Early SACD test pressings and format history

Despite being mentioned early on as a candidate, and people within SACD pushing for it to happen, I don't think Sade on SACD went any further than the idea stage. Certainly no transfers or test-discs were done to my knowledge.

No, the folks at Epic were very happy with the Thriller stereo SACD: I can still remember them listening to it on the top floor of 550 Madison Avenue at stun level!! So, they quickly started to think about Off The Wall, Bad, etc. The timing was great because pretty soon they would ship all the masters to Bernie Grundman's for the bonus-track remasters that came out in 2000? 2001? Then the idea to do M-ch re-mixes came out of somewhere, and so it was decided to put them all on hold until Thriller was done. Well, there are some Mix articles online that explain what happened next!

It is true that Sony Japan wanted SACD to be stereo only, and that Philips pushed the M-ch angle in the early days. The consumer electronics divisions of Sony in Europe and the US also quickly saw the advantage/attraction of M-ch. Of course, M-ch in Japan was not popular at the time, and explains why so many stereo-only titles were only released in Japan.

From the format-perspective, it was decided to give the artist/producer as much flexibility as possible, so M-ch was NOT mandated in the Scarlet Book.

Then there is the issue of cost. Re-mixing old albums, if you are going to do it properly, is not a cheap undertaking. If you mandate a M-ch mix, you might find yourself without any software.

As I've written on SH.tv before, the DSD for archiving thing was simply PR fluff.

DST was developed by Philips' Fons Breukers and his team at the celebrated Natlab in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. I remember our amusement when Bob Stuart presented a paper at the AES stating that you could not compress 1-bit signals, only to be followed by Fons showing how to do it.

All true.

 

Thanks for the link.

Yes, the choice of Lack was controversial, he was, after all, big pals with Howard Stringer!!!

As for the egos, don't get me started!!

 

Silly! I completely forgot I've got those too.

Do you know who made this mix? Was it perhaps done by Ronald Prent?

Sounds plausible but I believe it's not the case. There's an interview here with engineers of Sony Computer Entertainment (it's in Japanese; there's an English translation here) where they explain how they're using five Cell cores (SPEs) -- 3 for DST decompression (I never knew it was that processor-intensive) and 2 for DSD-to-PCM conversion (at 24-bit 176.4 kHz).
So I believe it's just about the PSP decryption hardware in the front end/optical drive.

Then my recollection of seeing Lovers Live on SACD in a Singapore store in 2004 must be a figment of my imagination. I guess it really is because I've never seen anyhting like it since.

Now that the artist himself is sadly dead, who would have the right of (dis)approval? Epic? The heirs? Any possibility of these mixes ever seeing the light of day now, be it on SACD or on BD?

And it still isn't really, I get the impression. It's a territory of paleo-conservative audiophiles who are suspicious of multichannel. (Plus, the living rooms of most Japanese are too space-constrained to accomodate a multichannel speaker set-up, they feel.) Still, most SACD players released nowadays in Japan are stereo only. It's also the birthplace and target market of ever-ongoing "improvements" of RBCD like SHM-CD, Blu-spec CD etc. (which may sound extremely good but only because of better mastering -- the rest of the story is snake oil).

Sorry, I missed that. I've seen enough PR balloons getting deflated before so I'll instantly believe you (though the archival-only intention sort of made sense with a format that lends itself so poorly to any form of mixing, processing or editing).

That must be Fons Bruls. Great guy.

 

RE: DJ Jean

That is quite likely, or he provided guidance/assistance. Ronald helped Philips as a consultant around that time -- he was (and is) a huge advocate of M-ch DSD.

That's entirely possible. I never had any contact with the PS3 group, so would not know who to contact to find out the real story. In any case, it seems like they went to a lot of trouble, and then junked the effort.

No, it is possible that you saw a disc marked SACD as there were some fake titles reported back then (either coming from China, Hong Kong or Singapore).

It would be up to Epic and the heirs to work out. Right now they are making a ton of money off the film and catalog sales, but if they feel they need a new angle to re-sell everything in the future, anything would be possible. For the record, the only M-ch mix created with SACD in mind was Thriller.

No, I mean Fons Bruekers. If you Google his name with 1-bit encoding you will find his AES and other publications, plus his patent applications.

 

You're right. My fault. I mixed him up with another NatLab encoding expert -- a video encoding expert I worked with around that time.

 

I've never heard of any physical samples of Sade's SACDs, but catalogue numbers for Best Of and Lovers Live do exist.
The Best Of Sade - ES66686
Lovers Live (Multichannel) - 5061256 / ES86373

 

It's also fair to say that all products that are introduced to the market, are introduced to the market in order to bring companies more profits plain and simple.

The question is - does the new product really give more value to customers? IMHO Hybrid SACD delivers great value for the money (high resolution stereo program, high resolution multichannel program, and backwards compatible low-res CD layer).

 

All things considered in regards to the problems of copying and file sharing, SACD at least had the potential to be a safe and relatively secure solution; then again after 21 year in this industry I'm seldom surprised when the industry players make the worst possible decision.

Then again, the whole subplot of the watermarking debate shows how silly some of the solutions are...

 

DualDisc...Well, what a morass of stupidity that was. They test marketed them in two markets (Boston, Seattle) and created instant collectibles only available in those markets. They sold like hotcakes because people were buying them and reselling them on eBay for a quick 2-5x profit (I was among those who did that...can't pass something like that up). Then, because they seemingly sold so well, they rolled them out nationally...to the sound of one hand clapping.

 

LMAO

 

If I recall, most of those test market dual disks contained high resolution audio. The commercially released dual disks Sony Music released lacked that feature.

 

What do define as "high resolution audio"? I know the Cyndi Lauper 'Body Acoustic' DualDisc includes a stereo 24-bit LPCM track (albeit only 48kHz I believe.) I can't remember if the other couple of titles I own are similar or not....i'll have a look when i get a chance.

P.S. I am in NO WAY defending the DualDisc as a format.

 

"High resolution audio" for DVD-A/V discs is "Lossless" sound at 24 bit / 48 kHz, 24 bit / 96 kHz Stereo/Multi-channel and even 24 bit / 192 kHz (stereo only). With DVD-Audio/V discs you can put the stereo tracks on the DVD-V section (many Dualdisc titles were DVD-V only) and the stereo LPCM tracks can be accessed (linked) from the DVD-Audio section where hopefully a MLP Lossless Multi-Channel mix at 24 bit / 96 kHz would also be included. Or the Hi-Rez Stereo tracks can also be MLP lossless encoded. DTS and Dolby Digital are considered "Lossy" due to compression.

Ideally IMHO, depending on the space of the disc (DVD 5 or DVD 9), one would create a DVD-A/V disc with either a 24 bit / 48 kHz or 24 bit / 96 kHz stereo LPCM tracks on the DVD-V section along with a 24 bit / 96 kHz DTS and 24 bit / 48 kHz Dolby Digital Multi-Channel mix. The DVD-A section would have the 24 bit / 96 kHz Multi-channel tracks with a link to the Stereo LPCM tracks or would be MLP encoded. This would give one the ability to play the mixes on any DVD player. Pair this with a CD and one has a good way to go considering that the cost to manufacture CD's and DVD's are about a dollar for each disc if I'm not mistaken, not including packaging.

Question. How much does it cost to make a SACD? That is the one question I have not ever had answered and I can't seem to find the info anywhere on the net. It would be great to know what part of the cost of SACD discs factor into this. Thanks.

 

Check Discs

From the cutting master format files, how can a check disc be made? What players will play them?

 

Agreed! Hybrid SACD was the perfect "dual disc." Speaking of the well-hated DualDisc, I picked up this dual disc sampler (which originally came out in 2005), at Rasputin's, still sealed for $1.95...haven't opened it yet...

http://shop.ebay.com/i.html?_nkw=du...c_CDs&_odkw=dualdisc+sampler&_osacat=0&bkBtn=

 

Hello Black Elk,

In the photo for post #12 we noticed round "swirls" on top of the disc. Is this part of the "watermarking?" What are those "swirls?"

Thank you for your help.

Jim

Post #12 photo:

 

Hi Jim,

The circular swirls are Moire patterns caused by the scanning process, and are not on the label, which is simply mirror-finish with black text silk-screened on top.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moire

 

Hopefully, this may make it a little easier to see:

 

Those were given away at Circuit City to promote the DualDisc format. I still have a copy unopened to this day.

 

The irony. Circuit City and DualDisc. What a perfect combination.

 

Thank you Black Elk for your insightful and informative information. We were wondering what the swirls are and that nothing strange was happening to our SACD discs.

Again, thank you for your help.

Jim

 

So true.

Remember, it was me who came up with the term FualDisc.

 

P.S. A shootout to Kayaker who helped me secure one of those early Philips SACDs.

 

I'm guessing you meant "shoutout."

 

I have one too. Not a lot of difference between the sides. Leave it sealed.