Audio on physical media (1 Viewer)

[Boaty McBoatface]

I have been trying to research to get an understanding
of the fundamentals of how sound is stored on physical
media such as LPs, cassette, CDs, DVDs and the new HD
DVD formats. I have been searching all over the
Internet and emailing a lot of questions but I still
haven't quite have the answers that I am looking for.
I have thought about what I do understand against what
I am not sure of to come up with some questions that I
hope you can help with.

I understand how lps work and how analog audio is
stored on them so I compare all other media to that
particular format.

Just to make sure that I have the right understanding
my first question will be on the lp.

1. Is the analog audio on the LP the highest
resolution possible?
2.What about cassettes, is there some limitation?
3. The pcm format on Compact discs, there is some
compression there right?
3 Why is the compression schemes light Dolby Digital,
DTS, Dolby TrueHD, and DTS HD needed.

4 What is multichannel Hi resolution pcm and is it
superior or inferior to Dolby True HD/DTS HD?

Thanks for any help given.

Billy Posey

 

[John Garcia]

1) No.

2) Fidelity can be quite good on tape, but being a media that has direct contact with the read device means it suffers from wear and degradation over time, as do LPs.

3) No, it is not compressed like MP3, it is simply a fixed sample rate that is not the highest resolution possible. Extremely high fidelity is still possible with CD - as with all formats, the quality of the master is one of the biggest factors here.

4) I don't get what you are asking? They are needed so that multi channel audio can be put onto DVD and the new HD formats. With the new formats having much higher capacity, the new HD audio formats can be lossless, and thus higher fidelity.

5) Look up LPCM and MLP, and just for kicks, DSD.

 

[Boaty McBoatface]

What I am trying to ask about HI-Res multichannel pcm is in relation to the new Hi def players outputting only multi-channel pcm and waiting for HDMI 1.3 to outout Dolby TRUE HD and DTS HD. I am just wondering what's the difference between the between them. Why is the new Dolby and DTS formats needed?

 

[John Garcia]

Why the other formats? Because that is how those companies make money; those are the products they are selling to consumers and the competition means they will keep moving forward.

 

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

I believe the best possible analog resolution would probably be from the wide multi-track tapes that studios used, that ran at speeds like 15-30 ips.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt