DVD-Audio: while producing DVD-A is no longer a problem, acceptance hasn't happened yet

Post, Oct, 2002 by Mark R. Smith

Anthony has worked with Gloria Gabriel, associate VP of A&R for Atlantic Records (www.atlantic-records.com) in NewYork on some DVD-Videos for Brandy, Sugar Ray and Hootie & The Blowfish.

"We're going to make DVD-A a bit more sophisticated -- with DVD-Video," she says. In the near future, look for DVD-Audio discs with the motion menus, behind-the-scenes footage, live performances created in two-channel stereo and 5.1 surround, plus a menu page that offers only high-end audio in two-channel 9624 uncompressed stereo and 5.1 surround.

And that's not all. "We'll still have enough room left on the disc for the CD-ROM. The perfect commercial," Gabriel surmises," would be for someone to use the 5.1 surround in their car,take that same disc inside to watch a video on the DVD player, then take that same disc and plug it into PS2, XBox or computer to play a game."

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DOLBY DIGITAL -- Also known as AC-3. A perceptual coding system for multichannel digital audio developed by Dolby Laboratories and used for DVD and DTV. Dolby Digital reduces the amount of data required to represent an audio signal by removing elements that are can't be heard by the human ear.

DTS -- Digital Theater Sound. A perceptual audio-coding system developed for theaters. A competitor to Dolby Digital and an optional audio track format for DVD and DVD-Audio.

DVD-AUDIO (DVD-A) -- The audio-only format of DVD. Primarily uses PCM (Pulse Code Modulation) audio with MLP encoding, along with an optical subset of DVD-Video features.

MLP -- Meridian Lossless Packing. A lossless compression technique (used by DVD-Audio) that removes redundancy from PCM audio signals to achieve a compression ratio of about 2:1 while allowing the signal to be perfectly re-created by the MLP decoder.

SACD -- Super Audio Compact Disc. A high-fidelity audio format for DVD media developed and promoted by Sony and Philips that uses Direct Stream Digital (DSD) encoding. Many discs come in a hybrid configuration that can also be played on standard CD players. SACD can be considered a competitor of DVD-Audio.

The above definitions were garnered from the glossary to "DVD Demystified" by Jim Taylor, which con be accessed on the Internet at www.dvddemystified.com