Any Dolby Digital 5.1 music CD?

Posted by Jonas A [IP: 130.244.239.57] on August 22, 1999 at 16:58:08
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In Reply to: Any Dolby Digital 5.1 music CD? posted by SMR [WizOp] August 19, 1999 at 22:25:40

Stuart,

Yes, Useing the CD-DA Logo should definitely be avoided, in my opinon not for technical reasons as much as for avoiding to confuse the consumer.

If it would be prohibited by legal reasons however is hard to say unless Sony/Philips for some reason decides to sue, for example, Telarc for useing it on a DTS disc (However, for such a case to actually see the inside of a courtroom would be _very_ unlikley)...

I see your point in this, and from a consumer point of view, including the CD-DA logo on the case must be considered a Bad Thing. However, from a technical point of view, i think that the difference is the same as, for example, storeing a Macintosh-program on a PC-formated disk. Yes, the program can't be run on a PC, but that doesn't make it a non-PC disk since all the flags, the FAT, and the rest of the formatting information is there. Only the stored data is different.
And, as I said, if you drive the point to absurdity, you could even argue that it is a PC-program, though it's got a few severe bugs (like: "It won't run").
Selling the program to PC users crossing your fingers behind your back and implying that they can run the program since the disk is PC-formated would obviously not be considered acceptable in any way.

Of course all of those flags you mention, and especially the CDs FAT, the TOC, is there on a DTS-CD. If it wasn't there the CD-player woldn't play the disc, or at least wouldn't be able to perform functions such as jumping between tracks, displaying time, etc..
When i talked about the contents I meant the PCM-data, not the formatting information such as flags, TOC, etc...
Seen as PCM-data the DTS bitstream is very ugly indeed, yes! But being ugly isn't illegal.. :-) And that's where, i said "if you drive the point to absurdity", and that's what it is...

But on the other hand, no, I don't buy that your analogy with replaying a DTS-CD on a turntable is comparable since the DTS-CD contains the formatting information described in the Red Book standard, not groves that can be read by the pickup on the turntable. If it had though, and had the correct size for being played on a turnatable, then I would, by my definition, had deemed it compatible with the turtable even if the output would have been a digital bitstream, in that case modulated.. :-)

No offence, but I naively thought that the Red Book specifications where there to assure that the PCM-data recorded on the disc would be played regardless of what it is, not to regulate the contents of the PCM-data in itself. Well, in that case I must immediatley bring my 'Skinny Puppy' collection back to the store since most of the contents indeed are describeable as "full scale digital noise".. (To bad, I really liked those records) :-)

I find this discussion very interesting as a philosophical matter, but I don't think that it's contributing anything to the essence of this forum so I humbly suggest that we agree to disagree on this matter and leave it where it is or continue the discussion over e-mail!

Nigel,

No, not that i know of, there are some brief descriptions on the different "books" and som FAQ:s available on the net, but I haven't seen any of the "books" themselves published. Probably for copyright-reasons..

Best regards

Jonas

Follow Ups:

• Any Dolby Digital 5.1 music CD? - Nigel Pond [SysOp] 10:08:42 08/23/99 (0)

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