SACD on its way out?


In a recent thread, someone said that they had heard that the SACD format was going to be dropped in favor of the DVD-A format. This is the first that I've heard of this. Has anyone else heard of this? ... and what was the source?

Thanks,
Richard
drrdiamond
Yes, actually hi-rez DVDA is watermarked so that it can't be copied in hi-rez. Also, with dual disc, it seems as though the producers must choose between hi-rez or video. The new "Donna's" hi-rez dual disc only has 10 minutes of video.
That's funny Audiobugged, I found that a tubed SACD player will run circles around old school vinyl and all it's hassle.
Web magazine AudioRevolution.com foten has good news articles but they tend to be DVD-Audio biased (even though they now include SACDs in their reviews). Just read some of the articles in their news archives such as the battle between OneDisc and DualDisc (both competeting DVD-A/CD dual-sided discs!) declaring SACD as a failed project.
http://www.audiorevolution.com/news/
quoted from 10-23-04: Musicslug
>I was the one that said that. I haven't heard that SACD is >"on the way out" though. What I opined is that SACD is an >attempt on the part of the music industry to stop copying >and downloading (no digital out on SACD, right?).

perhaps...
but lets not overlook that this different technology (DSDvsPCM) actualy does sound better. Thats a big factor.

>In the meantime, if you look into home studio and regular >studio recording technology, the clear trend is towards >"high-rez" (higher sampling rates, longer word lenths). For >now, people are mostly using the high rez for the master >and then "dithering" it down to "redbook" (regular CD), >but, if they want to, they can burn a DVD-A at the higher >resolution - AND THESE CAN BE PLAYED ON ANY DVD PLAYER!

well...not exactly
with $90 software you can author/burn your own DVD-A discs, but you need a DVD-A hardware player to play them back on. Not all DVD players support DVD-A.
you can burn 24/96 PCM onto DVD-V discs via the $40 "audio DVD creator" software that would be universal.

>So, my point is really my own prediction, but it seems to >me that with DVD players everywhere, and high-rez >recordings doable by anyone, there's going to be a lot of >momentum towards DVD-A. Just a prediction, folks!

right..anyone can burn high resolution DVD-V discs that have up to 24bit / 96khz PCM on them..this is true. And they will play in virtualy all DVD decks....but who is doing this outside of a small group of people? I mean, your average consumer joe does not have a bunch of master 24bit .wav files laying around.

I also hope both formats coexist peacefully and continue to develop. One day, digital will equal analog. I think DSD technology is a step in the right direction over the many decade old PCM digital standard. I like the idea of a new approach to digital music.
High-rez is alive but gasping for breath: Shipments of Super Audio CDs and DVD-Audio discs reached approximately 600,000 units, divided almost equally between the two formats.

Source may be RIAA report on first 2 quarters numbers shipped.Here's a block of text from Stereophile article with link to complete text.Which also carries a link to RIAA text.

a statistically insignificant slice of the 289.8 million units shipped in all formats, but is incontrovertible evidence that many music lovers care about quality. SACD appears to be losing ground to DVD-A. The 300,000 SACDs shipped in the opening months of this year were fewer than half the 689,000 that went out in the first six months of 2003; for DVD-A, the same 300,000 were three times the 100,000 shipped in that period.

Good news is CD sales regaining ground.
Stereophile Article