[XCSSA] Blue Ray and HD DVD (I want my DVD-Audio and SACD and HDCD)

[xcssa@xcssa.org]

>>VHS, the tape format that many people, including me, wanted to die right
>>off, has finally vanished from mainstream (I still have 100's of them,
>>though, along with S-VHS and even D-VHS decks).  DVD's are king now, but
>>what about the future...already two successors are in the wings.
>>    
>>
>
>Umm.. BlueRay and HDVD has now started appearing in stores and in 
>blockbusters...  It's a matter of time man.. ;)
>
>The good part is.. at LEAST your future players will still be able ot 
>PLAY "old school" DVDs.. ;)
>  
>

OK, "in the wing" was not quite the right term.  These formats are here 
now.  But there are two of them, and nobody knows which one, if either, 
will prevail.  Perhaps a third one which hasn't even appeared yet.

It also angers me that none of the current HD DVD or Blue Ray players 
will play either:

1) DVD-Audio
2) SACD

(formats most people have never heard of...but audiophiles like me 
bought lots of them...they have "high resolution" and "high resolution 
multichannel" audio, where "high resolution" means 24bit/96Khz or 192Khz 
or at least anything better than the CD standard of 16bit/44.1Khz)

Now, it's true that HD DVD and SACD have their own unique "high 
resolution multichannel" formats.  But the discs for those audio formats 
aren't out there yet, so they aren't much good yet.  There are hundreds 
of DVD-Audios and thousands of SACDs available at online stores. 

There's a great high resolution multichannel SACD version of Dark Side 
of the Moon on the 30th anniverary disc (which also has a regular CD 
layer).  (There's also a bootleg version of the original Alan Parsons 
quadraphonic mix you can download and burn to DVD-Audio...some claim 
that one is better but Floyd chose to bypass it.)  But the promised 30th 
anniversary multichannel version of Wish You Were Here never appeared in 
2005.  I think that was because powers-that-be (i.e. Sony) knew then 
that they were going to drop SACD, so they decided to hold back until 
they could use it bolster the high resolution audio format on Blue Ray.  
Anyway, that's my first conspiracy story for today.

So, I'm personally refusing to buy any new format player that doesn't 
support DVD-Audio and SACD.

In fact, I just got myself a Denon 2910 which does DVD-Audio, SACD, and 
even HDCD, as well as DVD-Video and CD.  For about the same price I 
coulda got a Toshiba HD DVD.  I got the 2910 for the multichannel system 
I finally got around to  setting up.

Last year I got a higher-end but older used Denon 2900 which does all of 
those except HDCD.  (I have a bunch of HDCD's also, but I can plug that 
unit into a DAC which has HDCD if I need it.)  HDCD is a 
resolution-enhanced audio CD format compatible with regular CD players.  
Neither Blue Ray nor DVD HD do that either.  Nowadays, some computer 
audio players even do HDCD decoding (it can now be licensed from 
Microsoft, though it was originally developed by Pacific Microsonics in 
the Bay Area).  You get better dynamics from HDCD recordings when they 
are decoded by HDCD.  It's like having an 18 bit recording.

BTW, if you want to get into high resolution multichannel audio 
on-the-cheap, you can get an Oppo DVD player, which are some of the 
"hottest" players around.  They score at or near the top of DVD-Video 
benchmarks, and one model has SACD, DVD-Audio, and HDCD.  That one is 
"cheap" by high resultion audio standards at $149.  Other than all the 
features and performance, it's constructed like an el-cheapo player.  I 
skipped that because I like to hold my disks by the edges (with that 
player, you need to put your fingers in the center hole), and I like to 
have more controls on the player itself.  One cool feature of the Oppo 
players, though, is easily updated firmware.

Anyway, IF I were to get a new format player, I think I'd prefer HD 
DVD.  The way Blue Ray puts the laser much closer to the disc makes me 
nervous.  How well is it going to deal with scratches and dirt?  But 
some people like the higher GB capacity of Blue Ray (HD DVD might be 
catching up) and Blue Ray might have more industry backing.  But Sony 
has a bad history of letting go of new formats (Beta is the most famous 
example, but many audiophiles are now angry because of the way Sony has 
dropped SACD.)  So who know which, if any, will win.  Probably not both. 

Anyway, all they have now on either format is big name movies of the 
kind I'm not much interested in buying anyway.  The things I buy are 
typically low budget films and documentaries you're never going to see 
on TV.  For example, "The Corporation."  I can already get High 
Definition movies on my Dish HD system on HBOHD...for example, last year 
I watched Harry Potter's Goblet of Fire in HD.

Charles