Re: [rumori] Ten Reasons DVD Audio Will Fail


From: Hammer Presley (bfmATrds-tm.org)
Date: Fri Jan 12 2001 - 07:14:50 PST


> Just saw this on another list. Since I've often felt the members of this
> list are a bit more technical, I thought I'd paste the email here for you
> all to discuss. I'm quite curious about the validity of these statements.
>
> Ten reasons DVD Audio will fail:
>
> 1) 99% of albums don't have surround information.
> 2) Most listening is done on headphones, and you can do 3D sound with two
> channels on headphones if you care to.
> 3) No DVD player sold to date will play DVD Audio, except a couple of models
> released at the end of last year.
> 4) No computer will play DVD Audio, even if it has a DVD-ROM drive.
> 5) DVD Audio has CSS-like encryption and copy protection, including
> watermarking
> 6) Most people think MP3 sounds good enough, so they won't care that
> DVD Audio sounds better than CD.
> 7) Most people's equipment won't reproduce the sound well enough for them
> to hear the difference between CD and DVD Audio anyway.
> 8) There's competition from SACD and HDCD, as well as audio recordings on
> regular DVD -- and consumers hate format wars.
> 9) You can't record your own DVD Audio discs, and there's no likelihood of
> being able to in the near future.
> 10) There's an enormous installed base of CD players -- I've got six different
> devices that can play CD -- and nobody will want to buy albums they can
> only play on one of the devices in their house, when they can buy a CD
> and play it anywhere, including at a friend's house.

I've been thinking about this for a while and I think these are all good
reason why DVD audio is not really necessary, but I don't think these are
reasons why it will or will not catch on...

I remember when DVD's first came out at all, it became very clear rather
quickly that the _real_ end goal of this format was not really just to
make Die Hard 3 sound really loud and look really cool and have a bunch of
dopey outtakes and what have you. I think the real beauty of DVD (for the
media industry, anyway) all along was the possibility of total
integration. When a friend of mine first showed me that they are now
releasing video games like Dragon's Lair in DVD format that you can play
with your remote was when that thought first occured to me (even though
Dragon's Lair is an old and very simple game... there is plenty of room
for development in the area of DVD games).

All of the BS about surround info, quality, etc... that's just marketing.
The problem with incompatibility will be fixed over time. The industry has
a way of "evolving" technology toward whatever it is they truly want to
sell you (are you using VHS or Betamax these days?).

So while I don't actually know a lot about this DVD audio really...
everything I am reading suggests that it actually has a darn good chance
at making it given a few years and active intervention from the industry,
simply because it would begin to integrate everything to a single format.
And the corporations that own the patent on DVD have everything to gain
from that. Heck, who knows, maybe pretty food and water will come only in
DVD format.

Just some thoughts.

Hammer Presley (rdsATrds-tm.com)
Spokesmodel - Reggae Death Squad(tm)
http://www.rds-tm.org/

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