Steven Wilson Dvda is not a dead format, Can be played at home(Oppo) and in Cars(Acura)

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peterzach

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Steven, first off if you read this,love your music and your surround work is amazing.
I just recently bought a Acura car with ELS(Elliot Scheiner designed speaker setup) in it and listening to Dvda's in the car has brought another appreciation level to music listening for me. In North America most people drive to work in a car so music listening in car's is definitely a great way to have a captive listener. Most people commute for an hour each way so it's perfect for listening to quality music, one can listen to a Dvda each way to and from work.
There are 1000's of these car's sold every year and more and more surround listeners are being brought in but most of them prob. do not know of all the amazing surround music thats out there like yours but I think they will find out eventially so the more Dvda music that is out there the more sales can be expected.
One new surround listener from USA because of the car experience has even put his money behind Dvda and Richard Labonte started his own company(www.musicvalet.com) with one title so far and he says he wants to bring out more titles.

This is where I think your(or your management team) strategy of going Bluray and not doing Dvda's is in my humble opinion flawed as you are missing out on so many more sales as in the case of Acura's they only play a Dvda(DVD) or a DTS layer(CD only) so bluray's are useless for taking in the car as well as DTS(from DVDV) also do not play in the car.

I think going back to CD\DVDA releases the way you used to would bring in more sales over time than from doing a Bluray. Ideally if you could do both like Rush,YES,XTC did with some of their surround releases as they gave a option for a cd\bluray or a cd\dvda or the ultimate for surround fans would be a DVDA/Bluray combo.
I would rebuy all your latest only Bluray releases if they came out as Dvda's and I am sure there are many,many more people in same boat(car) as me.

From a home audio/video stand point the brand (OPPO) is very popular with audio/video purists as these bluray players come loaded to do everything and play sacd and dvda's, there are more and more people getting these home units so that creates a bigger audience as well. I have 3 of these players myself after finding out all that they can do.

I think you even said that Blurays cost more to make than Dvda's and bottom line is we are music lovers, the video portion of a bluray although nice to have, I always turn the screen off as I just close my eyes and get immersed in the music, I think most music lovers do not care or bother with video/screen stuff.

Hope you would take this into consideration or pass on to your management.

peter
 
Just to second what peterzach says, there are a number of us who came to surround via the Acura DVD-A capability. And though I'm always happy to get a great mix on Blu-Ray, there's always a twinge of bitterness that I won't be able to play it in my car. Like for example, The Raven that Refused to Sing!

We appreciate your taking the time to respond to our questions.
 
I agree fully with the sentiments about continuing to support DVD-A for the car market. I don't know why blu-ray is so difficult to incorporate into a car system, ? cost ?driver distraction with menu driven functions, ? lack of faith about longevity/ durability in a moving vehicle, but until it is available, DVD-A while doing the commute in traffic has brought a huge amount of pleasure to my and others lives. 90% of my multichannel listening is in the car now. Since I became aware of it I have purchased 2 cars with this capability and it has cost other manufacturers sales. In Australia we have a much lesser choice of vehicles with DVD-A capability, basically Mercedes and Lexus.
I think you were directing this towards Steven Wilson. In another thread I posted his very detailed and interesting answers to VIP ticket holders to his recent Australian shows. We all had a chance to submit the questions and then democracy intervened with only the 10 most popular questions making the cut. My first question was actually about the DVD-A format support into the future, unfortunately it wasn't in the top 10 so I don't know Steven's position on it. My other question was also not popular enough :( , I wanted to know if SW was interested in remixing the Supertramp back catalogue, especially the 4 albums Crime of the Century up to Breakfast in America, now that would be something to look forward to
 
Steven, first off if you read this,love your music and your surround work is amazing.
I just recently bought a Acura car with ELS(Elliot Scheiner designed speaker setup) in it and listening to Dvda's in the car has brought another appreciation level to music listening for me. In North America most people drive to work in a car so music listening in car's is definitely a great way to have a captive listener. Most people commute for an hour each way so it's perfect for listening to quality music, one can listen to a Dvda each way to and from work.
There are 1000's of these car's sold every year and more and more surround listeners are being brought in but most of them prob. do not know of all the amazing surround music thats out there like yours but I think they will find out eventially so the more Dvda music that is out there the more sales can be expected.
One new surround listener from USA because of the car experience has even put his money behind Dvda and Richard Labonte started his own company(www.musicvalet.com) with one title so far and he says he wants to bring out more titles.

This is where I think your(or your management team) strategy of going Bluray and not doing Dvda's is in my humble opinion flawed as you are missing out on so many more sales as in the case of Acura's they only play a Dvda(DVD) or a DTS layer(CD only) so bluray's are useless for taking in the car as well as DTS(from DVDV) also do not play in the car.

I think going back to CD\DVDA releases the way you used to would bring in more sales over time than from doing a Bluray. Ideally if you could do both like Rush,YES,XTC did with some of their surround releases as they gave a option for a cd\bluray or a cd\dvda or the ultimate for surround fans would be a DVDA/Bluray combo.
I would rebuy all your latest only Bluray releases if they came out as Dvda's and I am sure there are many,many more people in same boat(car) as me.

From a home audio/video stand point the brand (OPPO) is very popular with audio/video purists as these bluray players come loaded to do everything and play sacd and dvda's, there are more and more people getting these home units so that creates a bigger audience as well. I have 3 of these players myself after finding out all that they can do.

I think you even said that Blurays cost more to make than Dvda's and bottom line is we are music lovers, the video portion of a bluray although nice to have, I always turn the screen off as I just close my eyes and get immersed in the music, I think most music lovers do not care or bother with video/screen stuff.

Hope you would take this into consideration or pass on to your management.

peter

Difficult subject to discuss as so much conjecture is involved, but some thoughts:

If you take myself and Neil Wilkes out of the equation, has anyone else independently done a DVDA any time in the last couple of years? It's really a format that the industry considers dead, whether we like it or not.

Yes the Honda Accura has 1 million owners. Let's say (generously) that 10% of them are interested in music enough to be still buying physical formats. Of them perhaps 1% are fanatical enough to be interested in high res and multi channel. That's 1,000 people, and I still think that's hugely over estimating it. Also I doubt that manufacturers will continue to put DVD players in their new models for long, the market for DVD is dying so fast, so as the car owners gradually replace their cars with newer ones, this untapped market will disappear.

I know there are people who still love DVDA and favour it, but I think almost *all* of those people are on this forum, so the perspective is a little biased. Whenever Neil does a DVD for me, we figure there's no reason not to make it a DVDA, despite the relatively miniscule interest, but I think Neil is one of the only guys left that still has the software to authour a DVDA, as I understand it's no longer supported on most up to date operating platforms (Neil may correct me on this).


Yes DVDAs are a little more convenient to play, but Blu-Rays have so many advantages to someone like me: one thing I love about Blu-Ray is that while you are playing an audio BD you can flip to all sorts of browsable art, scans, lyrics, other info, alternate versions, all of which without having to stop the audio from playing back. Not to mention far higher quality visuals, and much more space on the disc - for example on my recent Drive Home release, we couldn't make the DVD a DVDA without downgrading the quality of the video substantially to make space for the higher res audio. Given that choice there was no question that the visual material should take priority.

Blu Rays inevitably started out as expensive to make and buy, but just as with DVDs and CDs before them they prices is coming down all the time. The market is changing big time every year. There's no question that scores of people are not replacing their old DVD players, but instead buying BD players that will play their old DVDs anyway. Why would anyone really invest in something that solely plays DVDs or DVDAs now? My last album has done 12,000 copies on stand alone BD - for me and my relatively cult audience, that's extraordinary! Nothing I have ever released on DVDA has got even close to that figure.

OK, so I'm kind of playing devil's advocate here, as I accept some of your points and I'm not 100% persuaded that DVDA should be dropped either, but there's no question that DVD is on the way out and BD is the technology of the day. I appreciate that DVD may still have some advantages of BD, but I think we are just delaying the inevitable, and it may have been myself and Neil that have done that, since we have kind of artificially propped up the DVDA format for the past few years!

One other point I'd like to make. My recent remix of Tull's Benefit only came out on DVD - I played it in my studio and compared the DTS 5.1 stream to my original 96/24 mix sessions - I honestly struggled to hear *any* difference at all. Now I clearly don't have the greatest ears, and of course I would prefer that my mixes aren't data compressed in any way, and am totally committed to high res, but I do wonder sometimes if it's possible to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Dolby Digital and mp3s are hideous, but actually DTS can be to my ears almost indistinguishable from lossless. Controversial I know (-;

Discuss!

SW
 
Dolby Digital and mp3s are hideous, but actually DTS can be to my ears almost indistinguishable from lossless. Controversial I know (-;

Discuss!

SW
that was discussed to the death over many years, so everyone is to their own abilities and accordingly... opinion.
i personally can hear difference between lossy and lossless audio but even so i do not object or dismiss DTS/DD if
there still people who cannot distinguish and enjoys it. i just can't comprehend an approach - having in disposal
lossless original stream the labels/artists decided to limit retail release to lossy only, when todays' means allows to
utilize both on single disc.
 
One other point I'd like to make. My recent remix of Tull's Benefit only came out on DVD - I played it in my studio and compared the DTS 5.1 stream to my original 96/24 mix sessions - I honestly struggled to hear *any* difference at all. Now I clearly don't have the greatest ears, and of course I would prefer that my mixes aren't data compressed in any way, and am totally committed to high res, but I do wonder sometimes if it's possible to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Dolby Digital and mp3s are hideous, but actually DTS can be to my ears almost indistinguishable from lossless. Controversial I know (-;

Discuss!

SW

At least this time for "Benefit" your mixes were flat transfers to begin with, so that already made it sound much better than if it were mastered.
The only remix release of yours that I was extremely upset about was the Caravan album, mostly because I just could not understand why UMe would relegate your new mixes to just the DVD in DULLBY audio quality (horrible!)

But even though the last 2 Tull releases were DVD-V only (with DTS), they really do sound great! I would however try to convince WB/Chrysalis to go forward with Blu-Ray for the other remixes (like "A Passion Play"). WB just released a BD for Van Morrison's "Moondance" with 5.1, so if BD is good enough for Van, why can't it be that way for Tull too? Just a thought. :)
 
Steven, again thanks for the music you put out as well as these loving remixes in surround, I am forever grateful for your efforts.
You said lets discuss so here are some more thoughts on this subject.

I agree with you that a DTS 96/24 5.1 sounds very good but I think you are under estimating the amount of people that can and like listening to Dvda's.
I think we can agree that a vast majority of the public do not understand what surround music is all about regardless of what media type it gets put out in so we are part of a musical niche as it is(lossles surround lovers).

I have always been a music fan but it took a friend to explain surround music on Dvda and Sacd format and demo it for me. Once I heard the demo I immediately bought my first Dvda player and I believe over time same thing is happening to other people as they here it and buy a home player or get option in cars. Just check prices for DVDA out of print titles, they are very expensive, some going for a few 100 dollars.

You are also correct that there haven't been very many Dvda's put out that do not have either your or Neil Wilkes involvement but there are some,I am sure I'm missing titles but ones that come to mind are:

Better Than Ezra-How Does your Garden Grow
Dream Theater-Dream Theater
Rush-2112,Farewell to Kings,Signals,Fly by Night

Nosound-a couple of titles now in Dvda because the artist, Ginacarlo Erra now believes in Dvd Audio and has put a few titles out.

If you want to get to even a smaller demographic yet some music fans from Germany have put their own money behind it and are producing quad only releases with Dvd Audio capability.
http://www.quadro-surround.de/english/avaiable_productions.html


When the Cd format came along people said records would become extinct, as we now know albums are still being produced.
I think the same for Dvd Audio,Bluray etc. as there are always some people that prefer having a physical product.

Your last Dvd Audio I believe was Insurgentes.
I am curious did it sell better or worse than your next title "Grace for Drowning", I am talking the surround only versions. The reason why I ask is I think you lost some sales as I would venture to say that there are many people that have Dvd players that have not gone the Bluray route and you would have lost some sales when you went Bluray only.
Not everyone jumps on the bandwagon and upgrades to all the latest new hardware formats.

The main point I wanted to make is if it does not cost to much more to put out a Dvd Audio layer or as long as it all fits on a Dvd(space wise) I wish you could still do that for us. I for one would be very happy about this and I am sure there are many more like me.
Either way I appreciate what you do for the music lovers in the world, thanks so much :)

peter
 
One other point I'd like to make. My recent remix of Tull's Benefit only came out on DVD - I played it in my studio and compared the DTS 5.1 stream to my original 96/24 mix sessions - I honestly struggled to hear *any* difference at all. Now I clearly don't have the greatest ears, and of course I would prefer that my mixes aren't data compressed in any way, and am totally committed to high res, but I do wonder sometimes if it's possible to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Dolby Digital and mp3s are hideous, but actually DTS can be to my ears almost indistinguishable from lossless. Controversial I know (-;

Discuss!

SW

Thanks Steven,
As I was saying to jackinthegreen (who had a problem with Dolby), my Dolby 5.1 played fine, I prefer the dts version. Forget about Dolby IMO.
http://jethrotull.proboards.com/post/43114/thread

I've linked your post to the Forum - you can't be thanked enough.
http://jethrotull.proboards.com/post/43761/thread

Cheers!
Regards from The Jethro Tull Forum
JohnN
 
One other point I'd like to make. My recent remix of Tull's Benefit only came out on DVD - I played it in my studio and compared the DTS 5.1 stream to my original 96/24 mix sessions - I honestly struggled to hear *any* difference at all. Now I clearly don't have the greatest ears, and of course I would prefer that my mixes aren't data compressed in any way, and am totally committed to high res, but I do wonder sometimes if it's possible to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Dolby Digital and mp3s are hideous, but actually DTS can be to my ears almost indistinguishable from lossless. Controversial I know (-;

Discuss!

SW

Steven, I agree that at times a well recorded DTS can sound eerily similar to high res. When FOABP came out on high res (DVD-A), there was a noticeable sonic upgrade from the previous DTS disc. However, The Incident DTS and DVD-A discs sounded remarkably similar, a big upgrade in the DTS sound profile within a few years' time.

With ever-increasing hard drive storage capacity, I would have expected low-res mp3's to be extinct. I'm wondering if the move to cloud storage (via i-tunes, amazon, etc.) has necessitated that mp3 remain the de-facto package for a majority of commercialized music.

Taking this even further, have you considered licensing your songs to online streaming outlets such as Spotify? Is this a cost-beneft decision, or a philosophical one? Would expansion and proliferation of your music via these outlets be a desireable path, or do you prefer a more niche/cult fan experience?
 
Over the last couple of years I've upgraded my system with a new Universal Player and an Air Studios 'tweaked' Pioneer Amp, to get that 'studio' sound - minus the acoustics and sound proofing! Blu-ray is my preferred option now for 5.1 Hi-Res LPCM, and I'd agree that standard DTS 24bit/96kHz is nigh on indistinguishable from LPCM, and better than the vast majority of my SACDs. Some SACDs are truly awful. We are now at the position where our home systems have the dynamic range and clarity that is found in a lot of studios, and to me Blu-ray is the way forward as it is now a Universal medium to bring the studio sound into the home.

I buy DVD-A when it is the only option, and SACD if I can't get the album on anything else. I will definitely buy an album I want if its only in DD (it can sound muddled) or DD/DTS, but listen if it is available in DTS - as with "Benefit". Giving people the option of multiple 'streams' i.e. DD, DTS, DTS-HD, LPCM allows more people to enjoy 5.1 - which can only be a good thing. What I find with listening to an album in 5.1, especially one I have only ever hear in stereo, is that it brings out more of the nuances in the music - which I find really makes me listen more deeply to what is being played.

There is a lot of debate about moving to Hi-Res downloads, but I find it difficult to connect to the musicians if I can't look at the album, physically browse through the liner/booklet notes, find out which studio it was recorded in etc. otherwise to me its like listening on the radio - ephemeral.

I also think that sometimes we can get hooked on the equipment/format not the music. If the music is poor its not improved by the sound quality (recording & mastering), but poor sound can, and has, ruined many a good album.
 
Dvda support in Acura vehicles have been dropped in new vehicles moving forward. Other brands are not far behind.
 
Dvda support in Acura vehicles have been dropped in new vehicles moving forward. Other brands are not far behind.

I think we will find that "ALL" disc based music support will be dropped (or is already dropped) from cars. Even the Hard Drive option will be short lived, as the iPod and Pandora or other internet service options become the mainstay of music in cars.

People are not buying CDs anymore either, and the cost of a CD or DVD-A player will soon be unjustified to the automakers.

Sad to say - but at least there will be a 10 year pool of cars out there for those looking for surround in the car with DVD-A! :)
 
One other point I'd like to make. My recent remix of Tull's Benefit only came out on DVD - I played it in my studio and compared the DTS 5.1 stream to my original 96/24 mix sessions - I honestly struggled to hear *any* difference at all. Now I clearly don't have the greatest ears, and of course I would prefer that my mixes aren't data compressed in any way, and am totally committed to high res, but I do wonder sometimes if it's possible to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Dolby Digital and mp3s are hideous, but actually DTS can be to my ears almost indistinguishable from lossless. Controversial I know (-;

Discuss!

SW

I have compared some of my lossless 5.1 mixes to their DTS equivalent and I noticed a very slight dulling (is that a word?) of transients.
Another thing, the natural "air" in the recording seemed replaced by a very-hard-to-make-out "grain" or noise, like dithering if you will.
But the differences were very slight at best, and I don't think anyone would have noticed without playing both tracks back to back on a good system and knowing in advance what to hear for. That speaks volumes for DTS.

I agree that standard Dolby Digital compression sounds bad and shouldn't be used, especially on music.
 
actually DTS can be to my ears almost indistinguishable from lossless. Controversial I know (-;
Discuss! SW
I can't really put my finger on why but I do know that I get a certain listening enjoyment factor from lossless recordings that I simply do not get from listening to DTS. I have tried. I have a few DTS titles. The closest one to having that "lossless" feeling is A Valid Path (Alan Parsons). But the reality is that I rarely play any of my DTS titles. Thus I don't buy them anymore. This whole debate essentially comes down to a judgement call by each and every one of us based on our own personal perceptions.
 
I can't really put my finger on why but I do know that I get a certain listening enjoyment factor from lossless recordings that I simply do not get from listening to DTS.

try to explain to a blind the range of colors and shades in the picture.
the same thing with sound. if a persons does not hear all the nuances and the life of sound itself,
they simply will not understand what do you mean.
bad that in contrast to the blind, these people always trying to convince everyone around that life
in the sound's doesn't exist because they do not hear it there.

as for "Valid Path" - there are prevailed artificially created sound mainly and after good mastering
(and AP are good in this) it sounds quite enjoyable.
 
One other point I'd like to make. My recent remix of Tull's Benefit only came out on DVD - I played it in my studio and compared the DTS 5.1 stream to my original 96/24 mix sessions - I honestly struggled to hear *any* difference at all. Now I clearly don't have the greatest ears, and of course I would prefer that my mixes aren't data compressed in any way, and am totally committed to high res, but I do wonder sometimes if it's possible to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Dolby Digital and mp3s are hideous, but actually DTS can be to my ears almost indistinguishable from lossless. Controversial I know (-;

Discuss!

SW

I completely agree. Of course, I'd prefer lossless where possible but DTS, especially at full 1.5mbps bitrate can sound amazing. The 5.1 mix you did on ''Arriving Somewhere'' is DTS and to me it sounds glorious, one of my favourite mixes you've done.
 
I think there are quite a few people that would beg to differ with that!

Actually, although modestly presented, it is reasonable to believe that some hearing loss at specific frequencies is likely when exposed to as much high decibel sound as Mr. Wilson has experienced. I am sure a lot is done now days to mitigate that, but it would seem inevitable over the long run.
 
Always had a preference for SACD. I'm DVD-A, SACD & Blu-ray equipped. I'll accept all except that I have three Blu-ray players now, none of them play DVD-A & only the Sony one adds SACD. I would prefer Blu-ray to lead the way. The Aqualung Blu-ray simply blows the DVD away, no contest. Now that I have Thick as a Brick & Benefit on DVD, I can only wish for all of them to be a Blu-ray family. My DVD-A playing is restricted to two (2003 Panasonic & Pioneer) DVD-A players.
 
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