More exclusive Dualdisc on the way (1 Viewer)

[Gabriela Mendez]

For starters, we bought Back in Black Dualdisc and the CD side won't play on my Jetta's Monsoon CD stereo...

 

[Paul.S]

Not at all revealing/earth-shattering April 26 USA Today story, "DualDisc breaks sound barrier," re the new Springsteen.

-p

 

[Phil A]

Circuit City still has their Sony SACD display. The bins on the side of the equipment are populated by Sony DualDiscs. It is pretty apparent that Sony music is pushing DualDisc as the format of their choice.

 

[CraigL]

Can't get the Rob Thomas CD to work on any of my CD/DVD players...or even my PC drive to make a copy!!! :frowning: GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

 

[Rich Malloy]

I disagree, and I'm glad "Stereophile" is still slamming this format. It's not worth a damn, and I'd rather see HFR shut down permanently than start shilling for this bullshit.

 

[Lee Scoggins]

I think its unfaor to single out Brian Moura for blame. He's a good reporter who was hired to cover SACD just like Stuart Robinson was hired to cover DVDA. Nevertheless they both do reviews on the other format from time to time. HFR remains the best source of hirez news outside of Audio Asylum where people monitor fan sites.

Brian is offering up the equipment advisories since he is supposed to also cover hardware but there has been a lot of discussion about upcoming releases.

 

[Justin Lane]

Not sure what you disagree about a month after the original posting, but continue disagreeing to your heart's desire.

J

 

[Justin Lane]

I see the gripes about Dual Disc posted here and on other message boards, but I really don't get where they stem from (other than the die hard SA-CD fans who are pissed about Sony totally abandoning their own format from the software side).

I see dual disc (those not put out by Sony, who is not supporting Hi-res) as value added DVD-A. If these discs came out on DVD-A, we wouldn't have a non-compliant redbook layer for everyone to gripe about, and just a disc playable in our DVD players. As it is, we get the DVD-A version and a CD which plays on the vast majority of CD players at a very nice price.

Take the recent Rob Thomas release for example (recommended by the way). 24/96 Surround, 24/48 Stereo, Bonus Videos, and a non-compliant CD Layer for $9.99 release week. Anyone who finds a reason to gripe about this package at that price either has sour grapes or a strange format bias affliction which helped caused the doom of DVD-A and SA-CD as standalone formats.

J

 

[Marc Colella]

I see the just released Springsteen and Rob Thomas DualDiscs as the big compatability test.

If we haven't heard an uproar over compatability problems after these 2 releases, then DualDisc has succeeded and will be around a while.

The Rob Thomas disc has sold over 250,000 copies, and other than a few posts at Amazon and a couple forums - it's been pretty quiet so far.

As the format becomes a standard, I think we'll see more optical drive manufacturers ensuring these discs work 100% with their products.

 

[Kevin C Brown]

Justin- Here's my personal problems with DualDiscs:

1) The disc is thicker than what current DVD and CD players are designed for. Absolutely no one knows that the long term effects of playing discs that is thicker *and* heavier than a normal disc will do to the player. Playing a DualDisc once or twice isn't the issue. It's many times over a period of years where the drive motor might fail earlier than if you weren't playing DualDiscs.

2) The CD layer is thinner than Redbook. To compensate, they make the pits larger. This is why the CD layer on a DualDisc is limited to 60 min or so vs a std CD which can be up to 80 min. Stereophile talked to a knowledgable CD hardware guy, and the dude essentially said that because the laser has a more difficult time focussing, the error rate *will* be higher. (And some DVD/CD players can't play that layer at all.) Are those errors audible? Maybe, maybe not. But I personally don't want to take that risk.

The presumption is, that if DualDisc actually does fly, that manufacturers will actually "tweak" future products to be absolutely 100% compatible with their differences vs std CDs and DVDs. That is a good thing. But that is not right now.

3) Sure, Sony is putting out some DualDiscs, possibly instead of SACDs. But instead of a high res DVD-A, we get DVD-V and B.S. like 16/48 or 24/48 tracks that they try to pass off as "high res."

There *are* very technical and valid reasons why some of us don't want to purchase DualDiscs if we don't have to. Not just because we'd rather buy a genuine DVD-A (or an SACD).

 

[Dan Hitchman]

Whomever came up with this DualDisc idea should die a most slow and painful death.

For one, the damn things are not to either DVD or CD specs. so there are all these issues. Philips will not allow classification of the CD layer as a CD because of this. The other is that most DO NOT contain a high resolution track on the DVD side. Also, anything from Sony has no high resolution track whatsoever as they do not support DVD-Audio, yet hardly support SA-CD.

Another problem is play time on both sides. Sometimes this even causes the MLP track on the DVD-Audio side to be condensed in resolution from 24/96 to 24/88.2 or lower.

They are not using these discs to jump start high resolution sound in most instances.

I'd MUCH rather see more high res. sets like the R.E.M. and Mark Knopfler releases that have one regular CD and one regular DVD-Audio, but at more reasonable prices rather than $25! The Beck DVD-Audio bundle was horribly priced!!

Dan

 

[Kevin C Brown]

Yeah, that's the funny part about DualDisc that I still can't figure out. For the most part, I've seen them advertised for the same prices as CD, but yet they are much more expensive to make.

I want to get the NIN disc, but I am tempted to wait a few months to see if they do a double disc version later on.

Or, I'd buy two of them now, keep one (if it plays!), and then return the other and just tell them it wouldn't play. Sort of my protest of the format.

I probably won't even have to (ahem) fib about that. I have two DVD players, 2 PC CD burners, 1 pro CD burner, 1 PC DVD drive, 1 boombox CD player, and 2 portable CD players here. I'd be surprised if the CD layer played in all these...

 

[Justin Lane]

This is a total non-issue, and nothing more than internet fear mongering from the anti-Dual Disc crowd. If you are going to complain about the increased thickness, you should also complain about any double layered discs or discs which have excessive graphics, as that extra paint adds weight and may cause the motor to die earlier.

J

 

[Rich Malloy]

A non-issue? Haven't you noticed how often these discs fail to play in CD players? And, as I understand it, it's the weight/thickness of these discs that most often is the reason for disc failure, though the reduced readability may trip up some players (and merely introduce jitter in others).

I'm surprised that anyone could actually be rooting for this format. Surprised and dejected.

 

[Phil A]

The only way to know the long-term effects is for long-term use to occur. The manuf. of hardware have covered their asses for that reason. They are not willing to take the risk of the costs of hardware failure so I don't see why a consumer should. There are reports of problems with discs on universal players in particular on various forums. It is not surprising since sometimes these players have problems with some discs in a particular format they were designed to play. In general, the more formats something plays, the more room there is for disc reading errors.

Personally I think SACD and DVD-A will be small niche markets on Audiophile labels for a few years. If Sony and Toshiba work out their differences on HD DVD, each of those formats can hold from my understanding up to 8 channels of hi-rez PCM.

People who don't like DualDisc has nothing to do with being die hard SACD fans. It is pretty clear that SACD will never be mainstream. It likely has much more to do with the fact that people who buy expensive equipment don't want to see it messed up. Linn just issued this:

"Linn Components and DualDiscs: A Compatibility Issue

The new DualDisc format is not compliant with the ''Red Book" CD Standard, and may cause a warranty issue with your Linn components. The following is from Linn's website:

Note on DualDisc Compatibility Recently, several titles have been released on the new ''DualDisc'' format. This is a disc format with DVD content on one side and ‘CD’ on the other (see http://www.dualdisc.com for details). The DVD side comprises DVD-Video and/or DVD-Audio content. The ‘CD’ side is designed to play on CD players but is not in fact a CD as it is not compliant with the Compact Disc Digital Audio Specification (the industry ''Red Book'' CD Standard). These discs are also thicker than standard CDs or DVDs.

As these discs are not compliant with current industry standard, Linn cannot guarantee that they will play on our range of disc players and audio servers. Nor can we guarantee that the thickness of DualDiscs will not cause problems for these Linn products – possibly damage to the product and/or the disc – if played. Any damage resulting from the playing of DualDiscs will not be covered by the Linn warranty, so using these discs with a Linn disc player or audio server is entirely at the user’s risk.

(emphasis original)

This info is also listed in the FAQ on Linn's public website."

Someone who buys an $11k Linn universal (or the $7.5k model) that plays CDs, DVD-Vs, DVD-As, and SACDs just plain does not want to mess up their player. Nothing to do with liking or disliking a particular format.

 

[Marc Colella]

I really don't see the big deal.

If you don't like the DualDisc "format", don't buy it. The labels aren't forcing anyone to buy it.

In the end, the consumers will decide with their wallets on the fate of the format.

 

[John Kotches]

Lee:

As an FYI, Stuart Robinson wasn't hired to do DVD-Audio reporting for High Fidelity Review. He owns the website. The SMR Group is his company.

Best,

 

[John Kotches]

Rich Malloy says:


Yes. I have noticed no failures across 12 DualDiscs in 10 players.

These have ranged in price from a $40 walkman type portable to $7K high-end universal players.

Cheers,

 

[Perry Jonkheer]

This might be old news, but my buddy just got the Rob Thomas CD and he said it's a dual sided CD/DVD Audio disc and the sound is superb for the 5.1 track.

 

[Rich Malloy]

But read through this thread (and the others, and the ones over at Stereophile), and you'll find that the failure rate is certainly well above your anecdotal findings of "0".

I jumped into this conversation because Justin suggested that HFR "jump off the anti-dual disc bandwagon" (and he might as well throw in Stereophile, as well). I think it's obvious to anyone that there are problems with this format, not the least of which being the lack of warranty support should one damage your player. Of course, those to whom this is not clear are the mainstream consumers who probably don't think twice about the lack of the "Compact Disc" logo, don't read press releases from the electronics manufacturers, and don't understand that should a non-spec disc damage their player that the warranty will likely be voided. So, rather than trying to shut up the few quiet voices in the wilderness of the audio community, I would hope that the reporters in the WSJ, Washington Post, etc., would bring this to the attention of their readers, the mainstream public.