Is DVD-A "winning" the format war?

Rob Babcock · « **on:** 1 May 2004, 02:11 am »

Interesting link: http://www.highfidelityreview.com/news/news.asp?newsnumber=18483611 It appears that according to RIAA figures, DVD-A is well ahead of SACD in sales. If this is so, I wonder if it's got a bit to do with Sony/Philips love of things proprietary and their disdain of the Universal Player? The '03 figures were much closer- it appears maybe DVD-A is picking up steam.

PhilNYC · « **Reply #1 on:** 1 May 2004, 11:56 am »

That's really surprising to me, as I don't know a single person who owns any DVD-Audio discs, whereas I know a good number of people who own SACDs...

MaxCast · « **Reply #2 on:** 1 May 2004, 12:27 pm »

If sacd fails it will be SONY's fault, IMO. Probably due to the reasons you describe, Rob.
Also
You see no advertising on TV whatsoever. I think if either advertised "hi-rez, multi-channel, video(dvd-a) wiz-bang, blah, blah" you'd see more joe-six packs looking for this on their next player.

Software prices. Everyone feels software of music is overpriced. Cd's are crazy at $14-20. They want you to pay more for something better? If I think Chevy is overpriced, I'm not going to buy a Cadiliac for more $$ when I can down load a neon for free.

Software availability. Huge blunder IMO. I would have three times the software I have now if everything was being released in hi-rez. I'm talking new releases and re-issues over time. No reason NJ's new Cd is not out in hi-rez. It should have been a hybrid at the get go and everyone would be happy.

While I think DVD is a geater step up over VHS than hi-rez is over red book, they did it right by flooding the market with software.

azryan · « **Reply #3 on:** 1 May 2004, 03:05 pm »

Audiorevolution.com just reported that SACD sales are like 3 times higher than DVD-A so the opposite of what you post Rob?

They note their info does not track online sales where probably many or most are buying both formats.

Of great importance I think is that even their combined sales are nothing compared to CD sales. A tiny little speck or a percent.

Neither is winning this format war and IMO neither format ever will. All people sit down to watch a movie on DVD.
Most put on music while doing something else though not ever sitting within a surround system to hear an album.

Surround formats could work great in cars where people have to sit there, but then the players have to be universal. It''s pointless to buy just one of these two formats -though I wish one of them didn't exist.

Probably SACD 'cuz it's counter to everything else that's all PCM, and it's resolution is worse than DVD-A and CD on the top end. Far worse than CD at 20kHz is not hi-rez.

I agree with MaxCast's statement about software.

For me there's almost nothing to buy on either format, but lots of CD's in the past few years that I think are great -and would have prefered in DVD-A or SACD.

Is there a problem too that these formats are aimed at audiophiles and many audiophiles are 2-chan. people?
And there have in the past few years been a lot of really good solutions for making the most out of CD's from tubed to upsampling DAC/players.

TheChairGuy · « **Reply #4 on:** 1 May 2004, 06:27 pm »

I love seeing these things...

I've never been to any trade show where there was anything but RECORD attendance the year before. Despite all of the attendee's grumbling how crappy the attendance was each year proceeding. It's a PR person or firm hired to do exactly that - manipulate the numbers and put a spin on it. I think they do this in politics, too

That BS goes on until, miraculously, the show moves or closes forever. How and why would a show with record attendance each year choose to move or close outright? Where there is money involved, look for tennsy weensy ethics.

Look at the source - "news from the DVD-Audio council'. Didya' think they'd say that SACD was trouncing DVD-A's butt?

I think, in Europe (at least UK, that I know) DVD-A is doing incrementally better than SACD. I'm not sure of the Far East...perhaps someone there can chime in. Here in the US? I doubt it.

But, somewhere unknown to you and I is some obscure fact and figure that the DVD-A council has and is claiming numerical superiority in the US.

Hogwash - it's just spin and hype.

Lest anyone think I'm biased - I'm not. I've heard only a handful of DVD-A's and SACD's and my rig plays neither...so I'm not saying one is better/worse than the other, etc. I'm just saying there is a modicum of BS here.

Marbles · « **Reply #5 on:** 1 May 2004, 06:40 pm »

I heard, but I don't remember where, that sales of LP's were significantly more than that of SACD's and DVD-A's combined!

ooheadsoo · « **Reply #6 on:** 1 May 2004, 07:00 pm »

I read somewhere that the RIAA poll didn't include SACD hybrid discs.

jasontkennedy · « **Reply #7 on:** 1 May 2004, 10:08 pm »

While it would be nice to disregard the "statisics" pointing toward dvd-a pulling ahead with "Hogwash - it's just spin and hype." I don't think it can be done so easily. There are three possibilities of what is going on here.

1) INTENTIONAL MISINFOIRMATION - the article is the DVD-A council clamoring on with there spin and hype rhetoric and propaganda to intentionally cripple SACD's appeal at the consumer level
2) UNINTENTIONAL MISINFORMATION - the atricle missed some key facts, or a large percentage of the numbers have been overlooked or missed entirely, but none the less a mistake, not malicious intent
3) THE ARTICLE IS TRUE - the numbers are not skewed, and the data is true and thorough enough.

Important facts : The DVD-A council wrote the ARTICLE, they didn't take the survey. That was the RIAA. You must understand who those two bodies are, and what their function is.

The DVD-A council's purpose it to determine the media's standards, and develop ways to make that media more accessable to john q. public to further propagate and vitalize their format. So, we do understand that the DVD-A council has an agenda (I doubt they'd deny that) they are not ultimately responsible for the numbers though. If you look more closely, you'll see that they developed their clearly biased atricle on some not so clearly biased numbers. The statistic is a reflection of an RIAA survey.

Although the oft beleaguered RIAA may not be the most liked organization in town, allow me to "don their cloth" for just a moment. Their purpose is to protect and maintain the copyrighted music and intellectual property of music and musicians. And secondly maintain the profitability of the music industry.

If you look historically at cases where the the RIAA got involved you'd see musicians or indiviuals were sued for selling or sampling music w/out permission, and things of that nature. The RIAA is also guilty of "price fixing" CD's which is why prices are so high. But at the end of the day they exsist as an entity to protect and maintain the music industry. I'm sure they have their say about concert tickect prices and all kinds of other areas of all things "music". That is really what this is about. The "DVD-A council" and their camp aren't even pawns in the game here. Their elatated article about DVD-A sales being 5x higher is elated because somebody outside of their camp who is "objective" and "authoritative" observed it. I don't hink that they would be quite so excited about internally generated vaporware.

So, the article may be skewed, but I don't believe the numbers are until proven otherwise. To the RIAA SACD is just as profitable as DVD-A, and I don't think that they give two rips which format wins. But, you'd better believe they will follow the money. And, that is a reflection of what is being consumed. So, it is only natural that they are finding out what consumers want. Because they want consumer's money. They know that you bought Dark side of the moon on vinyl, and when it hit tape, you bought it then, and when it hit CD you bought it yet again, and whenever a new format comes out they will be right there making sure to load you down with all of your favorite re-issues and new releases on the *new and improved* format for just a few dollars more than the last format. Certainly though RIAA follows the money, the money doesn't follow them. That would be the tail wagging the dog. I'm sure the RIAA could find more effective ways to advertise.

Rob Babcock · « **Reply #8 on:** 2 May 2004, 01:09 am »

According to what I've gleaned from a few sources, SACD shipped more last year but '04 has been a "breakout" year for DVD-A, so to speak. True, last year both new digital formats sold less combined than LP, but that's rapidly changing.

I wouldn't think the RIAA would have any reason to spin this, as jasonkennedy is probably correct that they could care less whether DVD-A, SACD or the Edison Wax Cylinder becomes the dominant format: they get their $ anyway.

As for my collection, I've got about 60% DVD-A vs 40% SACD. My collection is only just over 50 discs though, so a small change would skew the percentages.

rbrb · « **Reply #9 on:** 2 May 2004, 01:39 am »

The RIAA seems to give different numbers depending on what day of the week it is or where the moon is in relation to the sun.

Check out this link from the RIAA also.

http://www.highfidelityreview.com/news/news.asp?newsnumber=11109165

Rob Babcock · « **Reply #10 on:** 2 May 2004, 02:25 am »

Looks like while the article is new all those figures are from last year.

Marbles · « **Reply #11 on:** 2 May 2004, 04:10 am »

No need to stress over it, they are both temporary formats anyway....

Rob Babcock · « **Reply #12 on:** 2 May 2004, 04:20 am »

Like the LP?

Marbles · « **Reply #13 on:** 2 May 2004, 04:23 am »

Like the LP, CD, wax cylinder etc...

In the long run, we are all dead

Rob Babcock · « **Reply #14 on:** 2 May 2004, 04:25 am »

You're not already installing a music jack wired right into your skull yet, are you Marbles?

That might be next, but I ain't quite ready for that!

Marbles · « **Reply #15 on:** 2 May 2004, 04:27 am »

I'm looking forward to DSD and PCM on HD-DVD and Blu-Ray..now if I could just convince the powers that be to use decent codecs for that......

No headjacks yet, speaking of which, I did see Matrix Revolutions today..my 13 year old son left in the middle of it because it was so boring...What a turd!

Rob Babcock · « **Reply #16 on:** 2 May 2004, 05:14 am »

Sorry you didn't like it. But, you gotta admit I told you it sucked before I sold it to you!

I really liked the first two, though.

Marbles · « **Reply #17 on:** 2 May 2004, 05:18 am »

Quote from: Rob Babcock

Sorry you didn't like it. But, you gotta admit I told you it sucked before I sold it to you! I really liked the first two, though.

I admit it

and I really liked the first two as well.

I don't blame you at all. You didn't make it, and you warned me off of it.

I blame the Wacheski (sp?) Brothers. At least I have the whole trilogy, but I doubt I watch the piece of brown floating fecal material again.

Now back to those format wars....Which do you like better Blu-Ray, or HD-DVD...oh wait, that's still to come

Rob Babcock · « **Reply #18 on:** 2 May 2004, 07:40 am »

Blu-Ray is the dream, but I'm getting a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that HD-DVD is what we're gonna get. It has a fraction of the capacity of B/R, but Sony/Philips and their fetish for needing the patent has possibly sunk them. Damn shame, since with HD-DVD we'd get "Hi Def Lite" with a lossy soundtrack as opposed to full HD with MLP. Oh well, we'll just have to wait and see...

MaxCast · « **Reply #19 on:** 2 May 2004, 11:01 am »

Numbers, shumbers...just give us software. Oh wait, there's another format coming so just give them a few titles to keep them quiet until HD comes out and then we'll release the Beatles and Pink Floyd.

I suppose I should look up myself, but what are the two competing formats offering and how does MS' hi-rez media code fit in here?