at least 5 microphones or can be made synthetically on a DAW, i.e. electronic music.

??

 

Some repurposing is stunning (Goodbye Yellow Brick Road in 5.1 absolutely leaves the original 2-channel mix in the dust), and some is crap (Silverline's "From The Front Row Live" series...).

 

Then, till the backcatalogue will be fully available on DVD-Audio, the format will be obsolete. Life expectation of DVD is 6 years from now.

Can't argue here, but every format has its day. Blu-Ray, WiMax streaming WMA11 8-channel, whatever, surround will continue to find new delivery media.

 

[

Then for me the most obvious reason not to buy a DVD-Audio is: why should you miss the picture on a DVD-Audio since you can have both with DVD-Video (incl. DD 5.1 surround, dts, THX and HDTV *WMV). Why should you listen today to a symphonic concert without seeing the orchestra.

Then don't buy them...but let the rest of us who have been listening to music for over a hundred years in our homes (no, I'm not that old) continue. Sometimes we just don't get the best performance from an artist when the cameras are rolling (and of course a hundred years ago we had a way to deliver sound to the consumers' homes but not picture, but you know what I mean). Again, an argument for DVD-A over SA-CD (but there is no technological reason why DSD couldn't be potentially delivered on some format with picture).

 

Eric might be right, but that's irrelevant. SA-CD and DVD-A both deliver stunning sound to the home.

 

Originally posted by Philter:

 

Once you record the reflected sound of the original space, it starts to get weird. When you play that recording back in another room, you're going to have two kinds of reflected sound- recorded reflected sound, and then live reflected sound in the room where you're listening.

But that's the same situation we have faced with one- and two-channel home music delivery for a hundred years. Again, surround just is a better way to deliver a real-world acoustic experience than two-channel.

 

Originally posted by Declau:

 

I think we should stick to 24bit/96khz STEREO for music (which seems to be a logical progression) and leave the movies in SURROUND.

I like hearing explosions and swooshes etc... all around me but I think hearing a guitarist running around me would make me dizzy.

I think the same about many two-channel mixes: I hate the typical 20 foot wide drum set, and 20 foot wide grand pianos presented from the perspective of the pianist while the band is presented as if they were on stage...

 

5.1 gives an engineer choices, and some silly choices have been made, I agree, but no more than on many two-channel stereo mixes. Swooshes that are entirely appropriate on an Emerson, Lake, and Palmer remix (listen to the Brain Salad Surgery 5.1 mix) might not be appropriate for a James Taylor remix (listen to Frank Filipetti's stunning 5.1 mix of Hourglass). And River Deep Mountain High still sounds best out of one speaker.

 

I actually believe that there is a far smaller market for high-bitrate audio in any delivery format than there is for surround music. The 60 million+ surround systems out there far outnumber the systems high-end enough to take advantage of the high-resolution audio delivery. Personally, I want both...

[Angelo Clematide]

Doug, sure i know what you mean.

We are confronted with tremendous problems getting our DVD-A's productions out in a amount that pays. It's not that i don't like it. We have over 50 surround productions made with symphony orchestras, but not released because the licensees would just take 500 copies in commission, worldwide.

 

You stated that there are 60 mio. systems sold. Do you know how many of them can play a DVD-Audio and SA-CD?

[doug osborne]

Originally posted by Angelo Clematide:

....

 

You stated that there are 60 mio. systems sold. Do you know how many of them can play a DVD-Audio and SA-CD?

Too few, Angelo

 

Let's fix that!

[Phait]

*bump past troll*

[djwayne]

Here's what Peter Gabriel has to say about 5.1 with regards to his new 5.1 release, "Play"......

 

"It's like the difference between watching a concert from the back of the theatre and actually stepping upon the stage and being surrounded by the instruments and having the players all around you,"

[miroslav]

Originally posted by Doug Osborne:

Originally posted by Angelo Clematide:

....

 

You stated that there are 60 mio. systems sold. Do you know how many of them can play a DVD-Audio and SA-CD?

Too few, Angelo

 

Let's fix that!

Right...they are all DVD-Video...there, the surround is just an added bonus that the movie makers have included for "free".

 

So...most anyone wishing to watch (not listen) to DVD's...ends up with a "surround" system"...poorly configured, most of the time.

 

You know...there really is NO POINT in arguing here, if 5.1/DVD-A/SACD is "better" than any current format/delivery, or not...

...because so far...according to the mass consumer...it's quite irrelevant...

...and THAT...$ale$...will decide if it fails or not in the long run.