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In Reply to: Just make sure your informed... posted by snaggs on April 24, 2003 at 20:23:47:
Snaggs has been asked to provide one sample in which he has heard the watermark - so far no response on this question. Warner has been known to use watermarks but it is not mandatory for DVD-A. *Many* labels may choose not to use watermarks. Perhaps Snaggs would be kind enough to provide a list of the labels and albums that are being watermarked. In addition, SACD also has a provision for watermarks. http://www.mpg.org.uk/watermarkingreport.htm Watermarks are potentially audible regardless of the format and there are different levels that may be applied. Copy protection on CDs is also a reality in some markets…Both DVD-A and SACD will not achieve the same sound as in the studio - both will remain recordings of music. Often this music will be compiled track by track, manipulated, and then placed onto the consumer media. From what I understand, manipulation of the tracks is still a task that is often performed with PCM tools.
http://www.chesky.com/forum/viewmessages.cfm?Forum=23&Topic=92 You will find people have different *opinions* of which format is better – recording engineers are included in the category of people. I like what I hear from DVD-A but I suspect I would also like SACD if I had comparable equipment to play it with. Due to redbook being the dominant media, I decided to place my resources into a system that can do redbook well with DVD-A being a bonus. There is material on SACD that I would enjoy in a high-rez format but I’m not convinced that SACD will be the ultimate victor in the format war. I suspect that SACD will become a niche product for the audiophile community and DVD-A will become the mass market media – not a glowing recommendation for either format.DTS does release DVD-A recordings: http://www.dtsentertainment.com/ but they also release DVD-V recordings too. If it doesn’t specify that it is a DVD-A or have the DVD-A logo on it, then it is not a DVD-A. SACD has ‘stealth’ recordings where there is no indication of the disk being SACD – I was looking at the remastered Rolling Stones disks tonight which are an example. As a result it is helpful to have a few reference sites that list the SACDs so that you can identify them.
Both high-rez formats do not allow unencrypted digital output. This is supposed to protect the content from being copied. There are groups working on standards for passing this data but at the moment it is proprietary solutions. Firewire has been suggested but some groups have rejected it due to problems with the quality of the transmission. Firewire was never designed to maintain time-domain integrity (i.e. jitter). HMDI is a contender for the digital link standard http://www.hdmi.org/ .
Snaggs seems fond of providing misinformation – perhaps he is looking for a job in Iraq - talks about it a great deal. The only reasonible information to be found in this post is the recommendation of a universal player - if you can find one that satisfies you.
Follow Ups:
Your information is out of date, incorrect and speculative."There are groups working on standards for passing this data but at the moment it is proprietary solutions. Firewire has been suggested but some groups have rejected it due to problems with the quality of the transmission. Firewire was never designed to maintain time-domain integrity (i.e. jitter). HMDI is a contender for the digital link standard http://www.hdmi.org/"
A standard HAS been adopted for digital tranmission of hirez audio (both DVD-A and SACD). That standard is IEEE 1394 Audio & Music Data Transmission Protocol. It was adopted in September of last year. It is not proprietary and has been certified by 5C and 4C committess for both DVD-Audio and SACD. Futhermore, it has been implemented in the Pioneer 47Ai universal player and 49TXi receiver, both currently for sale in the US. MSB has also adopted this standard in their new Super DVD Audio Player. Sony has announced products in Europe and later for the US market that support this interface.
Secondly, the reasons why some manufacturers have "rejected" 1394 are varied. Licensing issues, incomplete specifications at the time of product development, insufficient market for digital hirez, and competitive considerations are at least as significant as "quality of transmission" concerns.
Third, Firewire for hirez audio was SPECIFICALLY designed to address "time-domain integrity", your comment notwithstanding. There is a separate defined protocol by which the processor rate-controls the delivery of data into its buffers by the hirez source transport. The buffered data is then clocked into the processor DAC using a high-precision independent timing source. Result is NO JITTER.
Finally, full-blown HDMI is a THEORETICAL interface built on the DVI/HDCP video interface. There are currently NO products that implement it. Furthermore, only stereo audio has been described in any detail for HDMI. Multichannel remains to be defined and adopted by those supporting HDMI (including Sony with their upcoming 1394 products, BTW).
Feel free to integrate the above into your future posts relating to hirez digital audio.
Autin,Thanks for the additional information to my post which I will take forward in other communications. Please note I was attempting to provide was a more balanced statement then the post I was responding too. I do not believe that all of my information was out of date, incorrect and speculative. I attempt to identify within my post where I was being speculative hence words such as 'contender' and some recently shipped products *do* happen to use propritory connections (Meridian, Denon).
Now if I may ask a couple of questions to clarify the IEEE issue further:
1) Is the Pioneer implementation based on the offical standard or developed prior to the ratification of the standard? I have seen a referrence to the effect that they worked with TI on the standard.
2) Is the dCS implementation compatible with the Pioneer implementation?
3) Are there any 'teeth' to the standard - Do manufactures have to comply? (e.g. DVD-A and SACD are standards, VHS and Beta are standards....) I did error in saying there was no standard when it may be more correct to say a standard exists but it is uncertain how well it will be adopted (Pioneer, dCS, MSB, Sony). This is an issue due to the cost of licencing and implementing the interface.
4) What are your thoughts on some companies (Meridian, Tag McLaren) that at one point (recent history) announced that they are planning to use HDMI instead of IEEE?
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.
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Meridian is sending encrypted digital to their dsp loudspeaker range for several years already. Since firewire wasn't available for audio applications at that stage they opted for their own protocol.Denon had a legal issue with the DVD Video license on the link, it wasn't the DVD Audio side of the interface that crippled the link.
Thanks for the info, Frank.I wasn't aware Meridian had already tangled with digital transmission of audio. No doubt they'd like to amortize their R&D investment over upcoming hirez audio products and perhaps they will.
Thanks for the reminder on the DVD-Video aspect of Denon's recent fumble. As I recall, the initial Denon products COULD run uncopy-protected DVD-Audio over the link but of course there were about two disks in existence that met that requirement.
My understanding of HDMI as it is proposed, is that the interface is fully backward-compatible with DVI in all its carnations. There may be provision for different HDMI cables to pick up these "stragglers" for compatibility purposes. The full-blown spec calls for a multi-conductor HDMI cable will fit HDMI connectors but will only use whichever signal wires are appropriate for the specific point to point use. That is, if the source is DVI/HDCP video STB driving a non-audio display device (such as a plasma), the would be no live connections for audio transmission between the two components.
If Rod's post is incorrect and speculative,
I wonder what you have to say about the post he responded to.
Are you sure you're getting the full picture?Best
Eric,Should I have wished to respond to the OP, I would have. I responded directly to misinformation in "Rod's" post and stand by my statements. As for pictures, we're talking audio here in case you're "listening".
in fact I'm all ears :) Your post was interesting and informative (to me at least). But if you found nothing wrong with the "OP", I'm a bit puzzled, that's all.Since we're at it, what models on the market do you consider to be more or less "future proof" in terms of digital interface?
Best
Eric
Sorry, Eric. It's been one of those weeks or months or years or something. I apologize for the tone and content of my reply to you.I don't have an opinion on watermarking or whatever the OP was talking about. I was simply addressing my comments to some inaccuracies I saw in Rod's post. In a most impolite way, I should add.
As far as hirez transports, the only models I'm aware of that currently implement the full 1394 standard are the Pioneer 47Ai and the MSB Super DVD Audio Player. Both are "future proof" as the 1394 protocol truly delivers perfect bitstreams to the processor.
The problem I have with both units is their high cost, their rudimentary user interfaces and most of all, their totally unnecessary DSP and DAC sections. Remember, with a hirez digital interface, the "action" moves to the processor - the spinner becomes a slaved transport only. As you know, modern pre/pros have substantial DSP and DAC cabability that only requires a digital hirez input to really shine.
As for myself, I'm waiting for a 500 disk carousel that doesn't have a DAC, a DSP, or any outputs other than 1394 for jitterless hirez audio and maybe a computer interface to index everything. Should be about $200-$300 in 2004. The trick is going to be finding something (and paying for it) to plug it into
!
I made some snappy post just yesterday, for no real reason.I have some problems with the DVD-A software of the Pioneer models, but I can see that their digital interface is interesting. I'll check the MSB player.
Mmmm.. let's see: a 500 DVD-A discs at 24/96 uncompressed LPCM would be about 1,250 hours of music... This is more than the entire hi-rez library at this point, you'll probably have to start making your own music if you want to fill it up :)
Best
Eric,My carousel might also have a few SACDs in it and a bunch of well-mixed CDs. Remember, the digital interface also carries jitterless 16/44. I'll be checking Best Buy for the box every week from now until...
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it is pretty clear there are a few snakes in the grass here. They pretend to be supportive of DVD-A but continue to snipe whenever they can. Not really sure what they are trying to accomplish. It is heartening to see that people see through their attempts to bait. I say ignore them and don't even respond to their posts. If no one responds, they will have no forum.
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