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DVD-A question

I'm relatively new to DVD-A. I love the sound, but don't like the format itself, for various reasons:

1) You need a TV to play the disc. There is no TV in my music room (and never will be!), so SACD/CD/Vinyl rules there. Is there a DVD-A player out there that can be EASILY used without having to use the onscreen menus to select between 2CH/MCH, etc.?

2) Some DVD-A discs play a little snippet of music over and over again until you've done your setup and hit PLAY. For instance, I have "Monster" by R.E.M., and it plays about 30 seconds of "What's The Frequency, Kenneth" over and over until you stop it. It does this before you do your setup, AND after the disc ends. This is one of the most annoying things I've ever encountered. Is there a player out there that can essentially disable this "feature".

3) Where SACD has a discrete Stereo layer and a Multichannel layer, does DVD-A also have this? I've been reading a little bit, and it sounds to me like DVD-A in stereo is actually a mix-down of the multichannel information. Is this true? Is this something to be concerned with? Especially when choosing a DVD-A player?

I currently have a junky Toshiba player, and am thinking about getting a better DVD-A player. Or should I just keep my Toshiba because DVD-A is dead?

Thanks in advance.

Tom
tfkaudio

Showing 1 response by prochk3

prochk3
5 posts
 
#1 - depends on the player
#2 - As above
#3 - depends on the disk - some have both DVDA multi channel and DVDA stereo (both in various combinations of resolution and frequency) All disks usually have a DD5.1 layer that will play on an ordinary DVD player and a prologic layer for 2 channel digital out. Some also include DTS5.1

My biggest irritant with this format is the fact that there doesn't seem to be any standard for the players or the disks - you get silverline releases which are no higher quality than DTS and rhino which are higher resolution more to the DVDA standard. More video and track type options with DVDA though - which could be viewed as a good thing by some. Get a good combo player and you will be safe (for a while anyway) As far as releases go - I'm in to rock/pop and SACD seems to be ahead in new and upcoming releases these days
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