Sony and DSOTM: Did their influence ($$) hurt the HiRez surround market?

[SoNic]

The hybrids ideea is valid for some... but don't forget that a DVD-A can be made hybrid as well as a SACD, so that is a point for none.
I am just saying that splitting the market wasn't a good thing for pushing surround music to the average consumer.
I would be more in favour of SACD if it would have the same compatibility as DVD-A - to play surround DTS/DD in a DVD-player that costs $30. But, no... Sony decided that they are the gods and can trap the consumer. That's what bothers me.
Right now I have my DVD players and I can listen the DTS or DVD-V discs directly or I use my PC for DVD-A (thanks to the Creative soundcard). I will buy a DVD-A player (most likely will be an universal one - with SACD too) soon, but for now I have other priorities (need a new HDTV ).
I guess I am missing some good releases on SACD, but I don't have time to listen all the music that I have in DTS/DVD-A as it is, so...
I still think that not using the DVD-A layer that was dedicated for music since the begining of DVD era and marketing a whole different standard was not a fair move. Confusing people, disipating the offer... I am blaiming Sony for that and this is why I won't buy SACD. Even if there are good (or better if you want) techically speaking.

 

[deepsky4565]

Sony's mistake was in not joining with the DVD-A format to begin with. DVD-A group offered Sony a DSD optional layer and or track ala DVD DTS on DVD-As, and they could have ensured CD layer backwards compatibility from the start. Mistakes were made, but Sony's greed was surely the biggest downfall of the whole hires debacle. Witness the HD-DVD vs BD war, Sony wants the royalties on new formats and is willing to drag the rest of the world into format wars to get them.

 

[Chris Gerhard]

Sony's mistake was in not joining with the DVD-A format to begin with. DVD-A group offered Sony a DSD optional layer and or track ala DVD DTS on DVD-As, and they could have ensured CD layer backwards compatibility from the start. Mistakes were made, but Sony's greed was surely the biggest downfall of the whole hires debacle. Witness the HD-DVD vs BD war, Sony wants the royalties on new formats and is willing to drag the rest of the world into format wars to get them.

It seems to me that Sony management believes their product is better and all would benefit if more of the major consumer electronics companies would agree. There can be no doubt that Sony needs to find a way to make some money with some of these things or the company will be in trouble. It appears to me that Sony spends a lot on product development but recent financial successes are few and far between for their consumer product divisions. Blu-ray sure sounds like the best product to me so why should Sony and the many companies that agree with that not want it to succeed and profit if it does? Sony's involvement in the development of many of the products we use daily is undeniable.

I got into high resolution audio late since I couldn't really make any sense of it so I probably have a different perspective than those that have been in from the start and have concluded Sony is at fault for the lack of market acceptance. I have a stack of SACD and DVD-A discs I have acquired in just a few months, 120 or so and can't find any evidence the DVD-A group did the better job based on my collection. If it failed because of Sony greed, then shame on Sony. At this point, it really doesn't matter, we should just wait and see if the next generation of products do better.

Chris

 

[deepsky4565]

I don't besmirch any company from reaping profits from their R&D. These format wars ruin the market for everyone but the winner (if there is one). Sony could have shared in royalties from a unified format.

 

[Chris Gerhard]

I don't besmirch any company from reaping profits from their R&D. These format wars ruin the market for everyone but the winner (if there is one). Sony could have shared in royalties from a unified format.

I understand that but agreeing to a unified format and sharing royalties just to give in to pressure from other companies that want their patents/licensing rights included doesn't make sense to me. There needs to be technical merits for inclusion, not just compromise to avoid a format war. Based on what I have read, the conclusion that Toshiba and or Microsoft can be blamed for the format war is just as easy as blaming Sony. It isn't easy to see why it wasn't possible to introduce only one product since the market to be shared is likely to be very small. Because there wasn't only one product, the market will be even smaller since a significant percentage of consumers will do nothing until it is clear which format will succeed. In a couple of years with hindsight, it will be clear what should have happened and who was to blame if it turns out to be another fiasco.

Chris

 

[EMB]

The trouble with DVD-A and SACD is that the formats were niche to start with, and we know what happens with niche formats...they stay niche, of course.

DVD-A might have been a sell to the mainstream consumer if it had been packaged and marketed *like* a regular DVD, with the explanation on the cover that while one layer needed a special player(adding DVD-A features to all subsequent DVD players might have helped--a lot), there was a *normal* option that would play in Dolby Digital or DTS, as many DVD's do. Had the marketing and packaging lined up, I think DVD-A would have had a bigger chance.

But Sony had its own format, and a fine one; but, the only way it would have worked mainstream was as a hybrid, regardless of whether the hi-rez was multi-channel, stereo, or both options offered. Had the price been right might have worked out, but even so, the only way to push a format is not to be selective. Just as the CD worked because there was a conversion from vinyl and tape toward digital audio, so SACD would have had to be a conversion from compact discs. If Sony could then have offered its format for free to the other majors, again, *might* have worked, even with DVD-A 'in the way.' As it turned out, both formats were hopelessly confusing to the consumer, and here we are today, down to a trickle of titles, with no expectations of much more to come.

DSOTM was an isolated example, and that's the problem. It was sold as a special package, and I found it all the time on store shelves mixed in with the regular redbook, often at the same price. Except for a sticker and the mild package modification, the average guy wouldn't have really noticed the difference in spite of what publicity push there was.

And, had EMI also put out other PF titles this way, and other acts as well, maybe we wouldn't be discussing the demise of two formats so soon. Sigh...

ED

 

[petermwilson]

Hi,

Jon in July of 03 I started a thread asking "Does HIRES mean mltich to you".

I think you've burried the assumption that hires and mltich not mutually exclusive in your question.

In answer to your question DualDisc (if it had existed) would have made sacd unnnecessary.
If it were dvd-a ideally it would be from DTS or some studio which made all audio options available on all dvd players.

In the end the whole thing is a crying shame and an even worse disaster is right around the corner.

 

[neil wilkes]

Hi,

Jon in July of 03 I started a thread asking "Does HIRES mean mltich to you".

I think you've burried the assumption that hires and mltich not mutually exclusive in your question.

In answer to your question DualDisc (if it had existed) would have made sacd unnnecessary.
If it were dvd-a ideally it would be from DTS or some studio which made all audio options available on all dvd players.

In the end the whole thing is a crying shame and an even worse disaster is right around the corner.

Not too sure quite what the point is here.
Jon's post was about High Rez MULTICHANNEL, which after all is understandable in a forum all about, er, multichannel.
Nobody in their right mind thinks that High Rez exclusively means surround - not by a long, long shot.
But honestly - whhat do you expect in a board all about surround/Multichannel?

Next point - DVD-A hybrids.
WHY should these necessarily be from DTS?????
I can make these discs easily - MLP area, DTS as well as DD so the resulting disc will play on ALL systems - and YES, if the label/Artist will pay me to do it I will naturally include stereo mixes too (if available) and not as a downmix either.
It's not rocket science.
It's just that the labels will not pay the money, and I will not do it for free.

DualDisc would never have made SACD "Unnecessary" either.
Sony developed SACD from the archival DSD format purely out of greed - they own DVD-A patents, they helped to develop it, and when they added up the royalties available they decided they wanted to not bother with a slice of one cake, but to bake their own and have it all.

 

[Chris Gerhard]

DualDisc would never have made SACD "Unnecessary" either.
Sony developed SACD from the archival DSD format purely out of greed - they own DVD-A patents, they helped to develop it, and when they added up the royalties available they decided they wanted to not bother with a slice of one cake, but to bake their own and have it all.

Ignoring that the general population apparently finds DVD-A, SACD and DualDisc all unnecessary, why is it bad that Sony would think DVD-A wasn't going to be a success and tried for something else that Sony thought might be? Copy protection issues and several other factors had to be a consideration as well. A large percentage of consumer electronics companies didn't bother with LaserDisc, D-VHS, MiniDisc, and DCC, just to name a few historical formats. Sony not backing DVD-A and trying something different wouldn't have made any difference if DVD-A was a product with a significant market, which it isn't. Sony didn't initially back VHS and offered Beta and that had no impact on VHS being a success. Since we all must agree these high resolution audio formats have been shown to be competing for a small niche market, it does look as though just one product would make more sense. I just can't see how Sony not backing DVD-A is the cause of the lack of niche market acceptance.

All of the bigger consumer electronics companies spend money on product development, market research and manufacturing efficiencies and then decide what products to build and release and what software to offer. The successful companies offer breakout products many others missed and then operate from a position of strength. Without a crystal ball, it isn't easy to see what will succeed and what won't but I agree with Sony, DVD-A wasn't going to succeed. Given hindsight, my bet is Sony management wishes hundreds of millions hadn't been spent on SACD also. I might be the only person outside of Sony that believes hybrid SACD was in fact the best format with the best chance of success and believe just as good an argument can be made that all of the companies that supported DVD-A instead of SACD are to blame for the market failure. Are there any market figures for total sales by format and total releases by format available online? I haven't seen the figures but believe SACD must have the most titles and higher sales. If true, the smaller player could more easily be blamed for the failure of both.

Chris

 

[JonUrban]

In strict terms of SURROUND, there can be no question that in 1999, there were far more "Home Theater" surround systems in consumer homes than surround systems used for music only. These systems probably started as VHS-HiFi ProLogic systems that migrated to LaserDisc and AC-3, then to DVD with Dolby Digital (AC-3) and DTS. How many people would demo their friends the DD and DTS logos that appeared at the beginning of many LaserDiscs of the time.

That being a GIVEN, the source for all of these surround systems had evolved into DVD players. Since these surround systems were now based on DVD, it would be logical to have any new surround MUSIC format based on DVD technology, which DVD-A was.

Regardless of the surround system having DVD-A capability, or the source receiver having the 5.1 analog inputs, these "in place" system could instantly play the DD or DTS surround music tracks in place on commercially produced DVD-A discs.

Enter SACD (speaking from a surround POV only). SACD required a very expensive player (initially). In addition, the first SACD players did not play surround SACDs (remember those?). Players costing from $1K-$5K were strictly stereo players. The initial blast of SACDs from Sony were stereo, SACD only discs. Once they released surround SACDs, many with expensive SACD players could not play these discs in surround without getting ANOTHER SACD player! (This happened to a close friend of mine)

Only after universal players appeared did the market "get ready" properly for surround music. By then, the labels were tiring of the whole publisher mess.

The dual layer SACD is a marvel. It's a great disc. It's a "more perfect" DualDisc. I wish there were TONS more. That being said, if everyone did DVD-A at first with respect to SURROUND, I think there would have been:

More press
More discs sold
More discs created

As we are about to see with HiDef DVDs, anytime there is more press about a format war than the material on the "formats", the end result is a loss.

Your opinions, of course, may vary.

 

[Chris Gerhard]

It is true, format wars for consumer electronics product releases are bad news in the press. Competition is usually great but exceptions are obvious. Of the recent format wars I recall, VHS/Beta, LaserDisc/CED, DAT/DCC, and DVD-A/SACD, only VHS walked tall away from the war. I don't know what discussions took place early in the development of these products but all involved had to know the risks. All I can do is look back at the products that were released and form an opinion of what format appears to be best. If only hybrid SACD was released, it should have had the best chance. DVD-Audio, DualDisc, and DTS-CDs all look like failures to me. If Sony explained what was possible with SACD, playing on every DVD and CD player in the world and in high resolution stereo and surround on special CD/DVD players and the other companies decided DVD-Audio was the better idea and wanted no part of Sony's planned SACD format then I don't think it was Sony that goofed. Could Sony have given in and gone along with DVD-Audio and the result be DVD-Audio do better? Sure, but I think DVD-A still flops. I am assuming that Sony had plans for hybrid SACD from the start but I don't know that is fact. Why Sony released single layer SACD and expensive players to play them isn't clear to me. Maybe Sony felt that was necessary to avoid having DVD-Audio spoil the market for hybrid SACD when it was finally ready. Of course it is all speculation and all regrettable.

Chris

 

[Chris Gerhard]

Hi,

These formats have yet to fail.

Peter M.

I hope you are right although a more optimistic statement might be these formats haven't yet succeeded. My feeling with so few new releases that both are failures might be wrong. It does seem that there are a few more SACD titles recently becoming available, although mostly for the European market.

Chris

 

[petermwilson]

Hi,

My impression is that Great Britain and Europe quickely recognised the increased SQ realised in the re-release and new production of many of the classical selections which they had historically embraced through their 2ch analog setups.

The 2 disc mltich "La Stravaganza" by Rachel Podger made album of the year in several circles.

I have several classical hirez discs and have noticed that the mltich component is often "hall ambience" rather than the irresponsible experimentation of the "hey ma look what I can send to the surrounds" mindset which unfortuneately happened to some music that was no longer in the controle of the original artists.

I'm not suggesting that the mltich releases is not an attempt at art through manipulation of sound, but its not their art.

DSOTM (whether you like the mltich mix or not) was a thoughtful process by the appropriate players.

Peter M.

 

[JonUrban]

It is true, format wars for consumer electronics product releases are bad news in the press. Competition is usually great but exceptions are obvious. Of the recent format wars I recall, VHS/Beta, LaserDisc/CED, DAT/DCC, and DVD-A/SACD, only VHS walked tall away from the war. I don't know what discussions took place early in the development of these products but all involved had to know the risks. All I can do is look back at the products that were released and form an opinion of what format appears to be best. If only hybrid SACD was released, it should have had the best chance. DVD-Audio, DualDisc, and DTS-CDs all look like failures to me. If Sony explained what was possible with SACD, playing on every DVD and CD player in the world and in high resolution stereo and surround on special CD/DVD players and the other companies decided DVD-Audio was the better idea and wanted no part of Sony's planned SACD format then I don't think it was Sony that goofed. Could Sony have given in and gone along with DVD-Audio and the result be DVD-Audio do better? Sure, but I think DVD-A still flops. I am assuming that Sony had plans for hybrid SACD from the start but I don't know that is fact. Why Sony released single layer SACD and expensive players to play them isn't clear to me. Maybe Sony felt that was necessary to avoid having DVD-Audio spoil the market for hybrid SACD when it was finally ready. Of course it is all speculation and all regrettable.

Chris

Chris,

With respect to a STEREO HI-REZ audiophile format, i would agree with you that SACD fits the bill much better than DVD-A.

My point is that if you isolate the surround component, then a solidified effort of promoting surround music on DVD-A would have helped bring surround music to the masses, because the masses already had surround sound DVD based systems.

I wonder what would have happened if SONY released SACD as a stereo-only hi rez product, and also released surround titles on DVD-A. This would have been interesting........

When you think about it, what was the purpose of surround SACD anyway? @:

 

[Michael Orme]

I was interested in SACD, a while back. My local HIFI shop had a Sony SACD player in the window for about £145 new. The chap in the shop did not know much about the machine, or the format, but was quite sure that it would not play DVD-A. (Even though DVD-A is sampled at a lower rate than SACD). If SACD had taken off, then the music industry should have been glad, I would imagine that illegal downloads of music would take longer, maybe four times the amount of time of a normal cd. All sony cd/dvd players should be at least SACD compatible, at no extra cost, then Sony could release everything they have on Sony Music on SACD.
I think Sony don't know or don't care any more. Music sampled at twice or four times normal cd rate all the way from studio to home, sounds a lot better on anything above basic budget HIFI.
Michael Orme. Wales UK.

 

[Chris Gerhard]

I was interested in SACD, a while back. My local HIFI shop had a Sony SACD player in the window for about £145 new. The chap in the shop did not know much about the machine, or the format, but was quite sure that it would not play DVD-A.

He was right since Sony has not yet made a player that will play DVD-A. It is a near certainty they never will at this point.

Chris

 

[petermwilson]

Hi
The price of that Sony in the UK is about equivalent to the $300cdn I paid for mine in the summer of 03.

When it came to both of the HIREZ formats my priority was strictly the audio side as I already had an SDI modified Panny rp82 dvd player which also upconverted cds to 88.2 that my Denon recognised.

Since the Denon has 2 full sets of 8ch analogs I shopped for mltidisc players in each format without concern for their video capabilities.

In fact the 5 disc Sony DVP-NC650V only output interlaced 480i but I was told that the audio side was indentical to some of their much more expensive models.
Curiously it was one of this particular "Sony Store's" on shelf demos but it had never been plugged in, as the operating demo was a higher end model with high video specs as well, albeit a single discr.

A couple of features I like are the shuffle which randomly chooses songs from the 5 discs and a time/text button which identifies the album on the face of the player as well as another button for playing the disc in 2ch or mltich.
A mltidiscr may raise the eybrows of audiophiles but I have Totem Mani-2 Signature L/R speakers now and had Model 1 Sigs before which are very revealing and anyone who's heard an sacd coming from this player has been blown away.
I feel that the quality of the music itself is better than most are used to hearing and therefore forgive perceived weaknesses in the chain.

In case your interested I purchased an "open Box" 7disc JVC XV FA92 without remote or cables of any kind for $125cdn. When it's playing it sounds great, when changing discs however, you can almost hear it rattelling in the next room.

Peter M.

 

[jaybird100]

Apparently Sony had "paid off" several EMI artists to have their albums released as SACD rather than DVD-A. There was supposedly a commitment from EMI for at least 7 SACD releases, but I thought there was something said that they could be released on DVD-A after a certain period of time. With both formats floundering now, I wonder if that might ever happen.

 

[JonUrban]

NOTE: I moved the "Surround Sound in the Automobile" to a new thread in the Mobile Audio Forum. Let's keep that discussion over there, and this thread about DSOTM.

THANKS!

 

[jaybird100]

NOTE: I moved the "Surround Sound in the Automobile" to a new thread in the Mobile Audio Forum. Let's keep that discussion over there, and this thread about DSOTM.

THANKS!

Cause and effect...I perceive a connection between the two, but we'll continue it there.