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Super Audio CD Part Of Red Book Standard But Not DVD-Audio
By Gary Reber
Philips Electronics and Sony Corporation have announced that licensees of the current CD format would have the option of extending their agreements to include the Super Audio CD (see Issue 27), with the same royalty levels as currently are being paid for CD Audio. The finalized Super Audio CD standard will become an appendix to the Red Book CD specifications and as well issued as the Scarlet Book standard.
The Super Audio CD is a single-sided, dual-layer disc composed of a standard Red Book CD Audio layer and a "high-density" Direct Stream Digital (DSD) layer capable of carrying both stereo and multichannel audio, as well as graphics and text. Sony and Philips claim that the format's benefits over its DVD Forum rival are its PSP (Pit Signal Processing) technology, which is used to write both visible and invisible watermarks onto discs to frustrate counterfeiting, compatibility with the installed base of CD players and the opportunity for retailers to carry a single inventory of both CD and high-density audio product.
Sony and Philips have targeted a May 1999 launch of Super Audio CD players in Japan but haven't announced specific plans for launches in the U.S. or Europe.
As reported in Issue 27, the DVD Forum's WG-4 proposed DVD-Audio specification for Version 1.0 of the DVD-Audio spec, originally targeted for May 1998, has been pushed back to June or soon thereafter. The Forum's working group is conducting demonstrations for the music industry on both the East and West Coasts. DVD Forum members JVC, Panasonic, Pioneer, Samsung and Toshiba demonstrated DVD Audio on prototype players and displayed mockups of universal players that would play back DVD video and DVD Audio discs.
Three player types were presented:
1. A DVD player intended primarily as a music-playback device (with the exception of displaying still pictures),
2. A DVD player intended exclusively as a movie and music-only playback device,
3. A DVD player intended to play back music, music videos and movies.
The WG-4's vision for software is a music-only disc (with still picture and text capability), a disc intended exclusively for movies or music videos, and a disc intended primarily for movie and music video programs but allowing the playback of select portions of a soundtrack on DVD audio players.
The WG-4 has not yet agreed on the terminology for describing each type of player or each type of disc.
As reported in Issue 27, the draft standard also allows for optional multichannel compressed formats to coexist on a disc. While the draft spec does not support the Sony/Philips DSD format, DSD would be welcomed and could be added to the spec in a data definition area for other coding modes.
Dolby Digital and DTS Digital Surround are the permitted multichannel options, but the DVD Forum will not require audio-only players to recognize their bitstreams. Nonetheless, virtually all manufacturers will provide bitstream recognition for both Dolby Digital and DTS Digital Surround.
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