 |
 |
 |
 |
|||
           |
Surround Professional Releases ITU Specs!!
Posted by Robert Bienstock [IP: 208.250.141.35] on May 27, 1999 at 10:29:36 In Reply to: Surround Professional Releases ITU Specs!! posted by Philip Brandes on May 26, 1999 at 14:57:21: :At present, these same record companies are blocking the adoption of high-resolution digital outputs. DVD Audio is an analog-only format, which is of absolutely no use to anyone with a digital processor. This is a little overstated. DVD-A is, of course, a digital medium and the DVD-A spec does permit players to have digital outputs. It is true that the current DVD-A spec calls for players to only output "CD-quality" audio (i.e., 16 bit 44.1Hz) from their digital outputs, I don't believe that this means 2 channel. I'm pretty sure that at the last SDMI breifing I attended, it was clear that there would be 16/44.1 multi-channel available at the digital outputs of DVD-A players. Moreover, at the last briefing it was made clear that the limitation on digital output was just a stopgap until the watermarking situation is worked out. Also, for reasons discussed below, this may change soon. :There are serious bottlenecks over the issue of digital watermarking for copy protection (a technology that won't degrade audio quality has not even been perfected yet). While it is certainly encouraging to see expanded interest in multichannel mixes, a true HiFi digital delivery mechanism does not yet exist (DTS and Dolby Digital both use lossy compression). This is also an overstatement. The DVD-A spec includes the possibility of watermarking and several watermarking techniques have been proposed, all of which decode cleanly in the digital domain. The problem is that the music industry wants watermarking that shows up on analog copies too! As you'd imagine this is MUCH harder to do transparently, and hasn't happened yet. I, for one, doubt it will ever happen. At the last SMDI briefing I attended (I am, as you may know, an attorney for a music publisher, and, as such, get invited to PR events where the RIAA updates interested industry members on the progress of SDMI) it was implied that the goal might never be met and at least one audience member asked whether it wouldn't make more sense to make DVD-A use only digital connections with the only signal being available at the line level analog outputs of the receiver being a 2 channel downmix. The RIAA spokesperson stated that that was "being considered." Obviously a decoder such as the MC-1 would have to have multi-channel analog outputs, but I don't see that as a problem because as of today there is no real home recording medium for analog multi-channel. :Hi-res multichannel audio is a much tougher sell. Much as I'd like to see--sorry, hear--it, I'd caution about getting too excited about it at this point. I think it's years away, if ever. From what I can tell, the record industry really wants DVD-A to succeed. But also from what I could tell, they don't see it as a replacement of CD but as a new medium and one that is well suited for alternative delivery systems (i.e., digital download onto DVD-R (which doesn't really exist yet)). At no meeting that I've attended was there ANY interest expresed in the multi-channel features of DVD-A, which is why I was so surprized to hear that Botnick was remixing the Doors for multi-channel.
Follow Ups:
Return to the new SMR Forums Menu
|
|
||||
|
 © SMR Group 2001-2004 - http://www.smr-group.co.uk/ |
|
||||
