DVD-Audiobahn New DVD-Audio music releases and talk about the latest players.

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Re: OK, I'm easy...

Posted by williak (A) on April 25, 2003 at 14:28:07

In Reply to: Easy now ;) posted by RdH on April 25, 2003 at 12:48:19:

Rod,

1. The Pioneer implementation is fully compliant with the standards. It adheres to the A&M protocol as well as the rate control protocol. Further, it has been approved by both 4C and 5C groups for transmission of copy-protected DVD-Audio and SACD. TI provides the 1394 interface mechanics embedded in silicon - they have two versions of the chipset one with and one without integrated encryption. The Pioneer gear necessarily uses the one with encryption.

2. Unfortunately, the dCS gear was developed in advance of the full adoption of the 1394 standard. It therefore is incompatible from a protocol standpoint with compliant devices from others. To be clear, the dCS gear DOES utilize a 1394 interface but it DOES NOT speak A&M protocol over that interface.

3. There are no "teeth" as such that would FORCE adoption of the 1394 digital audio standard. That said, NOBODY is allowed to transmit a digital representation of DVD-Audio or SACD material without complying with the encryption and other copy-protection mechanisms the different groups require. A manufacturer would get his ass sued off should he attempt to do so.

This is precisely what happened to Denon with their DenonLink (proprietary). They ran afoul of the DVD group and had to cripple the link just before the 5803 receiver and 9000 player hit the market. After some quick and very intense negotiations, Denon and the DVD-Audio group came to an agreement. Denon had to reconfigure the link as Denon Link SE (Second Edition), upgrade hardware in both the receiver and player, and all was well - at least for DVD-Audio. Sony has Denon in a pickle as they will not certify Denon Link for SACD transmission.

You are quite correct in assuming there are substantial cost issues associated with the 1394 standard. I believe the licensing costs are reasonable for the major manufacturers but the development costs in implementing the communication protocols are substantial. With less than stellar demand for the capability, most manufacturers are taking a "wait and see" attitude. This serves to delay their R&D outlays and possibly give them the advantage of using someone else's implementation via licensing or reverse engineering.

4. Meridian and Tag have taken positions on the hirez digital interface that could be due to several considerations on their part. First, Meridian is the developer of MLP which as you must know is integral to DVD-Audio. As Sony is the primary force behind the competing format, SACD, it is entirely understandable that either party would be less than enthused about supporting the other's technology and its wider acceptance in the marketplace. It's the same answer to the question: how come there aren't any Sony universal players? I'm not familiar with Tag's position but will keep my ears open.

As to HDMI, this is a further development of the existing DVI/HDCP video standard that has been demanded by content producers to transmit high-definition material in digital form. DVI/HDCP is now ubiquitous in display products. The last holdout, Mitsubishi, just caved in a few days ago and will provide DVI/HDCP interfaces on all their new displays. There are solid technical reasons for DVI to be the digital display interface of choice as it keeps HD digital signals in the digital realm without extraneous D/A and A/D conversions. Remind you of anything?

And of course, the copy-protection mechanism is very important to the further rollout of HD - both from cable and satellite sources as well future HD-DVD. HDMI improves on the DVI/HDCP interface but goes a bit too far in my opinion when it attempts to serve as the interface of choice for hirez audio. HDMI topology, cabling and internetworking capabilities seem singularly unsuited to the relatively simple bus structure and control protocols of 1394. It's clearly overkill and an attempt to be "all things to all people".

Just as you probably don't care for "one size fits all", I don't either. I feel strongly that audio and video should be kept separate and each allowed to develop its technology without negatively impacting the other. By putting both audio and video on one wire, HDMI violates this principle and I can easily imagine the difficulty a new audio scheme would have trying to get "space on the wire" from the HDMI committee.

I apologize for my curt and rude remarks to your previous post. I hope this post, in some small way, makes up for my previous one.

Austin

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:

Atma-Sphere Music Systems, Inc.

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