Will Microsoft kill DVD-A and SACD?

I hadn't known, but do find it curious, that MS would invest in HDCD. After all, it's certainly not the future of music data storage (neither is CD in general), most current hardware doesn't decode it, and the percentage of software manufactured using it is miniscule. There has to be some unseen-by-me (though I readily admit to not being an expert - or really caring - about such matters) motive for such an inexplicable aquisition. Or maybe Bill just likes the way they sound in his system. But kill DVD-A and SACD? HDCD can't do multi-channel. What could sink those formats is if people don't care about surround music, but not HDCD.

I argee with Garfish, CD's with or without HDCD are a low density storage medium by today's standards. For multi-channel music storage they are either too limited in resolution or running time to provide a viable high quality medium. I don't have personal experience with the "multi-channel CD's" referred to above, but every CD player I have seen has just a stereo output, meaning any extra-channel info would have to be matrixed into the 2-channel mix and decoded with an outboard device (possibly even in the analog domain), which could not provide anything near even Red Book resolution for all channels, and would presumably be running time-limited to boot. A multi-channel HDCD could hold no more, either. And I don't see how HDCD could be of any help with internet-distributed audio. Just getting the fidelity up to regular CD standards would be a feat, so whatever incremental improvement is supposed to offered by HDCD wouldn't apply here. And since MS is not a record label (yet!), I don't suppose they're going to be releasing HDCD music software themselves. There could not possibly be enough money to made in the current HDCD market to interest the likes of MS, so again, I have to wonder: What's it all about, Billy?