Consumer confusion, marketing mistakes, and a dearth of authoring tools accessible to mid-size producers have hindered the growth of DVD-A and SACD, but the studios behind the audiophile formats have big plans for 2003.
Which of the new audio formats is superior—Super Audio CD (SACD) or DVD-Audio (DVD-A)?
It's all a matter of opinion. For record labels, the choice may be based on technical superiority or political alliances. For the audiophile consumer who actually understands what a DVD-A or SACD is, it really doesn't matter which they prefer because it's all about which titles are available, and that number's still quite small. At year's end, there were about 300 DVD-A titles on the market and around 100 SACD titles. By March 2003, it is expected that total U.S. third-party SACD titles will be 146, plus 113 hybrid multichannel discs. Both formats started to make a little noise at the end of 2002. On the one hand, Warner, EMI, and BMG all announced or affirmed their support of DVD-A with a range of new and catalog titles; BMG's DVD-A version of Elvis 30 #1 Hits on RCA was expected to be a hot seller during the holiday season. Sony and Universal, on the other hand, support SACD. EMI's Virgin released the 22-title "Rolling Stones Remastered" catalog series in the fall, the first release to create a real stir in that format.
Still, the labels and their distributors are having a hard time figuring out how to market either format. "Retail accounts are grappling with how they retail these new formats. They finally figured out that DVD-Video is big enough to have its own music section. But high-end audio stuff is lumped together," says Leslie Cohen, vice president of business development for Sony Music Entertainment. Cohen recounts one trip to a retailer who "had DVD-A and SACD all mixed together. It's okay to be side by side, but not mixed together. The poor consumer sees this huge section, but has no idea how to attack it." Then there are the big names like Circuit City and Best Buy that support hardware, but don't know what to do with the titles, so they shelve them with the players rather than in the music section. That's not the best way to sell discs, but Cohen admits that the formats need to be proven sellers before they command their own section in the battle for shelf space.
Both formats have a long way to go with regard to marketing and acceptance. And how many engineers really are savvy enough to put out a good product? Is DVD-Audio or SACD really being produced at the project studio level—like CD-Audio, DVD-Video, and DVD-ROM—or do both formats remain, production-wise, the province of the major music studios and their minions? And when, if ever, will the ascendancy of either format justify more small outfits throwing their hats in the ring? Then there's the nagging little question of how the heck DTS fits in. EMedia will attempt to put this all in perspective.
DVD-A
The official DVD-A Web site gives this as the format's definition: DVD-A "can provide a major advance in audio performance by providing the listener with advanced resolution stereo (two channels) and/or multichannel surround sound (up to six channels) music." DVD-A can provide dramatically higher-quality stereo sound than CD with a sampling rate of up to 192kHz compared to 44.1kHz for CD. DVD-A digital sound can be delivered with up to 24 bits of data, compared to 16 bits for the uncompressed pulse code modulation (PCM) CD standard. DVD-Audio discs cannot be played on a conventional CD player, though virtually every label releasing DVD-Audio discs includes tracks in the video zones of those discs that are compatible with all existing DVD-Video players. Audio CDs will play on DVD-Audio players just as they do on DVD-V players.
DVD-A titles are trickling in from some of the majors, including Warner, EMI, and BMG. As of December, Warner had about 75 titles on the market. But independent labels have perhaps been the most aggressive in pushing the format. For example, 5.1 Entertainment's goal was to have more than 100 discs, many of them new titles, by the end of 2002. Company president John Trickett has been very vocal in the press about DVD-A's benefits and, as a result, has perhaps been more instrumental than the majors in helping to launch the format. But, like virtually all the audiophile formats from gold masters to DAT, DVD-A hasn't captured the attention of the music-buying public.
Perhaps the biggest consumer awareness problem for DVD-A comes from the "DVD" in its name. When consumers hear DVD, they immediately think video; the popular press often makes the misconception worse by continuing to refer to DVD as Digital Video Disc. Instead of fighting the misconception, DVD-A creators are starting to use it to their benefit and promoting the idea that DVD-A can offer not only an audio-experience but, like DVD-V, can offer extras. In the case of an audio disc, video can be part of the extra content.
In an effort to clear things up for the consumer, record companies have come up with yet another cousin to DVD-A, which may in fact confuse the market more. The DVD Forum has set out to create a hybrid dual-layer CD/DVD-A disc that will play in all CD and DVD-A players. A good idea, perhaps, because right now DVD-A discs won't play in CD machines. But creating a CD/DVD-A format isn't as easy as it sounds. A hybrid disc requires changes to the Red Book CD specification. Warner, however, announced its support for this format at the end of last year. Another interesting way to push the consumer slowly into the DVD-A arena is to package a CD and DVD together, as done recently by RCA with releases from the Dave Matthews Band and the Foo Fighters, although admittedly these "bonus discs" are DVD-Video, not DVD-Audio. But RCA may see this as an intermediary step toward adapting listeners to receiving music content (with or without video component) on DVD discs. At presstime, BMG could not comment on the success of these projects. While practice makes perfect, it's true that authoring DVD-A is complex, and might be another reason the format has been slow to grow. There are navigation issues associated with it, for example. Authoring tools are becoming available, however, for manufacturers of these products, and it's relatively easy to make the trans- ition from authoring CD to authoring DVD-A.
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