(Mis)Uses of Technology

(Mis)Uses of Technology

by Michael Ho




The Holy Grail of Home Entertainment?

from the opposite-of-bleeding-edge-technology dept

If you've ever had a burning desire for surround sound for your CD collection, you may have to wait a little longer for a convenient technological solution. An attempt to create a hybrid DVD-CD format has been dubbed a failure. That's really too bad. But this seems even less desirable to me than HDTV. Does anyone really listen for surround sound music?

4 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
 

Reader Comments

(Flattened / Threaded)

    Apr 1st, 2003 @ 8:01am
  • These hybrids aren't that new

    by Oliver Wendell Jones

    The story is new, but I remember a couple of years back when I rented The Blair Witch Project 2 that it was a dual sided CD/DVD disc.

    The movie sucked so bad I never bothered to check out the CD side or any of the DVD special features.

    Maybe that's why the hybrid was a failure? They used crappy movies...

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  • Apr 1st, 2003 @ 8:36am
  • Multi-format

    by Doug

    Does anyone really listen for surround sound music?
    Yeah, some people do. This in spite of the problem with outputs: the current digital output standards (coax and optical) were designed for 2-channel 44 KHz CD-quality stereo. They're unable to handle the high datarates of DVD-A and SACD, so those formats require that the player have built-in surround decoders and built-in DACs, and the audio output is an octopus-load of RCA jacks.

    In addition to which, if your sound system doesn't have full-range speakers all the way around, you need bass management to redirect the bass from the limited speakers to the subwoofer. Most players don't have that built-in, so you need to buy an external bass management box (and more cables). Sometimes it's cheaper just to upgrade your speaker system.

    Back to the multi-format DVD/CD: I don't think they thought the idea through. People without DVD players wouldn't care that it was DVD-capable, and people with DVD players can already play both DVDs and CDs. Besides, it seems inevitable that DVD mechanisms will start being used in CD players, at which point the combined format is obsolescent. This might've been a reasonable idea in the early days of DVD, but today it has limited potential.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  • Apr 1st, 2003 @ 12:19pm
  • Surround sound music

    by LittleW0lf

    I'd love surround sound music...I even bought some Quadraphonic albums once because I thought they sounded better. To be in the center of the music, with different sounds coming from each speaker of my 5.1 system, that would be awesome.

    However, I don't understand the situation, we aren't talking DVD-A here (which I own a couple, and despite the fact I cannot put them on my MP3 Jukebox, they do get played occasionally,) but the ability to play a DVD-CD on either a CD Player or a DVD Player. I am not sure why this would even be attempted, as I have no problem what-so-ever playing CDs on a DVD Player, and CD Players are for installing the operating system, not for playing music/video. Seems like a solution without a problem if you ask me, and one that has died because there is no problem.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  • Apr 2nd, 2003 @ 8:01am
  • I always love to listen to surround sound music!

    by thecaptain

    Its called "going to a concert"

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

Add Your Comment

Have a Techdirt Account? Sign in now.
Get Techdirt’s Daily Email
Plain Text HTML
Save me a cookie
  • Plain Text: A CRLF will be replaced by break <br> tag, all other allowable HTML is intact
  • HTML: No formatting of any kind is done without explicitly being written in
  • Allowed HTML Tags: <b> <i> <p> <a> <em> <br> <strong> <blockquote> <hr> <tt>
Close
Have a Techdirt Account? Sign in now.
Get Techdirt’s Daily Email
Plain Text HTML Save me a cookie

Search Techdirt
And now, a word from our Sponsors..



Subscribe to Techdirt's Daily Email Newsletter

Techdirt's Daily Email Newsletter

Related Stories
Close
E-mail It