Future of DVD-A

Bigjoe's second paragraph is absolutely correct. Quality means nothing to the mass market. It's all about convenience. If the next generation is high quality, it will be a matter of luck for anyone who cares about hi-fidelity.

Just need to say that I am sick of these threads concerning the death of hi-rez formats. It doesn't matter what ones opinion is; ultimately the market place will prevail.

Chuck

both dvd-a & sacd are doomed as will be any other new format that isnt as drastic a change as cd's were to tape & vinyl.

better sound/picture quality has nothing to do with it either,i dont see any of the new format's lasting very long,just ask a non audio inteligent friend what dvd-a,sacd & blu-ray are & you'll get the deer in the head light's look.

sdcampbell is right.

The consumer market has already voted on this issue, and I think it's clear that both SACD and DVD-A are dead as a commercial proposition. The equipment manufacturers and entertainment industry are now focusing on Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, but that "format issue" is far from settled.

In short, we will see less product, not more, coming out on both the SACD and DVD-A formats, so enjoy what's here now, or wait for "the next big thing"...

DVD-A and SACD are niche products for a niche market. If the manufactures of both hardware and software have not modeled their marketing as such, both are doomed.

DVD-A and SACD will never make the crossover to a mass market consumer staple, such as DVD did.

I concur with Tvad, and will add that the unbypassable video-based navigation menus to select tracks on some discs are a major agravation.

On the other hand, the number of superior DVD-A's I have outnumber the superior SACD's. Many of the SACD's I've picked up or listened to have been crummy remasters that I would be ashamed to release, if I owned the record label.

I strongly disagree with Tarsando. The selection of new plastic in both formats at hip, independant music stores in my area is quite good. Best Buy and similar places demand that stock turns every 45 days or less, so keeping an extensive back catalogue inventory just isn't part of their game plan.

IMO both sacd and dvd-a are dead. And I think dvd-a is deader, in terms of new releases.

If you already have a player for DVDA, why not buy a few and see what you think? My sonicly best discs are DVDA. I think that DVDA offers more features than SACD, and the PCM format is more mainstream than DSD which gives it a better chance of survival than SACD.