Right. Dolby and Warner didn't realize they needed CD compatibility until DVD Audio was coming to a close with the major labels. So Dual Disc was born in a last gasp effort to modify the DVD-A spec to add a CD layer. Now if CD compatibility had been engineered in from the start, things might have been different.
Hmm, is there a lesson here for the BD Audio format and its lack of CD compatibility?
No. The CD format is moribund. Even the RIAA gets this. Here's a
recent report. I think Steven Wilson and the fine folks at KScope did it exactly right when they included a dowload code for the Red Book flac and mp3 along with the Blu-ray for "HAND.CANNOT.ERASE." It was every bit as useful as a CD, and more environmentally sound.
I still buy CDs because downloads are typically lossy MP3, and perversely, physical CDs are often less expensive than downloads (e.g., on Amazon). I typically put each CD in the drive exactly once, to do a bit-perfect rip. But I'm an outlier; the masses have voted for streaming and, to a lesser extent, downloads. The writing is on the wall for physical media. Please don't shoot the messenger.
When I buy a digital recording, I want it to outlast the format on which I buy it. That's why I'm happy to buy Blu-ray, DVD-A, and CD, and much less happy to buy SACD. You can get the bits off an SACD, but it requires specialized equipment (an old PS3 with old firmware), and once you have the bits in hand, they're not the bits that the world has standardized on (LPCM).
Yes, DualDisc was a silly format, but a DualDisc is far more useful to me than an SACD. I can rip the multichannel of one side and the Red Book off the other. I probably can't play it in my car stereo, but I don't care: I haven't put even one disc in my car stereo since buying it. It plays flac (or MP3) off of USB and lets me stream from my phone via Bluetooth/A2DP. Why on earth would I want to insert an actual disc?
I don't think the situation would look any different today if Sony had doubled down on SACD in 2004 instead of opting for DualDisc. Both formats were doomed. Speaking solely for myself--I know that many of you disagree--I think the world would be a better place today if the few holdouts still making SACDs would just stop it. I appreciate the new 5.1 mixes that Audio Fidelity has made available (e.g., Elliot Scheiner's fine mix of New York Voices' "Let it Snow") but I'd appreciate them more if I didn't have to convert them (back) to LPCM.
Perhaps I should change my handle from eclectic to curmudgeon.
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