John from Rhino.com here - THANK YOU, QUADRAPHONIC QUAD FORUM!

[MyCuff]

soon, everyone will have blu-ray. I say make it blu, with a link to download the dts version.

 

[ghalteman]

Yes, I'd love to se Carly Simon - Another Passenger, Ringo - Ringo, or Jethro Tull - M.U. Best released at long last!

 

[Old Quad Guy]

I'm sure John is taking note of what we want and that we do want to hear these in some sort of "lossless" sound format sometime in the future. I'm sure it will happen at some point when it's possible for Warner to allow Rhino to do so or whatever the reasons. But for now 24/96 DTS works for me now that they're raiding the vaults. Just keep the titles coming in a timely manor and we'll do our part as we seem to be doing and even greater things will happen overall surround wise. By playing these titles for our friends and letting them know the importance of buying these we're growing the surround market properly, I'm feeling good about it. Also, the new independant labels that are springing up for surround now give us hope.

Lately I've noticed that it is coming true; more and more people are getting home theater systems for their HDTV sets. More people are discovering surround music and yes will sit and relax in their living rooms to enjoy music, just as us Quad fans did in the 1970's. Because it's fun and the mixes take you away. Quadraphonic was many years ahead of it's time. Eventually the public catches up to what we already know. It's just now that we're almost getting to that tipping point where the public is understanding by word of mouth about using their suround systems for music. These great Quad mixes being relased now is just the right medicine at the right time to keep building up the surround market.

Yes, I'd love to se Carly Simon - Another Passenger, Ringo - Ringo, or Jethro Tull - M.U. Best released at long last!

All will be great to hear! The unreleased "Ringo" album with it's Quad mix (see The Beatles QQ section for the unreleased label of Q8) featuring songs and performances by all ex-beatles for Ringo at the time became sort of like a Beatles reunion album with hits. This would be such a huge release now even if it was released in the past, but since it has never been released at all this would be rocket fuel for the Quadio program! So please if the Quadraphonic gods are listening, please give us a nice Christmas present.

 

[0tto]

Dts and dvd-a are not mutually exclusive.

Bill Sherbon gave good point. DTS stream compiled from PCM tracks, which can be as is compiled into lossless stream of DVD Audio also.
i guess reason for Rhino didn't do this, is to offer in future once again same release but in HiRes

Old Quad Guy wrote:

Either the license for MLP developed by Meridian Audio, Ltd with the Major labels has expired

technically for quad version MLP needless.
4 discrete tracks @ 96/24 raw PCM quite fit into bandwith of DVD specification.

 

[grill]

technically for quad version MLP needless.
4 discrete tracks @ 96/24 raw PCM quite fit into bandwith of DVD specification.

Good point. However, without audio compression the hybrid disc may fit only on DVD9, which costs more. It depends on the size of the video layer and the extras.

 

[winopener]

No friggin' motion video (see Neil Young Greatest Hits for the most useless ever done) that eats up lot of space for no reason.
What i want to buy is music.

 

[von Madmänn]

Surround did not sell in the past because again it's a bit ahead of it's time and the market needs to find itself and grow from the ground up with the permanent market that is there...

But again the surround market needs to build "legs" over time so that when surround comes back again the permanent market for it is larger and ever growing over time in a sustainable manor.

True, that. Also, don't let's forget the format wars. I remember the big push for both DVD-A and SACD. It ended up confusing people, so the public waited to see which would be left standing. Unfortunately, universal players arrived too late to salvage the situation. The whole "all or nothing" corporate philosophy burned us all again. BUILD the market. ALLOW it to grow legs. AVOID the "circular firing squad" effect. It's good business practice, not rocket science! So, kudos to Rhino!

 

[ArnoldLayne]

I guess somebody at Rhino has been counting beans. In order to add DVD-A, a few dollars more has to be charged to maintain the same margin per copy. Then sales go down a bit and there is less overall profit. The weird part is that Rhino didn't realize the figures would change completely if a 4.0 FLAC download ticket (for a fee) was included.

 

[ClarkNovak]

Not banging on you, Arnold, but let's face it: the age group this music appeals to, generally, is no more likely to download a FLAC file than to know what the hell it is. (Present company excepted - but we're all audio geeks here.)

Rhino has learned from experience with DVD-A: Keep it simple. Keep it affordable. Don't make the buyer have to spring for some esoteric player (in a format that's as good as dead anyway, much as it pains me to say it) to get the "good stuff." Keep the margins high and keep the top office happy.

I'm grateful for what I'm getting. To borrow a phrase, "it's about the music." Formats and downloads and all the other crap can go hang, long as I get multichannel.

 

[Jeffrey Michael]

Rhino has learned from experience with DVD-A: Keep it simple. Keep it affordable. Don't make the buyer have to spring for some esoteric player (in a format that's as good as dead anyway, much as it pains me to say it) to get the "good stuff." Keep the margins high and keep the top office happy.

Dead formats?
Both Denon (DVD-Audio) and Sony (SACD) have added back in these formats because of consumer demand.
I feel a surge is coming with high resolution titles in multi-channel, be it, whatever format that particular record company chooses.
It will be interesting to see where this all leads in the future. JMO

 

[von Madmänn]

Surge, baby, surge! I think Mikael Åkerfeldt and Steve Wilson are helping to stoke that demand. I hope it really does lead to some serious numbers!

 

[Bill Sherbon]

<snip>Don't make the buyer have to spring for some esoteric player ... <snip>

There would be no need to buy a DVD-A player for these. They can simply be released as they are now as DTS DVDs but with the addition of lossless in the disc's AUDIO_TS folder for those that happen to have DVD-A players. Those with normal DVD players can still play the DTS tracks as any other DVD, but those with DVD-A players would also be able to access the lossless. If there is fear that calling it a DVD-A would cause confusion and hurt sales then simply don't even label/market it as a DVD-A, make it a 'stealth' DVD-A release along the lines of some of the stealth hybrid SACD releases (which were not marked as SACD so casual consumer would assume it was just a regular CD).

Don't get me wrong, I support these even without lossless. It's just that for the same disc manufacturing equipment/cost these could also contain lossless and IMO create additional 'buzz' and sales among the hi-res community.

 

[ArnoldLayne]

Not banging on you, Arnold, but let's face it: the age group this music appeals to, generally, is no more likely to download a FLAC file than to know what the hell it is. (Present company excepted - but we're all audio geeks here.)

Rhino has learned from experience with DVD-A: Keep it simple. Keep it affordable. Don't make the buyer have to spring for some esoteric player (in a format that's as good as dead anyway, much as it pains me to say it) to get the "good stuff." Keep the margins high and keep the top office happy.

I'm grateful for what I'm getting. To borrow a phrase, "it's about the music." Formats and downloads and all the other crap can go hang, long as I get multichannel.

I understand your point but do not agree. FLAC download is actually one of Rhino's product lines.

 

[winopener]

Well, if they did a 24/96/4 channel flac for download i'll do my disc. Truly "handmade" and with a little help from my PC.

 

[grill]

I understand your point but do not agree. FLAC download is actually one of Rhino's product lines.

Yes, I want to buy flac 24/96/4 downloads! QQ stars, you may create a poll to survey the willingness of the forum members to buy lossless mch downloads from Rhino.

 

[cupboy]

technically for quad version MLP needless.
4 discrete tracks @ 96/24 raw PCM quite fit into bandwith of DVD specification.

I've never know of any multi-channel LPCM DVDs. Could you name me some examples?

If any exist, what players would recognize them?

 

[rusinurbe]

I have a 'Planets' on the Naxos label

plus

'Short Stories' by Lilium

'Secret South' by16 Horspower

To name three

 

[0tto]

what players would recognize them?

any and all of ones which have DVD Audio logo and can recognise AUDIO_TS directory on the disc.
in simple words - MLP, also known as Packed PCM (PPCM) works pretty much as an archiving format
(.zip, .rar, etc) by compressing data in it's own "basket".
since stream of data of 4 tracks at 96/24 is varied around 9 mbps it doesn't need to be compressed.
6 tracks (5.1) of modern mix contain greater amount of data, typically beyond 12 mbps and thus need
to be compressed in order to fit DVD bandwith specification.

 

[mrindenver]

Hey John from Rhino:

Thanks for all you are doing -- any word on how pre-orders for Aretha (I can't wait) are doing? Are you OK with the response?

 

[holland123]

stealth dvd audio? that would be excellent, I hope it comes around, I would buy just about anything just for the sound quality, nothing can compare with dvd-a or sacd, lossy dts just does'nt cut it for me.