From: tommy@macpost.vanderbilt.edu (Tommy Williams)
Newsgroups: rec.audio.pro
Subject: Re: MD vs. DCC: What does the group think?
Date: 4 Nov 92 16:19:27 GMT
Article-I.D.: 129.tommy-041192101118
Followup-To: rec.audio.pro
Organization: Vanderbilt School of Medicine

In article <1992Nov3.164554.25269@viewlogic.com>,
bobdavis@mighty.viewlogic.com (Bob Davis) wrote:
> 
> 
> The whole direction of these formats makes me sick -- taking consumers
> who lack the good sense to reject them to the bank for their ignorance.
> If consumers do catch on, I fear the consequences in terms of overall
> sound quality of recordings and other future formats, and in terms of
> setting the audiences expectations low (that is, lower).  I hope these
> formats both die quick deaths.

Unfortunately, I don't believe they will die quickly. They've got a lot of
software support, plus for the first time they bring digital recording to
the consumers (we know the cost of blank media will go down quickly). The
recording industry loves it because consumers who copy CDs are not getting
the same quality. Sony at least admits that MD is **not** as good as CD,
claiming they intend MD for portable applications (Walkmen, autos, etc.)
where the ambient noise level will be higher. Phillips claims DCC sounds as
good as CD, though most things I've read indicate otherwise.

> The promising directions I'd like to see are
>   1. Delivering better increased quality to the consumer
>   2. More descrete channels (i.e. for film soundtracks)
>   3. Quality in a conventient package to replace cassette
> 
> In 1., let's start with a few more bits, like say 20, and some more
> affordable consumer converters that actually deliver these (or even 16!)
> to end users with good sonics.  Things have been getting better in
> terms of the sound of better CD players lately.

Sony's new Multi-Bit Sampling (that's not the right name, but it's a
3-letter acronym with M, B, and S in it) can supposedly achieve close to
20-bit resolution on standard CD players. It's all in the encoding. There's
a good article about it in the latest issue of _Stereophile_ I'm glad to
see someone trying to improve CD, because I'm afraid that these new formats
might send CDs the way of vinyl -- in a few years we'll only be able to
find them at esoteric collectible shops.

> Then how's about a sampling rate which puts the Nyquist frequency
> where we can avoid the incredible engineering feats currently
> required to get response to 20khz.  Generally, simpler filters sound
> considerably better, and only a little higher frequency would be
> sufficient for big gains.  3/2 * CD sample rate or something else
> easy to convert to/from.
> 
> The developments from Sony and some others to take high res digital
> recordings down to the current CD format is a move in the right
> direction.

Whoops. I put my 2 cents about Sony's new stuff in too early.

> And how about some nearly or actually lossless compression approaches
> to combat the bit-mizers for the short term?  In the long term, storage
> is not as big an issue as people think -- remember your 5M hard disk?
> How bout yer floppy disk system?

I've also read about something that AT&T is working on that provides a far
higher data density on polycarbonate discs than the current
eight-to-fourteen modulation and pits and lands on CDs. This would provide
a lot of data without compression. Unfortunately, their algorithms (or
present hardware) are not yet fast enough to permit real-time playback.

--Tommy Williams        tommy@macpost.vanderbilt.edu

  The Virgil Project
  Vanderbilt University School of Medicine
  (615) 343-0343
Newsgroups: rec.audio.pro