Our great pal Ed Driscoll wrote the other day asking what I thought about the DVD-Audio and SACD formats. If I could come up with something he would quote me in a story he was writing and Blogcritics would get a nice plug. Very thoughtful - Ed's like that. But I had to reply, rather sheepishly, that I know basically nothing about either. Although I did get some of the Dylan reissues on SACD-hybrid, I don't have a SACD player, so that doesn't help much.
Guess I'm not the only one:
- The appeal to consumers was supposed to be better and more lifelike sound quality. The appeal to music companies was supposed to be a new digital format that consumers couldn't Napster-ize or cheaply copy so it could be sent across the Internet to all their friends.
But instead, two newish audio media formats, DVD-Audio and SACD (short for "super audio compact disc"), seem to be stuck at the starting gate. Rather than replacing the enormously successful CD, these two formats are starting to look like two Next Big Things that may never find a place in tomorrow's all-digital, relentlessly networked living room.
....Both have been available since 2000 and cost about the same as a CD—while the machines needed to play each disc cost only about $200, slightly more than traditional CD gear. Yet for both, sales have been negligible.
During the six-month period ending in June 2003, only 100,000 DVD-Audio discs were sold, compared with 245 million CDs, the Recording Industry Association of America reports. Even traditional vinyl records outsold DVD-Audio—by a factor of six to one.
Rather than growing, sales of DVD-Audio discs are actually down from the same period a year ago. The RIAA does not track SACD sales.
...."It's fair to say neither format has set the world alight to date," said analyst Jim Bottoms, president of Understanding & Solutions, an English firm that specializes in entertainment media research.
To keep users from easily copying songs featured on DVD-Audio discs and SACDs into MP3 files, both formats use encryption technology, which is supposed to keep the digital information in those song files locked away and unreadable except by authorized DVD-Audio or SACD players.
Since consumers have proved reluctant to buy a format they can't play in their car, SACD backers are offering "hybrid" discs which also feature unprotected (or copy-able) CD layers. A hybrid DVD-Audio is also in the works. Since the CD format was not designed with such security in mind, users can still copy song files off of discs that have this CD layer. [Washington Post]
Article comments
1 - Tom Johnson
I think the problem is that most people have never even seen an SACD or DVDA player. I have never seen one in real life. I know no one who's actually seen one, or experienced the difference. If they'd just bundle SACD/DVDA with new DVD players, which function as CD players too in most people's stereos and home theater systems, they might see some impact. But having an entirely separate piece of equipment . . . it's just not going to interest people. I think I can speak for a lot of people - we're all tired of having to upgrade our home stereo crap over and over again. Superior the two formats may be to regular CD, but if they aren't making the equipment to play it on available everywhere, cheaply, it's never going to take off. It's a shame, too, because it sounds like it should be really impressive.
2 - Eric Olsen
AND they can't be copied.
3 - Craig Lyndall
I don't feel like this is a big enough jump in formats for most people. It sounds better, but when people switched from tapes to CD's it was the ability to skip through the media a track at a time. It was the shiny skinny thing that looked cool. Sure, the copying thing is an issue like Eric said, but ultimately, it also isn't enough of a format switch for most people. There are no practical benefits that would make someone want to buy a new player. Plus there are so many of us who have 5-10 regular CD players around our house and car that can't take advantage of the new benefits.
4 - Eric Olsen
Good point Craig, it's too incremental to interest many people - people want a quantum leap.
5 - Jim Carruthers
The music biz are stuck in a loop, this is DCC and mini-disc all over again. A closed non-standard format which removes rights from the owner.
When you said "Perfect Sound Forever", we believed you Music Biz. Live with it.
What this reinforces is that the Music Biz doesn't sell music, and has never sold music. It sells audio carriers. And an illustration why they can't understand P2P and networks because there is no tangible carrier (ie piano rolls) to warehouse.
6 - Mark Saleski
the only hope for sacd is if the record companies get on board and dump everything to the marketplace in the hybrid format.
then, at some point in the future, people can make the switch to an sacd player as their regular machines die.
it they don't take that route they are doomed to failure and most people either can't hear the difference or just don't care.
7 - Jim Carruthers
Why are these two audio carriers doomed? They offer no value to the customer, they are command and control strategies for the record industry (in marketing terms the USP is feeble and the brand is hostile -- the Record Industry HATES YOU - buy or else). Customers are going networked, not switched. Customers don't want rotary dial phones, they want cell phones.
Now, here's what customers want: the iTunes RSS generator -- customize your own RSS feed for the iTunes store.
8 - Ed Driscoll
Eric,
Thanks for the kind words--here's the newsletter that I was working on at the time.
DVD-A and SACD really does sound like a classic example of a format war killing a good idea. I guess having gone through Beta and VHS in the early '80s, the movie industry understood that a format war risks product death, and eventually all the studios got behind DVD, but the audio industry didn't.
And having to buy two new pieces of gear doesn't help, either. In order to upgrade, a new A/V receiver is needed because of the copy protection schemes. It's a digital disc, but I have to hook it up to my receiver via six RCA jacks instead one Toslink or coax digital output??
I really do like the idea of music in 5.1 sound, and I will pick up a few DVD-As that will output to Dolby Digital so that I can play them on the home theater rig in my den. But ultimately, I think I can live with my CDs (playable in my den, on my PC, in my car, on my laptop when flying, etc.,) for a bit longer.
Ed
9 - Mark
Both SACD and DVD-Audio sound incredible. They both blow away a regular CD. CD's sound worse than albums do--the format is just better. SACD and DVD-Audio disc's are not just a marginal step up. Its 3-dimentional and clear Vs. the flat poor quality of even the better CD's. Music sales would go throught the roof if everybody swithched over.
The only way any musical form will sound great again (from punk and hip-hop to classical) is if it sounds like the arist intended--the way it sounded in the recording room when they made it. The only formats that do that are: SACD, DVD-Audio, Vinyl records, and to a lessor extent HDCD's and XRCD's. SACD, DVD-Audio and HDCD's need a decoder.
CD's suck and they always have. It was a huge step down because it was a very poor quality snap-shot of music instead of music itself. The free stuff you get on-line is worth what you pay for it. Once you get a SACD or DVD-Audio disc, you have an archival quality recording that you own---from which, you could make prestine copies for the rest of the world if the master tapes of the original recordings should happen to get destoyed.
Get smart and use your old CD's as coasters to put your glass of beer on--and to play in your car until they come out with more SACD and DVD-Audio players for the car.
10 - Eric Olsen
that's an awful lot of coasters
11 - Rodney Welch
You CAN copy SACD discs; I do it all the time.
12 - Dave
SACDS and DVD audio are great. Getting your music in these formats is an experience you CAN't download. SO much is lost on regular CD's, people dont even notice anymore. You could tell when you were transitioning from Vinyl records.
If you hear music coming out of an upstairs window, I guarantee if it from a CD, you know it isnt live. If someone is playing an SACD, your ear might just not be able to tell (extra channels aside).
Plus, most SACDs are hybrid. SACD players are getting cheaper as well. So go to your local shop and give them a listen!
Here is a place with tons of SACD so you can see that more and more reissues are coming out.
13 - Jose
If peoples don't hear a difference, pals, they simply have no ears........
DVD Audio is sampled at 96 or 192 Khz meaning a wider resolution than the poor 44.1 of current noisy and microphone sound of CDs.
Not to say SACD with an even higher sampling frequency than DVD A.
Yaa, yaa I know, but we don't hear that! square ear peoples argument!
Simply wrong!
14 - Lono
Sorry, too much trouble. Even the rock guy (me) thinks this is a waste of resources right now. Just like HDTV - gee, you need a $10,000 TV. But that won't do it... because you need a set top converter. Then you need to pay extra for HD channels. Too much bullshit. I will tell you how I made the decision to move to DVD (which I am totally convinced of now). When I saw those swine at Blockbuster stocking more DVD's than VHS I knew I had to make the leap. I don't trust ANY new technology... I prefer to let the market sort these out. Think of it as technilogical Darwinism.