SACD has been axed - certain, not official

stvnharr · « **Reply #20 on:** 24 Oct 2004, 03:43 pm »

The internet is so wonderful. Anyone can endlessly speculate on the future from a limited amount of information.
Everyone becomes an expert!
The Sony-SACD story is largely irrelevant anyway as Sony hasn't been releasing sacd's this year. Even if they never resolve their artist issues and never release another sacd, a lot of other companies are releasing them every week.

Scott F. · « **Reply #21 on:** 24 Oct 2004, 10:39 pm »

Quote from: stvnharr

The internet is so wonderful. Anyone can endlessly speculate on the future from a limited amount of information.
Everyone becomes an expert!

So I'm an 'expert'...... Hmmm

At least I did some homework. I gave solid facts that may or may not lend credence to Sony's dealing with SACD.

My only point to the post was to give a slightly different perspective to the issue. I wanted to put it in logical business terms.
You (on the other hand) seem to want to drag this thread down to some personal level because you appear to be tired of reading the 'SACD is dead' threads. If thats the case, why don't you spare us your snide comments.

Quote from: stvnharr

The Sony-SACD story is largely irrelevant anyway as Sony hasn't been releasing sacd's this year. Even if they never resolve their artist issues and never release another sacd, a lot of other companies are releasing them every week.

On this point we agree. As I clearly stated (if you had read my post rather than just reacting to it), other companies are 'neck deep' into the format.

Is Sony's possible departure from the SACD market the end of the Format?....... Doubtful.

stvnharr · « **Reply #22 on:** 25 Oct 2004, 04:12 am »

Scott,
I did not mean to be personal in my comments, though I guess I did address you in the beginning. So, I apologize for that.
You have correctly surmised that I am a little tired of the "sacd is dead" stuff and should really just tune it all out.

Scott F. · « **Reply #23 on:** 25 Oct 2004, 02:00 pm »

Quote from: stvnharr

Scott,
I did not mean to be personal in my comments, though I guess I did address you in the beginning. So, I apologize for that.
You have correctly surmised that I am a little tired of the "sacd is dead" stuff and should really just tune it all out.

Hi Steve,

No big deal. I probably over-reacted a bit myself, sorry.

It should be interesting to watch what happens if Sony does decide to get out of the SACD business. If they put the technology on the auction block, I'd be curious who has the money to buy it and how they will treat (monitarily) the other companies that want liscences to produce miusic and players.

One thing is for sure, if the new (potential) owner tries to recoup his investment too quick on liscenesing fees, that could be really cost prohibitive for suppliers and comsumers alike.

Does Sony own the only patents on the technology? If memory serves, doesn't Philips have a stake in it also?

Marbles · « **Reply #24 on:** 25 Oct 2004, 02:39 pm »

Scott, thanks for your research...

soundboy · « **Reply #25 on:** 25 Oct 2004, 05:46 pm »

Quote

The Sony-SACD story is largely irrelevant anyway as Sony hasn't been releasing sacd's this year.

While Sony is quite inactive as to releasing SACD titles in North America, it did release the following titles this year, the last three titles coming within the last several months....

Titanic - Original Soundtrack (reissued on hybrid SACD)
Indigo Girls - All The We Let In
David Sanchez - Coral
John Mayer - Heavier Things

This is in addition to numerous SACD titles Sony has released overseas. While those titles may not be of interests to those in North America, it does show the growth of SACD as a format around the world. We need to look beyond our borders to see whether a format will survive or die....just look at MiniDisc, which is still surviving quite nicely. Sony, along with format co-inventor Philips, will not be selling its SACD technology to anyone since it can collect royalties on everything from the SACD logo to DSD technology.

Rob Babcock · « **Reply #26 on:** 25 Oct 2004, 09:50 pm »

Obviously Sony will do whatever they ultimately decide is in their best interest, but I find it hard to believe they'd pull the plug this soon. Look at a couple of their other failed formats, MiniDisc & Beta Videocassette. Although by all monetary figures a flat failure, MD is still supported now (by the media & hardware divisions) and Sony only this year announced they'd no longer support Beta. That's a combined total of almost thirty years of support to formats that were marginal at their peak. I think Sony would find the loss of prestige more damaging than the cost of carrying the format another half decade.

At any rate, if Sony Music never released another SACD, the format could still be "successful" to about the same degree LPs are, so long as the audiophool labels are still able to release music for the format. It would be bizarre to drop SACD and sit on the technology instead of liscencing it to recoup production costs.

I'm not really worried, myself. Even if it's cancelled, hi rez digital will migrate to whatever format survives. MLP has been incorporated into the HD-DVD standard, and Blu-Ray will also utilize some type of lossless, 24 bit audio. We could finally have SACD/DVD-A quality along side HDTV-level video, and HD movies with a true 24 bit soundtrack.

Perhaps the days when one format rules alone are long gone?

pjchappy · « **Reply #27 on:** 26 Oct 2004, 05:00 am »

The fact that they put DSOTM on SACD says A LOT, IMO.

p

doug s. · « **Reply #28 on:** 26 Oct 2004, 01:58 pm »

interesting report...
http://www.audioholics.com/news/pressreleases/EHXsurround2004conference2.php

doug s.

soundboy · « **Reply #29 on:** 26 Oct 2004, 05:38 pm »

Perhaps this following report is more up to date....

http://www.sa-cd.net/shownews/32

stvnharr · « **Reply #30 on:** 27 Oct 2004, 04:57 am »

Great bit of news there, and I think it bodes very well for the future.

Aman · « **Reply #31 on:** 4 Nov 2004, 04:21 am »

I didn't think SACD had promiss anyway. You needed high end equipment to notice a real difference. Not too many "pop" artists on the lists either.

My cousin is being laid off by Sony, and they just merged with MGM. They are really going to hell, Sony - they are giving their top execs more money and at the same time depriving the technology industry (particularly audio hardware) of the increases that only IT can give.

Another tech company needs to step up and make the change.

soundboy · « **Reply #32 on:** 4 Nov 2004, 06:20 am »

Quote from: Aman

I didn't think SACD had promiss anyway. You needed high end equipment to notice a real difference. Not too many "pop" artists on the lists either.

On well-mastered SACDs, one can tell the difference right away. I have a $150.00 Sony SCD-CE595 SACD/CD changer and the performance of this machine playing back a well-mastered SACD, such as Steely Dan's Gaucho, is quite amazing.

sys1 · « **Reply #33 on:** 5 Nov 2004, 02:28 am »

http://www.stereophile.com/news/110104aeshirez/

rbrb · « **Reply #34 on:** 6 Nov 2004, 01:12 am »

I don't know where these ridiculous rumours start. Obviously by people that do not understand companies like Sony and how they operate.

Sony spent $600 million developing SA-CD. They gave birth to the format, now it's up to the rest of the industry to adopt it.