Hybrid SACD/DVD (Part 3 of 3)

By Stefan Schreiber

The benefits of the new format

In my opinion, the music market for media should be split into two separate segments. Firstly, I think CDs should and could be offered cheaper, which could also help to fight increasing pirating and illegal copies. The more expensive segment would be to offer recordings in a higher quality, and maybe with a lot of additional features (music-video, surround-sound, information about composers, musicians and specific recording "histories", multimedia, "interactivity"...). My proposals combine all the "versatile" DVD-possibilities with the elegance, directness and transparency of DSD-recording, the modulation used in the SACD standard. Secondly, DVD-Video, DVD-Audio and SACD can be offered combined on ONE disc, effectively unifying the market of the three CD-successor formats.

Every record label can decide independently in which format(s) their records should be published. I think the hybrid SACD/DVD proposals are helpful to both industry and customers. The music industry should consider this new hybrid disc - which is compatible with DVD in its various forms and SACD - not only for their own interest, but also for the best interest of THEIR customers. (I think somebody is still needed to listen to music...). And perhaps, it could also offer a solution to put an end or at least "ease" an otherwise fruitless and costly format-war, which, in the worst-case scenario, could lead to the complete failure of both formats at some point. In any case, a clear winner in the "format-war" between DVD-Audio and SACD is not yet to be seen. This time it is not a case like "VHS versus Beta". I think it is worse! Because it doesn't look like any one of the competitors will vanish. Both offer advantages and disadvantages, and both are backed by big electronic companies AND record labels.

If only the recording-industry (and audio industry in general) could concentrate on other things rather than in a fight between some incompatible standards, and think in categories such as "high-resolution music", "surround-sound", "music-video", "bonus-material", a combined DVD/SACD format seems immediately viable and logical.

Editor's Note: The new hybrid format is patent-pending.

Some Remarks

1. Rumours about an extension of the SACD-standards ("SACD II"), which seem to confirm that a "SACD with video" is planned, underline the significance of the SACD/DVD proposals, at least a potential solution for this aim.

" SACD II" (only rumoured, not "official") might be realized in two ways:

a) SACD + "SACD-video" in the SACD "Extra Data Area". Such discs would be realized probably as Dual Layer SACDs ("DVD-9"-version). In any case, it is not possible to have a surround-version AND music video on a "hybrid SACD" with CD-layer. There is not enough space for it on ONE HD-layer.

b) DVD-Video + "new audio standard" (based on DSD). This "idea" could be compatible to DVD-Video, but would break "backward-compatibility" to SACD (I). It would be equivalent to DVD-Audio/Video, which exists already now and doesn't need new players.

The first variant is compatible to SACD, but introduces a proprietary video-standard. The second proposal breaks SACD into two segments, and not any person I have asked thinks it will or "should" happen.

A SACD/DVD-Video hybrid is a "SACD" and a "DVD-Video", combining the advantages of a) and b). It works with existing players, and it is obviously a "100% compatible" hybrid disc, respective to the used standards. It is hard to see where SACD II could offer (functionally) "more" than a SACD/DVD-V.

Not having seen any "specifications" of SACD II (which isn't announced officially, but rumoured, again!), I can't say anything about aspects like copy protection or DRM-management of SACD II. However, Super Audio CD is an extremely well-protected format already now, whereas "advantages" of DRM will remain "abstract" or even questionable for customers.

2. Renewed efforts to introduce a DVD-A/CD will be reviewed if something "real" is announced, which hasn't been the case. Even if the inventor has participated in the discussion about DVD-A/CD hybrids with industry insiders, it is not directly related to my own proposals here.

However, the new proposal contains as special variant also an SACD/CD/DVD hybrid. You can manufacture such a disc, if you glue to the back-side of a "hybrid SACD" (that is, an SACD/CD) a DVD half-disc, which itself can have one or two layers.

This disc-form is (usually) thicker than a "standard DVD", or CD. Usually the thickness will be 1.7mm, similar to the already known DVD-plus (DVD+CD). Both disc-forms are facing similar compatibility-problems, therefore. To be fair, the DVD-plus is a commercially available format, even if the discs are always out of some specifications, also thinner forms of DVD-plus! However, they work mostly, especially as "DVD".

To me, it looks very unlikely that we will see a DVD-A/CD as "single inventory disc", that means, as a DVD-Audio which can be sold "as CD".

3. Last, but not least, I would like to put a link to a German Internet-article on hybrid SACD/DVD, done by Mr. Ulrich v. Loehneysen and myself. (The last picture visualizes in a highly understandable way both forms of "hybrid SACD" discs! It's not possible to explain it easier, I think.)

Many thanks, to Ulrich v. Loehneysen, and to my colleague Joe Coronado for editorial advice.