Sacd, Dvd-a, 96/24 ???

Can someone explain to me or direct me to an explanation of the different formats out there or coming up. Specifically the DVD vs. SACD formats and the available units offered at present. I am a vinyl fan but have a Sonic Frontiers SFCD-1 and a Pioneer DVD/CD player. Is there a DVD Audio format which does not conform with the 96/24 format and/or how does SACD differ and what might be the advantage of SACD over DVD formats.
If there is a site which explains all this that might help me.
My inclination is to stick to vinyl and my SFCD-1 and wait for the dust to settle.
This is giving me the feeling that there is still more formats and posturing to come.

 

Since nobody's answered yet, I'll add a few more questions. I haven't touched SACD or DVD-A for the same reasons--there's still no guarantee that either format is going to survive, or which one will take precedence. So I'm sitting it out and waiting for something with all the features I want in one place. I don't listen critically enough anymore to really get excited about either format (I don't have time), so I will never pay a premium to get SACD or DVD-A playback per se.

But aside from that, I am most interested in DVD-A, since it appears that these might play back in standard DVD players of recent vintage...or am I wrong? I'm only considering it because, if what I'm thinking is correct, I can record 96/24 format digital onto my hard drive, then burn it out to a DVD-A disc that I can play in my system. Since I'm doing some dubbing from vinyl, I would rather hold back a bit and wait to see what happens. If SACD could be burned in a computer, I'd go that way...but it just seems like the DVD is closer to being a reality in terms of what I can do at home.

If 96/24 DVD-A is the best I can do for my own homemade creations, that's OK. At least I can store it as 96/24 on DVD-A, and burn a downsampled CD if I needed a copy to play elsewhere. The point is that I want to preserve some of my vinyl on discs (NOT tape) in the best format possible.

 

Every DVD-A disc also includes a DVD-Video section, which can also have high-res uncompressed audio (and compressed Dolby Digital and DTS audio).

DVD-Video has support for stereo Linear PCM with resolution from 16/48 to 24/96 and everything in between. Discs like Queen's 'A Night at the Opera' And Zappa's 'Halloween' have uncompressed stereo at 24/96 and 24/48, respectively, on the DVD-Video section of the DVD-A disc. You can definitely author your own discs this way.

The DVD-Audio section of a DVD-A disc can support lossless-compressed Packed PCM up to 24/96 for multichannel and 192/96 for stereo. You should be able to author your own as well in theory, as the encryption is optional. I'm not sure if affordable consumer tools are available.

Creating SACD is definitely out of the consumer/hobbyist domain. SACD uses much higher sampling rates which is made feasible by using 1-bit sampling and storing data as offset instead of absolute values; this results in noise/distortion that is quite different than what you get with PCM.

Which sounds 'better' is a decision best left up to the listener. If you were truly interested in high-res digital music, you'd want both as each has exclusive artists.

 

I am going to be looking at DVD Architect, which is like a sister product to CD Architect. If they don't support DVD-A yet, I'm sure they would in a future release. I see a need for something like this.

It would be interesting to see if DSD ever came down in price, to where it was available as a feature on a computer sound card.

DVD-A won't play in my DVD players now, though, will they? Mine are a few years old. Even my computer DVD-ROMs are from 2001.

Veddy interesting...

 

Rudy,

If you are only doing stereo 24/96, you don't need DVD-A support in your authoring tool, only DVD-V support.

DVD-A discs will play in almost any old player, but you won't get the full resolution of most discs.

 

I guess my next question--if I do use DVD-V for the audio, will that play back? And....will a modern day DVD-A player know enough to play the audio regardless of where it's located? Yes, it's still a bit fuzzy for me. It's Saturday.

Just checked the DVD Architect forum, and there's no mention of DVD Audio. Confusing, because the regulars abbreviate the software product as "DVD-A." My hopes were up until I realized what was going on.

Wonder if I should have one of our friendly neighborhood gorts split this part of the thread out on its own?

 

If you use DVD-V for lossless 24/96, pretty much every player (including DVD-A players) will be able to play your disc (except for some old players that can't play any burned discs at all).

Some older players might downsample the output to 48khz. New players have an option to force this (for receivers that can't do 96khz).