DVD-A vs DAD (1 Viewer)

[Mike Broadman]

Folks, I was curious as to what the technical difference is between DVD-A and DAD. Correct me if I'm wrong, but are they not both PCM 24/96? What does DVD-A do that regular DVD sound does not? Thanks.

NP: King Crimson, Moles Club, Bath, CD

 

[Kevin P]

DVD-A uses Meridian Lossless Packing (MLP) encoding to provide up to 192kb/24bit PCM quality multi-channel audio.

DAD provides up to 96/24 PCM, I believe 2 channel only.

DVD-A provides higher quality multi-channel audio but only plays on DVD-A compatible players (although many discs sport PCM, Dolby Digital or DTS tracks for compatibility with standard DVD-Video players), where DAD discs should play in most/all DVD players since they just use a standard PCM track.

KJP

 

[Mike Broadman]

Thanks Kevin.

Can anyone throw me a link that goes into some more detail?

 

[Craig F]

I don’t have a link handy that describes DAD, but here is some more elaboration.
DAD is not really a format. The DVD-Video spec allows for 2 channel PCM at 96kHz/24-bit. DAD is just a DVD-Video that utilizes this.
On the other hand DVD-Audio IS a format and has a different spec. DVD-Audio allows the following sample rates (kHz) 44.1, 48, 88.2, 96, 176.4, 192 at bit depths of 16, 20, 24. The 2 highest sample rates are limited to 2 channel stereo. The lower sample rates allow up to 6 full range channels. As previously noted, DVD-Audio can use MLP compression which is a lossless compression unlike DD and DTS.
For more info on DVD-Audio:
Link Removed