[fabaudio]

Seems to me it is.

[Adz523]

In the Tower Records near where I live, both formats (DVDA and SACD) are collecting dust and have been moved to the back corner of the store - they are also not re-ordering most of the titles they sell.  So, I'd say yes as well.

[jermmd]

Dead as a door nail.  Whatever that means.

[Dokter_doug]

No.

[Rob Babcock]

There's tons of great new DVD-A's, but you'll never know by looking at Best Buy or Tower.

[John Ashman]

Define dead.  I'd call it somewhere between bed-ridden and comatose.  Same as SACD.

[Rob Babcock]

True, you can't buy a bunch of M&M or Ashely Simpson on DVD-A, but there's a vast and growing catalog of serious music on DVD-A and SACD.  

People can keep calling it dead if it makes 'em feel better.  Me, I'll keep on buying new ones!

[TheeeChosenOne]

The huge B&M music stores in my area have a very limited selection thrown in the back.

One store has them all mixed and jumbled between rock and claasical like if it were a discount aisle.  Really sad to see.

[Dan Driscoll]

Seems to me it is.

No moreso than vinyl. DVD-Audio, DAD, HDAD, SACD and vinyl are all niche products, serving a niche market.

[ted_b]

Seems to me it is.

No moreso than vinyl. DVD-Audio, DAD, HDAD, SACD and vinyl are all niche products, serving a niche market.

Agree on all counts.  Online niche stores like Acoustic Sounds, Elusive Disc, et al have a very healthy selection of DVD-A, HDAD and SACD.  There are over 3000 SACD titles, half as many DVD-A and even some very good sounding DTS software.  The DualDisc fiasco has done one thing positive, too.  It has allowed MLP (DVD-A's hi-rez vehicle) to stay in the mix for non-Sony titles, and gave MLP enough traction to be mentioned for optional layers on the new formats (BD, HD-DVD).  In addition, Sony has given SACD a left-handed compliment by announcing that there will be new players for the fall, SACD inclusion on PS3, and a "renewed" support of the new DSD recording hardware.  Hardly enough to be called life-giving, but enough to know that SACD will live as a niche product for some time, at least.

Ted

[Rob Babcock]

True, you can't buy a bunch of M&M or Ashely Simpson on DVD-A, but there's a vast and growing catalog of serious music on DVD-A and SACD.  

People can keep calling it dead if it makes 'em feel better.  Me, I'll keep on buying new ones!

 Excuse me  
 Jazz is America's only true original art form and jazz is very serious music. For every 100 jazz cd's I would like to own there might be 1 DVD-A  version available.

Welllll, I can't totally agree with you, but I'll agree to disagree.   I definately like some jazz, but I don't think it can be taken as seriously as classical music.  Now just so I don't start a flame war, this is JMOHO and I certainly realize many guys prefer jazz.  And there's some decent jazz on DVD-A.

At any rate, I have a universal player, so luckily I don't have to pick just one or the other.  I have roughly equal numbers of both (DVD-A & SACD).

[Digi-G]

I'll echo what Dan, Ted, and Rob said.  I'd like to think it's a niche product that's actually doing alright.  I suppose it depends on your perspective.  I'm sure Sony and all the other large hardware/software companies hoped it would be the next CD or DVD revolution.  That obviously didn't happen and won't, for a lot of reasons I won't go into.  From that perspective it COULD be viewed as a failure.

But think of SACD and DVD-Audio like you would MFSL.  You probably won't see any MFSL releases on Billboards Top 100 either (i.e. MFSL always had a limited customer base).  But their products were top notch, as many (not all) of the SACD and DVD-Audio releases are.

I'm sure people can make the argument that MFSL is no longer around (or are they back?), but I don't think most audiophiles will dispute the quality of the recordings.   I would guess that the digital hi-rez catalogs are larger than the MFSL catalog for vinyl was/is.

Maybe I'm feeling analagous today.  Whatever.  But it's similar to Sundance movies too.  They aren't usually Hollywood blockbusters like Titanic or Episode 3, and they may not appeal to the millions, but there's quality and care usually put into them.

Lastly, I probably wouldn't spend $1000 or $1500 to try out SACD or DVD-Audio because of the limited titles available, but if I can do it for little more cost than a modest DVD player, why not?

[meilankev]

Jazz is America's only true original art form

This statement has me so perplexed, I don't know where to begin.  Well, since it'd probably just be the start of a pissing contest, I'll leave it be.

Alas...

Kevin

[nathanm]

I'd say surround music is more of a niche product than vinyl is.  Your gran can grok a record, but try explaining to her the difference between Dolby Pro Logic and DTS.  Good luck!  The concept of surround sound for music was just not heavily promoted by the industry.  Non-audiophiles have little to no concept of "soundstage" and are not impressed by the phantom center effect.  Thus 5.1 is even more of a hard sell.  I also think the fact that the medium looks exactly like a CD negatively affects public acceptance.  Plus there's the problem that DVDs are associated with video\motion pictures and not music in the public mind.  When are we going to get the ice crystals like Superman used?

[Dokter_doug]

 Excuse me  
 Jazz is America's only true original art form and jazz is very serious music. For every 100 jazz cd's I would like to own there might be 1 DVD-A  version available.

Won't argue with the statement about jazz being America's only true art form, but here's a (very) partial list of  jazz SACD's.

http://www.sa-cd.net/titles/2/0/date/5/1

I actually prefer DVD-Audio discs providing the source material is good (not remapped PCM data), but the jazz SACD's I own sound good.

Doug

[Dokter_doug]

...and her's a list of DVD-Audio discs (again, partial)...there's many more available if you're actually interested in finding them.

http://store.acousticsounds.com/search_results.cfm?adv=true&category=23

Doug

[rmihai0]

DVD-A will stay awhile. Maybe the new Super DVD-A or DVD-V will replace it.

[Rob Babcock]

Welllll, I can't totally agree with you, but I'll agree to disagree.   I definately like some jazz, but I don't think it can be taken as seriously as classical music.  Now just so I don't start a flame war, this is JMOHO and I certainly realize many guys prefer jazz.  And there's some decent jazz on DVD-A.

 You're not invited to many parties are you?
 
 Would you care to elaborate why you think that jazz can not be taken as serious as classical music?

To be honest, Britney Spears is serious music to someone.  All music is serious, I guess, if you listen to it seriously.  And I don't mean that as a slam.  So many of us gearheads spend hours talking about equipment and very little talking about music.  

Whatever you like is cool.  But I think blues has every bit as legitmate a claim of being an original American form as jazz does.  Both came from the same wellspring.

[gongos]

Whoever believes jazz and classical are the only 2 legitimate musical artforms have some seriously stunted musical knowledge.

Here are a couple suggestions:

Coil - Time Machines
PIL - Metal Box
1st few Wire albums
Brian Eno's early stuff
Early Can
Kraftwerk

do I need to keep going?

[soundboy]

To be honest, Britney Spears is serious music to someone.  All music is serious, I guess, if you listen to it seriously.  And I don't mean that as a slam.  So many of us gearheads spend hours talking about equipment and very little talking about music.  

And that's why Britney Spear's on DVD-A.  From what I've heard, Britney's DVD-A has sonics to die for.  Not to mention the visuals.  BTW, the soundtrack of "Titanic" is on SACD and has been re-released on hybrid SACD.