Comments on: The Forgotten Format War: Toshiba’s "DVD-Audio" vs Sony’s "Super Audio CD"

By: JRC

JRC — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 17:25:13 +0000

Sony should make peace with Toshiba by dumping sacd and giving all blu-ray players the ability to play DVD-A discs. Music busines needs to be in the DVD space for albums/concert content in a big way. iTunes is great for singles but I don't want to buy albums there…

By: Alex

Alex — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 04:36:42 +0000

1982. CDs first hit the market around October of 1982, if I recall correctly. You are right, though, it did take a while for the format to overtake LPs and cassettes — somewhere around 1988 or '89, wasn't it?

By: dgw

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By: The Forgotten Format War: Toshiba’s DVD-Audio vs Sony’s SACD |

The Forgotten Format War: Toshiba’s DVD-Audio vs Sony’s SACD | — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 05:27:41 +0000

[...] going on for some time now, long before we ever caught word of these new-fangled HD video formats.read more | digg [...]

By: Troy

Troy — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 12:22:34 +0000

>>>”CD - 44 thousand samples every second (44,000)
>>>”DVD A - 96 to 192 thousand samples every second (192,000)
>>>”SACD - 2 million samples every second (2,000,000)”

This is waaaaay too simplified. One must also take into account how BITS each of those samples uses:

CD == 44,000*16 == 704 kbit/s per channel
DVDA== 192,000*24 == 4600 kbit/s per channel
SACD==2,000,000*1 == 2000 kbit/s per channel

Thus in terms of raw data captured, the DVD-Audio has more than the SACD. I don’t know if that means DVD-A sounds better? I only know that there are more bits captured than the SACD.

>>>”It was obvious from the start that DCC would go
>>>nowhere, and it indeed died shortly afterwards.
>>>Minidisc got a bit further, but never got much success.”<<<

Why is it it obvious that Digital Compact Cassette would fail? To me it seems like an obvious upgrade….. you can continue using your 1000+ library of analog cassettes, rather than throw them away, and enjoy better sound with digital upgrades.

I like backwards-compatibility.

By: emarkay

emarkay — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 14:53:32 +0000

I for one will never forget the Elcassette. :)
If only the greed of the executives was replaced by the cooperation of the engineers, we’d all have the best possible world of technology.

By: RIF

RIF — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 22:52:28 +0000

@Raziel
DAT and Mini-Disc was not in competition. Mini-disc and Philips DCC (Digital Compact Cassette) came at the same time and wied for the same market. They both offered some way of recording compressed music. It was obvious from the start that DCC would go nowhere, and it indeed died shortly afterwards. Minidisc got a bit further, but never got much success.

DAT came before these and was the first possibility to digital record sound in a CD quality (actually just above).

Remember in those days the recordable CD had not yet been invented by Philips and a single CD was 3-5 times larger than harddisk capacity. Therefore DAT had a chance. But the chance was blown by very expensive DAT tape decks and 1-time copy DRM.

By: me

me — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 22:20:37 +0000

Do you want a simple explaination of the 1-bit audio approach? Think of a light bulb that cannot be dimmed - it only works at one voltage, and gives off a constant brightness. However you can switch it on/off as fast as you like. Do this fast enough and no-one can see it. If it is off half the time, you get 50% brightness, but you can adjust the timings for any amount from 0% to 100%. So you have complete control.

A normal CD uses 16 bit sound levels - the sound wave can be any of 65536 levels, and that level is measured at 40-something kilohertz. If you use one bit, but a much higher sampling frequency, you can get the same effect, and SACD goes higher again. Any ugly effects of this switching (dithering) happens at frequencies way beyond what your ear can hear, but you would see them on an oscilloscope.

By: Raziel

Raziel — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 19:43:54 +0000

Very good article; but i think it should be mentioned that the current war is the third one of its kind…Anyone remembers about the other next generation Audio format war from the early 1990s?

I’m talking about the DAT (Digital Audio Tape) vs the Mini-Disc, the exact same story back then; two rivaling formats in a market where CDs already dominated and satisfied the needs for the average consumer and beyond; (and Cassette tapes were still common enough to market a tape based format). And again there were two formats totally uncalled for and therefore, mostly ignored.

The only plus of those formats is that they allowed digital audio recording in a time when analog mix tapes were still the way to go; CD burners were unheard of, and thus some people found them appealing as a private recording, primary from their CD collection.

I guess that third is the charm, right? To all consumer electronics companies: please learn from the past and stop doing this to your customers.

By: Jim

Jim — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 15:29:04 +0000

To make the comparison of these formats easy for anyone, I usually point out the sampling rate. The more samples you take over a given period of time the better the reproduction of the original music. Not unlike the resolution of a photograph measured by the number of pixels in a digital camera for a single exposure. The more the better. So, the approximate sampling rates for the formats are:

CD - 44 thousand samples every second (44,000)
DVD A - 96 to 192 thousand samples every second (192,000)
SACD - 2 million samples every second (2,000,000)

To me, the SACD is far and away the best sounding.