DVD-Audio: Is it live or is it … - Industry Trend or Event

Emedia Professional, Jan, 2000 by Debbie Galante Block

Niche markets are usually ahead of the mainstream when it comes to market acceptance of new products. DVD-Audio will be no exception. Despite all of the hoopla and soap opera accounts of Sony/Philips versus the rest of the industry (reported everywhere from EMedia to the audio and computer consumer pubs to The New York Times), very little actual product has surfaced. Replicators have announced plans to present hardware at the Consumer Electronics Show this month, which could significantly impact the market, and by summer, a sufficient number of titles should be available to grab consumer attention.

Although Warner Advanced Media Operations (WAMO) and Panasonic Disc Services were cited by several of their competitors as the manufacturers most likely to be involved with DVD-Audio at the onset, sources at both of those companies declined to offer specifics on their status. "Panasonic is in the process of authoring DVD-Audio titles for its customer base," says Harvey Mabrey, general manager of marketing and sales. Suffice to say, however, that WAMO and Panasonic were the first two companies to acquire Sonic Solutions' DVD-Audio authoring systems.

More evidence of Panasonic's commitment to DVD-Audio comes in the form of a joint venture between Panasonic and Universal Music Group. In late Spring 1999, the companies formed Matsushita Universal Media Services LLC of America, a $30-million joint venture to make DVD-Video and music discs. To the venture, Panasonic Disc Services contributes technology know-how, and Universal adds music and video distribution and marketing expertise.

DVD-Audio poised for success In 2000 and beyond

Despite anticipation in mid-1999 that there would be product out for the holidays, as of press time, replicators were not reporting that to be true. Despite Sonopress' connection to BMG, Bob Spiller, president of Sonopress, says the label has deals with several replicators, so some of what they are doing may be confidential. Spiller went on to say, "We've been told to get ourselves technically prepared in terms of being ready to master and premaster as well as to replicate DVD-Audio discs. We haven't been tied to any specific plans, as yet. Right now, most of BMG's energy seems to be going into music video."

John Town of Technicolor expects it to take a few years for DVD-Audio to catch on and he believes that DVD-Video combination players will be key. People will soon realize "they can play audio CDs and DVD-Audio discs in the same player. Those with surround sound systems will buy the DVD-Audio surround discs."

Sean Smith, vice president of sales and marketing at JVC Disc America, is cautiously optimistic about the market in 2000. "Depending on hardware availability and label commitments, I expect new releases will number about 100 titles with no less than 5,000 discs available."

Cinram is a bit more enthusiastic. Des Farrell, the company's director of sales for DVD products, forecasts up to 1 million discs manufactured in the format by the end of 2000. Farrell's optimism lies in DVD-Audio's sound quality which "will be far superior to existing products because it is sampled at up to 192KHz. This product will give consumers the full surround sound experience." From the content provider or replicator point of view, there are reasons other than sound quality that poise DVD-Audio for success. For example, JVC's Smith cites open market architecture, which calls for no additional royalties, and the format that "protects content from unauthorized downloading."

What about manufacturing changes? Speculation is that most DVD-Audio discs will be dual-layer, and manufacturers already producing DVD-9 will be ready to manufacture product as soon as there is content to manufacture. The production-process difference between DVD-Video and DVD-Audio is really in the authoring, and those systems are still being tweaked, replicators say.

super audio CD

As mentioned earlier, adding to the excitement surrounding DVD-Audio is Sony and Philips' debut of their Super Audio Compact Disc. (SACD was one of the schemes considered when the DVD-Audio spec was being hashed out.) SACD uses a technology called Direct Stream Digital (DSD) which simplifies the audio encoding/decoding process and, according to Sony, eliminates artifacts typically associated with conventional PCM recording. DSD offers a sampling rate of 2.8224mHz to directly record 1-bit signals. Sony Music labels have not announced any DVD-Audio titles, however, as of November, they had released 24 SACD titles and were expecting to release several more in the first quarter of this year. A few audiophile labels have also released SACD titles including DMP, Water Lily (which has also released DVD-Audio discs using the video spec), AudioQuest, and Telarc. Other titles will be available from Delos and Mobile Fidelity.

Some industry sources said that they prefer the sound of SACD to DVD-Audio, but the downfall with the Sony system may be lack of compatibility with future-generation DVD players, which the DVD-Audio format is expected to offer.