Re: [ARSCLIST] One format war now decided?

[Steve Puntolillo <steve@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi --

> I thought each format was supposed to be backwards 
> compatible, but not play 
> each other's discs.

That is correct. Any Blu-ray or DVD-HD player not only plays standard DVDs,
but it upscales them so they look better on a hi-def screen. 

Blu-ray / hi-def when properly configured is a slap-in-the-face improvement
over even the best standard or upscaled DVD picture. The same was true about
DVD-HD, but that format has clearly lost.

Note that Sony's Blu-ray supports two lossless PCM formats with stereo up to
192 kHz and multichannel PCM up to 96 kHz. So, it was destined to kill off
their SACD format from the beginning. Perhaps this explains why Sony let
SACD die. 

Only problem is, by introducing SACD, starting a format war over it, and
then abandoning it, they also killed off the momentum behind surround audio.
That's a big disappointment to me and I think a lot of other people. 

And, since they own a ponderous catalog of recorded music, and their label
is suffering from loss of revenue, that should also be a big disappointment
to *them*. It seems they would have been far better off skipping SACD,
letting DVD-Audio win so the market could build and then trumping it with
Blu-ray. 

It makes one wonder who is steering *that* ship.

-- Steve

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Steve Puntolillo
Sonicraft A2DX Lab - Ultimate A_nalog 2 D_igital X_fers
http://www.sonicraft.com
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