DVD-A in denial?

I know a lot of us read the Stereophile magazine or website, but I wonder how many caught this article:



DVD-Audio Redux?

By Jon Iverson



August 12, 2002 — DVD-Audio proponents, ranging from record labels execs and mastering engineers to CE manufacturers, staged a press event on August 9 at Dolby Labs in Los Angeles in the hopes of rekindling interest in their format, which has been quietly trying to launch for the last year or so. Warner Bros Records has gone so far as to call this current effort a "re-launch", but after spending over four hours with the DVD-A folks, this reporter thinks there's a good chance we may be seeing yet another official launch once most of the current issues (detailed below) are sorted out.
Curiously, there was no mention at any time during the presentations of the competing SACD format and how the DVD-A camp would handle this threat. One of DVD-A's spokespersons suggested privately that they did not want to disparage Sony and SACD's future. Fair enough. But it was stated at the beginning of the presentation that there really isn't any conflict, implying that by default, DVD and its stepchild DVD-A are all that consumers will need to consider for the future of home entertainment.

This was the first sign of denial on the part of the DVD-A adherents.

Before the formal presentations got under way, we were treated to a DVD-A cut from Linkin Park's latest release, Reanimation, which is slated for a DVD-Audio street date in October. After an apology from Dolby that their room was optimized for film sound, not music (I'm still wondering why there should be a difference, since accuracy is generally the goal), the tune began. In spite of the odd room tone, it was quickly apparent that this was a great surround mix for a contemporary track—inspiring, without obvious gimmicks like putting key instruments in the rear, etc. A great demo, if you like this kind of music, and it clearly set the mood for the meeting: DVD-A will be aimed at the mass youth market, not just audiophiles.

Ted Cohen from EMI kicked off the presentations with an enthusiastic delivery that emphasized "getting the [DVD-A] message to music fans," and praised the surround options possible with the format. Cohen also stated that DVD-A offered the industry a way to "keep the physicality of music retailing alive," adding that over the next year, we'd be seeing an "amazing selection" of DVD-A titles from EMI.

Toshiba's Craig Eggers followed, articulating a theme we would hear many times over: DVD-Audio will ride on the coattails of DVD-Video's success. Eggers said that almost every DVD player over $200 in the marketplace next year would include DVD-A. (Although, confusingly, a chart used near the end of the final presentation seemed to imply that about a third of all DVD machines sold would include DVD-A in the coming years. Maybe he was referring only to Toshiba DVD players?) Eggers went on to emphasize the format's "two-channel [audiophile]" quality, and its potential for success in the automotive environment.

Next up was a presentation from John Trickett of the 5.1 Entertainment Group, which includes both Emergent and Silverline Records, among others. Trickett announced the first major title to be released simultaneously in both CD and DVD-A ("day and date," as they like to call it ), Dishwalla's Opaline disc, as well as a price drop to $17.98 per DVD-A disc for all of its labels. DVD-A's promise for car audio was again mentioned as well as the boast that DVD-A discs cannot be copied. Trickett added that "as CD sales fall, DVD-A sales will rise. This is a format that literally can save the music industry."

Technical presentations were next, with Robin Hurley from Rhino records running us through the process of getting the artist and label contracts in order and securing all necessary art and audio tracks. Hurley says that if things go smoothly, a minimum production time needed to bring a DVD-A title to market is around 16 weeks, and added that in the scheme of things, it "doesn't cost much to produce a DVD-A disc." Hurley noted that with DVD-A, as with other audio formats, it was the artist's appeal to consumers that sold discs, not the sound quality of the recording. As an example, he used Metallica's robust sales compared with modest interest in "audiophile-appropriate" works from Steely Dan. In closing, Hurley stressed the importance of getting the original artists involved in the project.

DVD-Audio consultant Craig Anderson of Craigman Digital broached the touchy subject of watermarking DVD-A discs. Anderson explained that most mastering facilities "do not want to touch watermarking" and that this chore is typically passed to the authoring house, implying that there will still be non-corrupted high resolution masters available in most cases for future use. Anderson was satisfied by ABX studies that showed that, even though the watermarking process is an audible distortion ("it has to be, so that music played through speakers cannot be recorded"), it will not deter music lovers from buying discs. Anderson also said that, once—for just a second—he was able to reliably hear a watermarked passage out of the dozens of discs he has worked on.

What was not addressed was whether or not consumers will stand for having not only their sonic sensibilities compromised in this way, but their fair-use rights as well. Although it was stated many times that watermarking is optional, the odds are overwhelming that, audible distortion or not, every major label or artist will choose to include the watermark. The labels clearly don't care that consumers are already resisting this approach in CDs and MP3 downloads.

Another sign of denial?

Jeff Dean of 5.1 Entertainment told us that 230 DVD-A titles are currently available, with another 70 planned for release by the end of the year. He mentioned that DVD-A samplers will soon be appearing in DVD player boxes and that discs are currently being sold through 160 retailers with 2000 retail locations. Dean said Circuit City will soon be adding a DVD-A display in all of its stores and reminded us that the DVD-A format does not have unpopular zone restrictions built in like its DVD-V sibling.

Jeff Samuels of Panasonic stated that factory-installed DVD-A players will start showing up in cars in 2004, adding that his company sees promise for DVD-A with Home-Theater-In-A-Box (HTIB) products. Jeff Skinner from DTS recited the hardware numbers: 40 DVD-A players from 12 manufacturers are currently on the market, with the total expected to be sold by year-end reaching 1.4 million units. By 2004, the manufacturers expect 9.9 million DVD players to be sold with the DVD-A feature.

Questions at the end of the session asked when a digital connection scheme would be finalized (soon, very soon, says Dolby's John Kellog) and how many DVD-A discs have actually been sold and are projected to be sold in the next few years? This last question, which more accurately judges the format's real success, left the DVD-A representatives fumbling for an answer until a Warners attendee said that in 2001 and 2002 his label has so far sold 170,000 discs to consumers. He added that Warners expects the Linkin Park DVD-A to reach 100,000 units alone when it is released. Nobody, however, would commit to future projections, insisting that there are too many variables and that it is far too early to tell.

Although DVD-A will be a boon to audiophiles if it can succeed—especially if the smaller labels refuse to add watermarks to their releases—possible confusion in the marketplace about the various surround and resolution options could be a problem. Other challenges facing the DVD-A supporters include how to market the format simultaneously to both audiophiles (who want two-channel, highest resolution) and the mass market (who possibly want surround sound and the extra features) without alienating either or both. The youth market has demanded that music must be portable as well: Young consumers must be able to take a song from a disc and feed it to their iPod, computer, or car stereo without any hassle. DVD-A will not allow this, and in fact makes it tougher to accomplish than do today's CDs.

And how much money are DVD-Audio proponents prepared to spend to spread their message into the mainstream consciousness? Have they even planned to spend a fraction of what it took to get DVD-Video launched? Will they be able to match Sony's marketing budget and determination for promoting SACD? None of these issues were addressed at the meeting. Record companies also need to come to grips with the real reasons for their decline, which will likely not be solved by locking down their products any tighter than they already are.

 

A lot of the problems DVD-A is experiencing would just go away if they would just give us some damn product to buy! New releases are way, WAY too few and far between. I have heard about Pet Sounds and Surf's Up being in the can for release on DVD-A, but WHAT ARE THEY WAITING FOR??? If they are done, just release them! The main problem seems to be the insistance that a multichannel mix exists in all releases. That is just too much to expect - every release has to have a 5.1 remix! Perhaps they should rethink this part of the format, and leave multichannel as an option like SACD does.

 

Amen. My thoughts exactly. Who needs to see a video clip more than once, if once. Whereas good audio can be listened to for decades.

I don't like to see a project polluted with junk video or rare pictures (which are better in a booklet), or whatever. If you must see the artist performing, buy a videotape or DVD of a concert.

 

Steve has raised some good points concerning DVD-A production. There are a huge number of considerations that are simply not needed or cared about in SACD production.

However, you can have a "bare-bones" stereo-only DVD-A with virtually no visual elements. You need look no further than the excellent titles on the Hi-Rez Music label. I wish more labels would take this approach. Just because all the bells and whistles are available doesn't mean you have to put them in!

It's just that there seems to be an expectation with DVD-A that there HAS to be a surround mix and there HAS to be an animated menu and there HAS to be bonus video material. All these are optional elements but because the marketing thrust of DVD-A has been toward the home theater crowd, I guess record labels are second-guessing the consumers thinking that THEY will expect those elements be there.

But then, if you're going to take the bare-bones approach, you may as well go with SACD, eh? You then eliminate any expectations that may exist for those bells and whistles.

...don't mind me, just rambling here...

 

One of the aims of the DVD-A relaunch in Europe is an attempt to position the format as accessible to the mass market - the initial launch used the top of the range Meridian system in an attempt to show off "what it could do" - one of the side effects was to create a pigeon hole "very expensive equipment required". The relaunch will used demonstration kit that probably costs less in total than the interconnect used first time round.

Although Sony lpromoted SACD with some very expensive kit - they very soon brought out and started demonstrating on equipment that a large number of people could afford.

It's not too late for DVD-A but they really need to get their thnking hats on

All the best - Andrew

 

Steve,

So are you saying that manufacturing a 5.1 mix for SACD is considerably less than one for DVD-A?

Can you give us a ratio like " the cost to make a stereo-only SACD release vs. a 5.1 DVD-A version"? I know its not apples-to-apples, but since EVERY DVD-A disc is supposed to be 5.1 and not everybody's clamoring for SACDs to be more than stereo, it would be nice to know the costs involved if an artist or label was deciding to go with one format or another.

 

But don't you STILL need a monitor just to listen to your DVD-As?

 

Well, I've got a brand spankin' new DVD-A player and I have seen no way so far to access the stereo-only mix without using the TV to navigate to the stereo mix selection, and they all seem to default to 5.1.

Many of the concerns that have been raised here are why, even though I have a DVD-A player, I am firmly planted in the SACD camp. With SACD, when a 5.1 mix exists, I can set my player (Sony 555ES) to default to stereo and select 5.1 only when I feel like it. Also, there is NO WAY I am going to settle for a digital watermark that distorts the sound! It sort of defeats the purpose of a high resolution format IMO. I won't even bother to discuss all the varying High Resolution resolutions of DVD-A.

I have DVD-A only because I just recently purchased my first DVD player and came across an inexpensive JVC model that did DVD-A as well and thought - what the heck?

 

I believe that no matter whay labels do, there will be ways to digitally replicate DVD-A discs using DVD-ROM drives in computers.

It remains to be seen if it will be possible to replicate SACDs but so far nothing has appeared.

For that reason alone, SACD should be the winning format.

OTOH, in a couple of years, it should be a cheap proposition to have acceptable players for all formats.

 

True. Same is true for SACD, though.

Lack of interest. Not enough titles, and they are mostly available on CD. And many of these are dual-layer anyway, so can be copied as usual.

Not true.

That should rather happen a lot earlier.

 

Hello Petzi.

I mean the SACD layer. If digital duplication is fully avoided, I can foresee SACD being the single format for music in the future. Dual layer would be then a trancisional step.

 

Say, does this mean that if you start mastering DVD-A material at yer pad that you'll also be asking "white or wheat for your watercress sammich, Mr. McCartney???"

 

This makes sense to me.

Regards,
Geoff

 

SACD vs. DVD-A vs. CD

I don´t know how many CD players are out there. but it must be a 9 digit number. Do you think the world´s CD players can be replaced in any reasonable time frame with SACD players, so that the music industry can stop issuing dual layer SACD and rather put out pure SACDs? No, they´ll have to put the red book layer on it for decades to come. Until then, SACD will be obsolete already and possibly replaced by a non-disk storage or the Internet. SACD will not be adopted by the average music consumer as quickly as CD was adopted, simply because compared to CD, the SACD doesn´t provide the same amount of benefit as the CD did compared to LP.

Besides, if the music industry started issuing SACDs on a large scale, and SACD provided a benefit for the consumer over CD, then the tools to copy the SACD layer would be demanded by the consumer, and these tools would become available. I have not the faintest doubt that copying SACD exactly is a rather simple task for any experienced low-level programmer. It is just that nobody got around to it yet, because noone is really interested in this.

So the fact that SACD layer is not easily copyable right now, can not provide the reason for the music industry to introduce it on a large scale. As soon as scale is there, the copy tools will become available.

By the way, I think the only true benefit that SACD has over DVD-A is the fact that dual-layer SACDs are available that can be played in regular CD players. But then again, I do not see why the DVD-A camp couldn´t do this, too. A dual-layer DVD-A / CD. Maybe it´s a patent issue. Apart from this issue, I am firmly convinced that the DVD-A format is technically superior in every way compared to SACD. It is more versatile, given that you can have 1-6 audio channels for the content. Plus, the hi-res PCM as used on DVD-A provides better resolution and accuracy than DSD as used on SACD.

 

Re: SACD vs. DVD-A vs. CD

Yes. Absolutely.

A feasible scenario is that SACDs are purchased by people who care and the others download an MP3-like format for playback in convergence computers and for burning to CDR-W if required. In every ISP a record/software store.

Record stores or even unmanned mall kiosks could burn a CDR-W (customer provided?) in seconds for those unable to download directly.

I'm not really familiar with DVD-RAM/ROM units but my guess is that they could replicate a commercial DVD with the right software tools. I don't believe that is the case with SACD as the underlying technology is different. I may be wrong.

Imagine a mandatory chip in all DVD PC drives that recognizes DSD and refuses to replicate it.

Of course, no one can stop a professional pirate but there are limits to what they can distribute without getting risky exposure. What can and must be made impossible is the infinite replication of digital masters by small-scale pirates, such as your neighbor/son/daughter/roommate et al.

 

Actually, this idea was kicked around and even tested several years ago in a couple of places. I don't know what happened to the idea other than that the record companies didn't really like the idea, there was a lack of popular song titles, and recordable CD-R was starting to become viable for consumer use at the time.

 

Hello Grant.

The Internet changed everything. The labels will be forced to do it and it may become their largest music distribution channel after several years.

All the safeguards that will soon be mandatory in computers/OSs/software because of terrorism will be used by the labels to enforce copyrights, don't you doubt it.

The future format for music downloads will be called MP1984.

 

Profu,

Oh, I know it! It's coming! Do you get the feeling the record companies are holding back on some great new music until all their little duckies are in a row?

 

I think I read somewhere that the budget for a DVD-A title has to be at least $35,000 with all the authoring and remixing etc.

 

Let me get this straight – your worried about encryption on on-line music sources and you guys champion SACD which has built in encryption which never allow you access the Hi-Rez bitstream without breaking federal law?