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I didn't see a thread specifically dedicated to compatibility issues related to DVDA's on PCs using either WinDVD + DVD Audio Pack or Creative DVD Audio Player. I have wasted quite a bit of money on DVDAs that won't play on my PC, so I thought perhaps those of us using PCs could compare notes on different releases.Label: EMI
Compatibility: Will NOT play DVDA. DVD-V side works fine though.
Albums: Mahler 10th, Handel Water Music, Bach MagnificatLabel: Deutsche Grammophon
Compatibility: Works fine.
Albums: Four Seasons, Carmina Burana, Beethoven 5th & 6thLabel: Teldec
Compatibility: Works fine.
Albums: Chanticleer Magnificat, Strauss in Berlin, Beethoven 9th, Dvorak 9th, Mahler 2nd, Bach St. Matthew PassionLabel: Naxos
Compatibility: Works fine.
Albums: Holst The Planets, Prokofiev Alexander NevskyLabel: Philips
Compatibility: Works fine.
Albums: Tchaikovsky 6thLabel: Hodie
Compatibility: Will NOT play DVDA, DVD-V disc plays fine.
Albums: Mozart RequiemLabel: Erato
Compatibility: Works fine.
Albums: Ravel BoleroLabel: DTS Entertainment
Compatibility: Works fine.
Albums: Porcupine Tree In AbstentiaI noticed a definite pattern here. Albums with a disc that only plays in a DVDA player (no other mixes) will not play on a PC. A disc must have the DVDA and DTS, Dolby, etc mixes on the same disc, same side. This is due to the fact that both the Creative and WinDVD players were not built from scratch for the playing of DVDAs. Both programs are DVD-Video players that have been extended to support DVDA's higher bit rate. Thus when you first start the program it goes through the standard DVD-V startup procedure. It MUST detect a standard DVD-V for the program to initialize. Only once initialized can the extended DVDA features be utilized.
As a side note, I find the WinDVD DVDA plug-in pack to be a waste of money. It offers very little in the way of features that the free Creative DVD Audio player doesn't have. Additionally it pauses the music in between tracks which can be highly annoying (Creative player does not do this).
Follow Ups:
One of the primary reasons I have mostly stayed away from DVD-A's is their inability to correctly label the content. I am surprised the industry is still getting away with this.One of my first ever DVD-A purchases was a disc from KD Lang, which omitted the stereo mix altogether (which I had assumed would be included on every DVD-A by default)!
I've really gotten sick of second-guessing what a disc does and does not contain and on which device it will and will not play...
-wolf
Get real. All types of discs have all kinds of errors on their packaging, it happens all the time - this is not a problem limited to DVD-Audio, and has nothing to do with the format per se.
If that's the "primary reason" you have stayed away from DVD-A then you clearly don't have the mental fortitude to appreciate it anyway.
Some (like Silverline) go even as far as issuing matrixed multi-channel mixes and label them as discrete. Go figure...
-wolf
I have a similar opinion (to a lesser extent) with regards CDs these days. I have purchased over a dozen 'copy protected' CDs in the past few years which would not play on my PC or in my car. As such I now just purchase them on the (legal) Russian site allofmp3.com at 384kb quality. The fact that it only costs about $1.50 for an album is a bonus too :P
It will be interesting to update this list with other labels and titles. It seems that WinDVD has a number of shortcomings, but there's always an option to obtain a software update, which is more difficult for set top players.Have you tried (as Bob from Toronto suggests in the thread below) to play a disc that works well first, and then insert a disc with known problems? (this is an old trick for hybrid SACDs as well, BTW :)
Best
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