DVD audio disks will have "Video's". Workgroup finishes standards draft.......................................................
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RIAA, ARA See Promise In DVD Audio Spec Draft
- -January 26, 1998
By Joseph Palenchar
The Recording Industry Association Of America (RIAA) and the Acoustic Renaissance For Audio (ARA) have kind words for the draft DVD-music standard formulated by the DVD consortium's working group four (WG-4), but they also pointed to several thorny issues that haven't been resolved.
"The spec is very promising" said RIAA senior executive VP Cary Sherman, "but it does not yet include copyright protection and antipiracy [technology]. Those are major objectives of the [music] industry, so it's difficult to comment on the spec without those features included."
Without naming names, he also indicated that not all music companies are thrilled with the draft. "A lot of the items in the spec are products of long discussions between the WG-4 and the ISC [international steering committee representing the worldwide music industry]," said Sherman, but the resulting draft "doesn't mean every [music] company is in love with everything in it."
The ARA, a U.K.-based group that has advocated a multichannel PCM standard, said it scored an important victory in the draft's requirement that all discs feature either two- or multichannel PCM programs (see TWICE, January 19, p. 38).
"The main risk has been averted," said ARA chairman Robert Stuart. "Low sound quality was our original concern" during the first stages of DVD music deliberations, he said, citing fears that lossy compression technologies such as Dolby Digital would become the standard.
"The next-generation audio disc will sound better than CD" because of the WG-4 draft, he said. Multichannel PCM, added Stuart, "is completely workable."
Although Stuart, who is president of Meridian Audio, has several reservations with the draft, he described them as "minor gripes."
One gripe is the draft's omission of lossless compression, which he said would increase playback time without eroding sound quality, and would also open up enough disc space to accommodate music videos with every song on a disc.
The ARA -- whose members include technical professionals in the music, pro audio and consumer audio industries -- is still "fighting hard for lossless compression," Stuart said. "I think there is still a good chance that it will happen. We have tremendous support for it within WG-4 and the ISC."
WG-4 member Nick Kuroda of JVC previously told TWICE (January 19, p. 38) that although the draft doesn't permit lossless compression, the technology is "still under consideration." At the time, he also stated that lossless compression hadn't been demonstrated to the WG-4, but Stuart disagreed. "They have heard it but not officially," Stuart said of a demo that he performed.
Stuart also questioned the wisdom of the draft's flexibility, which allows for optional multichannel formats to coexist with two-channel PCM tracks on a disc. The draft allows for Direct Stream Digital (DSD) technology backed by Sony/Philips, for any existing lossy or lossless compression technologies such as Dolby Digital and DTS Digital Surround, or for any other format that might be developed in the future to further enhance sound quality.
"An open standard is good in theory," Stuart said. "You can't say no to anybody. But it presents difficult choices to buyers." CD succeeded, he said, because "there was no confusion about what CD was."
He also called the draft "a way to contain the peace," particularly between the WG-4's PCM camp and the Sony-Philips team, "but it would be better if there were only one type of disc."
He also expressed hope that the industry would avoid a format war in which Sony and Philips market players incorporating only their DSD technology. Sony and Philips have targeted next year for shipments of DSD players.
"Even if it takes six months longer [to prepare final specs]," he said, "we should avoid a format war. Everyone I have talked to in the music industry, and a large number of hardware suppliers, wants to stop a format war."
In his comments on the draft, the RIAA's Sherman told TWICE that lossless compression "is still on the ISC's wish list and hasn't been resolved yet."
Referring to the draft standard's flexibility in allowing for any optional format to coexist with mandatory PCM tracks on a disc, Sherman said "many music companies welcome that approach" and that the "WG-4 approach is admirable in accommodating different sound formats." The draft "guarantees compatibility but lets the marketplace move toward an additional format that people find the best."
The ISC, he pointed out, chose "not to make a determination of sound quality [among competing formats] and to leave it to the artists and producers."
In other comments, Sherman pointed out that the draft responds to the ISC's call for two-channel and multichannel options. On the other hand, the draft doesn't meet the ISC's call for mandatory hybrid DVD/CD discs but instead makes them an option.
The music industry can live with the hybrid option, Sherman said, because of "concerns about [hybrid discs'] quality assurance and whether they will consistently meet specs."
In addition, "there's no real answers on costs." As a result, said Sherman, "I think the industry is interested in hybrid discs and wants the option to produce them, but until there is proof of concept at a reasonable cost with a guarantee of reliability, no one is prepared to make the [hybrid] discs."
Still, Sherman concluded, "the industry would very much like hybrid discs to be available because it would be a way of assuring backward and forward compatibility so that CD collections and CD players will remain valuable as consumers transition to a new technology." |
