DVD-Audio/CD Flip Disc Will Be In Stores In 30 Days
Friday January 23, 2004
In the "I'll believe it, when I see it" category, some music industry officials indicate that the first DVD-Audio/CD hybrid discs will appear in CD bins at music retailers within the next month. With SACD enjoying slightly increased sales with its hybrid CD/SACD releases, it is hoped that DVD-Audio sales will finally take off as well, with the arrival of the new CD/DVD-Audio hybrid discs. Consumers will be able to play the same disc in standard CD players for traditional stereo listening, but also get the full 5.1 surround capabilities of DVD-Audio when the discs are played in DVD-Audio compatible DVD players. For more details and perspective, check out the report from Audio Revolution.
Comments
What has happened to all the hopes and dreams for DVD-Audio? So much promise, so much going for it, but in the end it was a white elephant. Such a shame that something so good never matured. To this day i have never heard a song reproduced by a sound system quite as good as “riders on the storm” by the Doors on DVD-Audio. And i’m not even a Doors fan!
It is hard to believe, but, according to some figures, Vinyl Records are outselling DVD-Audio and SACD discs combined, on an annual basis.
The main problem with DVD-Audio and SACD from the outset was that marketing was very poor – instead of marketing to a wider consumer base, both the DVD-Audio and SACD backers initially marketed the hi-resolution format strictly to the audiophile market with mostly re-issues of older catalogue titles instead of new releases.
In addition, initially, SACD and DVD-Audio players were very expensive – which is much the same problem that Blu-ray and HD-DVD have now in attracting mainstream consumers. Unfortunately, now that DVD-Audio/SACD equipped DVD players are becoming very affordable – the lack of early widespread acceptance of the two formats has resulted in lack of enough available titles to generate enough public interest to maintain the formats in the long term.
I agree that both SACD and DVD-Audio are sonically superior to standard CDs, but, if you ask the average consumer what SACD or DVD-Audio is – a vast majority do not know – whereas everyone knows what a CD is.
Robert Silva
hometheater.guide@about.com
http://hometheater.about.com
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