GG: DVD Update

["John P. Hill" <jphill@frank.mtsu.edu>]

On Thu, 23 Jul 1998, Omri Tal wrote:

> DVD is the new media standard that will eventually
> replace all CDs, CD_ROMs, VCRs and Laserdisks.

DVD stands for "Digital Variable Disc" or Digital Versatile Disc"
and is the next generation of optical digital media.

> It is capable of containing more than 2 hrs of high quality
> video and audio (highly compressed) + has interactive and random access
> abilities.

Of course, CDs are already random access.  And it might be mentioned that
*both* the video and audio are compressed, at least in the versions that
are currently standardized and on sale at your local video store.

> The audio, which is what interests us here the most, is in
> compressed format - either Dolby AC-3 or Mpeg. This, and
> the denser surface coding is what enables the high capacities
> also for audio.

Not necessarily.  While it's true that Dolby AC-3 and MPEG audio use
data compression, it it unlikely that these formats will be used in the
MUSIC-ONLY version of the DVD.  It is much more likely that high-quality,
music-only product will be disrete, multichannel digital audio (either 5.1
or 7.1 in all likelihood) encoded at 96kHz. with 24-bit word width.
Although this has not yet been codified as a music-only *standard*, it
looks like this is where it's going.  FWIW, I don't know *any* engineers
or producers who would be willing to sign on to either AC-3 or MPEG for
the music-only DVD, owing to quality concerns related to data
compression.

jh