Sony to add DSD and Blu-Ray to Notebooks and PCs ?

I thought some may find this interesting. Good news I think, although it does seem to indicate Sony will keep DSD seperate from Blu-Ray, at least for now.

"At a three day press event in Bordeaux Sony this week announced it is going to add Blu-ray and DSD (Direct Stream Digital) to its Vaio series of PCs and notebooks.

DSD is the core HD audio technology that is found at the heart of the Super Audio CD platform that Sony developed with Philips. Supported by over 250 record companies worldwide, SACD is seen as the next generation Compact Disc, although so far it has only carved a niche in the market.

Despite the support for DSD, SACDs can't be played on future Vaios. Sony will not build SACD disc drives into its notebooks or PCs, as Super Audio CD requires the use of high-end receivers and loudspeakers. However, home studio and home audio enthusiasts and creators can achieve the same high definition and surround sound on their PC without affecting background CPU performance, Sony claims."

Here is a LINK to the entire article.

 

What? Translation please.

 

Sony will not build drives into the pc's and notebooks? So how does that make their notebooks and pc's include DSD and sacd?

Seems like a contradiction.

 

Something got lost in translation.

 

Yikes, that is rather confusing. At first read I took it to read that just the PCs would play SACD, the notebooks wouldn't, but that appears wrong. Your guess is as good as mine, sorry guys.

 

I really dont get it....if neither play SACd, how are they DSD compatible?

 

Why is it that the words "DSD" and "Laptop" don't seem to go together and why would Sony market Viao's to people with DSD and find a benefit for the average consumer?

I can see maybe a....SACD Discman but on a laptop? Why? Will Blu-Ray have DSD streams? Did I miss something?

 

It's same as saying notebook plays pcm, but doesn't play cd. so it's possible. yeah, I know notebook plays cd. but don't make dsd equivalent to sacd.

 

I think the article was misprinted. Blu Ray on a Laptop, yes. SACD? Why?

 

The article is indeed a little confusing, but the last sentence tells the story. It means that you can work with dsd in the way you can work with pcm on your pc. You can't play sacds, but if you want to capture something (or edit in) dsd, the pc would be capable. Remember dsd does not equal sacd.

 

Gabe, that's what I understood. Raxel got the analogy right, too, IMHO. The new VAIOs will be able to process audio in DSD instead of PCM, but they won't play SACDs. Why? I have no idea. Maybe Sony is trying to render SACD irrelevant, but still sees a future in DSD.

Now, what's my opinion on Sony? I could get Gorted if I typed it.

 

Laptop DSD

But what do they mean by "able to process audio in DSD". What "processing"? Thats a program function, not a computer function.

I still think the article was a misquote. the only thing that would make any sense is that the Cd drives in the laptops CAN play SACDS, that Sony included the decoder chip in the laptops audio circuits. Somehow i think thats what they meant to write.

 

They let you record in DSD, or transfer your LP in DSD, they just don't want you to copy their SACDs. I think it's not very complicated. Couple days ago, it's said DSD has been implemented in ASIO driver.

 

So, you can burn an SACD disc, but not play one? What's the output of all this wonderful DSD processing? How can Sony be investing in DSD but dismissing its physcial manifestation?

 

There's a thread on the Music side where Cubase is adding DSD support into ASIO. That's a good thing. So DSD as a recording protocol may be coming to the PC, but still no way to make a cheap SACD master

 

Don't think you can burn one.

 

If they said it would not impact performance, perhaps they are implementing algorithms or developing an ADC chip exclusively for DSD. This would be a hardware only issue.

Either way... Way to go, Sony! Thanks for *not* supporting us, the dumb**** who believed in SACD!

 

But it must have a sound card with a line in jack with DSD specs, otherwise, what are the benefits of working with DSD if the sound card records, let say, 24/48 khz?

 

Well, soundcard receives analog input, then computer converts analog information to dsd information, it can be done in software or in hardware. Decoding can also be done in software or hardware. But from the article, my understanding is you can only process un-encrypt dsd. sacd is encrypted. remember dvd was encrypted too. before that encryption scheme was leaked, dvd can't be copied to harddrive, but you can always process mpeg2 files on computers. This time, sony is more careful, they won't even provide a drive for reading sacds.

 

When I was using 286/386 at the beginning of 90's, cd-rom wasn't available to computers, but computers could already process pcm.

 

So, you guys think you can "process" or "encode" audio thru the line input of the sound card into DSD, but cant burn the file onto Cd.

But I imagine you can PLAY the file thru the line outputs. hmmm.....not sure I see the value in that, not being able to burn the DSD file.

My other thought is that the soundcard in the the pc would have to be audiophile quality, or else whats the point???

 

Thats a good point. You could record PCM onto the hard drive, but you could not burn a CD. CD burners were not around yet.

 

I am sure you can burn the DSD file onto a disc, much like the Tascam recorder, but it will only play on a DSD capable computer.

 

I'm not so sure you can burn that file onto a disc.......have you ever seen a burning software that accepts those wierd files? I'm not sure exactly what kind of file it is, also.

 

Just burn the .DSIFF file onto a data cd. In a data cd burning program, you can pretty much burn any old file, regardless of the type.

The file format standard for DSD is *.DSDIFF