[Lestrade]

I'm starting this thread as a way to open discussion about these two, not-so-famous audio formats. However, I'm selfishly also doing this to ask a simple question:

If I want to play my music in my DVD player, which is lovingly connected to my 5.1 surround system, which format can I plunk in the tray?

I'm having a hard time finding a clear answer: I know Super Audio CDs require a separate player, but that they'll generally downgrade to 2.0 if placed in a regular CD player. But I don't think they are Dolby or DTS compatible, are they? In other words, I don't think they'll output true 5.1 sound from my regular Dolby-connected DVD player. What about DVD Audio?
_________________
Illustration Portfolio | The Gamer's Quarter

[psiga]

SACDs require SACD players. All or nearly all SACDs have a poorly mastered CD-compatible version burned onto their second layer, but you're literally better off just buying the proper CD album. The high priced proprietary Sony mixing systems reportedly do a shitty job downsampling the 24bit DVDA to 16bit CD, and a lot of studios were too ignorant to manually correct the issue.

DVDA requires a DVD player which is compatible with DVDA. To my knowledge, no DVD players under a hundred bucks are compatible with DVDA -- but admittedly I haven't looked around for a year or more. You'll have to look up your specific model to see if it's compatible.

Both formats were fucked over by: Expensive patents and licensing, leading to: Restrictive DRM, expensive new mastering hardware for studios to buy, very few units on the consumer market which were compatible with the formats (all of which were expensive), increased cost compared to CDs for something that few people were capable of appreciating.

Also, no portable discman systems since they required more expensive and energy-sucking motors and lasers. And of course the formats were introduced around the era of the iPod.

Oops.
_________________

[Lestrade]

Groovy. Thanks, Psiga. That's sort of what I thought, reading everything that was floating around.

EDIT: Rock, my DVD player does support DVD Audio.
_________________
Illustration Portfolio | The Gamer's Quarter