Re: VHS formats & SACD

[John Hill <jphill@home.com>]

DorianLS@AOL.COM wrote:

> Dear John,
> I was interested in your commends about Super Audio CD but dismayed by the
> prohibitive cost of the units.  Why should they be so expensive?  DVD is now
> very reasonable.  Why doesn't the next generation of musical recordings not
> simply use the DVD audio format?  With all the additional space for
> information on a DVD disk the quality of sound should be impressively
> superior to the current musical CD.  And DVD disk players also play CDs in
> most cases, so there would not be a problem of making one's current CD's
> obsolete.  It sounds to me like a development that is becoming overdue.  Does
> anyone know what is anticipated for the immediate future (the next couple of
> years) in musical recording formats?  I'd certainly like to see some
> improvement in sound and it certainly appears within reach technicologically.

I guess the bottom line is that new technology in the audio world costs a lot
in terms of research R&D.  The only way to bring that cost down is for new
technology to gain mass market acceptance.  This was certainly the case with
the compact disc.

DVD *is* now very popular, but keep in mind that the players you are talking
about are DVD-V (video) players.  The DVD-A (audio) spec is now a standard,
but there are very few audio-only DVD releases.  They will come as more of the
"universal" players get into the marketplace.  For multichannel music-only, DTS
seems to have the largest catalog right now.  Their format, however, is data-
compressed and is different from both SACD and DVD-A.

SACD uses a different recording architecture than fixed linear PCM (pulse code
modulation) and is a very new technology.  So, it will have to prove itself in
the
consumer marketplace and the professional side of the recording industry in order

for the prices to come down.  We'll see what happens.  Remember Beta vs. VHS?
It's interesting to note that the format which won that battle was the *inferior*

one, technologically speaking.  VHS won because it got to a larger mass market
and consumers embraced it first.  I wouldn't want to start a Mac vs. PC war here
(they're all too common) but perhaps a similar thing happened there as well.
Sometimes the marketplace gets it *wrong* by embracing that which is cheaper
and more easily available.  Only time will tell.

cheers,
jh

PS:  My Sony Beta machine from 1985 is still running flawlessly;  looks and
sounds
just great, although getting blank tapes has become a bit inconvenient.