Thread: PLAY SACD ON PC???

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Post by Dan Popp January 20, 2004 (11 of 18)
raymod said:

For some reaxson, I can't even play it as CD-Audio on my PC-DVD ROM. It just isn't recognized. It also doesn't play on my Pioneer XR-A670 mini system, nor any of my friends. The only systems I've seen it play on are my parents 5.1 system at home, as CD-Audio...

This is really frustrating that I bought this CD, and can't use it on any eqiupment I own. Not only that - I can't return it because noone accepts CD returns anymore...

raymod

Raymod,
It's understandable (at this stage of development) that a device designed to read the upper "blue laser" layer of a DVD might have trouble if it sees that data, but in an unreadable format. As Zeus' post #5 suggested, the player looks for the high-wavelength data, sees it, but can't read it. If it didn't see that data, it would go its next logic step and look for a CD layer.

I'm sorry about your frustration, but this is a limitation of the device on which you're trying to play the disc - not of the disc itself. Just as I hope that SACD won't forever be seen as an "audiophile" format, I also hope that the manufacturers and record companies don't assume that you're using a PC as an audio player.

Post by xgadlp January 23, 2004 (12 of 18)
SACD's aren't played with blue lasers. Like DVD's, they use red lasers, whereas CD's use infra-red. SACD's are basically DVD discs with a different kind of data format that isn't understood by either DVD-Audio or DVD-Video players (not to mention the fact that they use DSD rather than PCM).

In any case, whether or not the CD portion of hybrid CD/SACD discs can be played on a DVD drive is a firmware issue rather than a laser issue. If the drive looks for CD information first, you're OK, because it'll find it. If on the other hand it looks for DVD information first, you've got a problem because at that point it will stop and deal with the disc as a DVD-Video disc, which it isn't.

As somebody pointed out earlier in this thread, the new multimedia standard should address these issues, and the actual SACD decoding can be done by third party software or hardware, much like DVD-Audio is playable with the high-end Soundblaster Audigy2 cards.

Darin

Post by Dan Popp January 23, 2004 (13 of 18)
xgadlp said:

SACD's aren't played with blue lasers. Like DVD's, they use red lasers, whereas CD's use infra-red. SACD's are basically DVD discs with a different kind of data format that isn't understood by either DVD-Audio or DVD-Video players (not to mention the fact that they use DSD rather than PCM).

In any case, whether or not the CD portion of hybrid CD/SACD discs can be played on a DVD drive is a firmware issue rather than a laser issue. If the drive looks for CD information first, you're OK, because it'll find it. If on the other hand it looks for DVD information first, you've got a problem because at that point it will stop and deal with the disc as a DVD-Video disc, which it isn't.

As somebody pointed out earlier in this thread, the new multimedia standard should address these issues, and the actual SACD decoding can be done by third party software or hardware, much like DVD-Audio is playable with the high-end Soundblaster Audigy2 cards.

Darin

Darin,
Thanks for the clarification. There was some talk a few years ago about sapphire lasers connected with double- and quadruple-density CDs. I wasn't making the assumption that this was how things turned out, but I thought the mental picture was helpful even if the details were inaccurate. I wasn't trying to give a technical description or imply that the laser is the problem. Obviously it's a logic problem, or as you say, a "firmware" problem. The poor guy's player can see the data in the disc; it just doesn't know what to do with it.

Post by xgadlp January 26, 2004 (14 of 18)
Right -- see the issue here is that there's a lot stuff the drive is programmed to do on its own that the computer it's installed in has no control over. And one of those things is just the supposedly simple act of mounting and recognizing what kind of disc has been put in the drive. The firmware of a drive (burned-in software) is in charge of these sorts of things.

DVD drives are much more complicated than CD drives in this regard. It's the manufacturer's choice, really, to decide whether their drive will try to detect if a CD has been inserted, before it tries to detect if a DVD has been inserted.

With a dual-layer SACD, the best thing for the drive to do is to check for a CD, obviously, because if it does this, it will see the CD layer and be done. Drives with new firmware will have to be released that check for SACD discs as well.

Post by Galley February 5, 2004 (15 of 18)
The standard audio layer of all hybrid discs will play in all CD-ROM drives. They will not play in DVD-ROMs or DVD-RW drives. They MAY play in CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drives. I used to have a sony laptop with a combo drive and it read hybrids just fine. I have seen reports with other combo drive saying that hybrids can't be read. My eMachines T2865 has a DVD-RW and a CD-ROM. Yeah the only reason I keep the CD-ROM is the rip hybrids SACDs to MP3.

Post by David_fram February 5, 2004 (16 of 18)
I don't think there are any on the market at the moment but did I hear at one stage that they where going to make SACD drives for computers. I assume they would use this encrypted Firewire/1394(b?)/i-link (or whatever they're calling it now) as they plan use as a digital transport for the seperate players eventually. Just stuff I read in passing at some stage, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. Don't know where it was hough, sorry.

Post by samtherobot December 6, 2004 (17 of 18)
Another issue to look at the technology that makes SACD unique.

CD is based on a digital sampling method called PCM (Pulse Code Modulation). It takes a 16-bit snapshot 44,100 times a second. DVD-Audio has created more options with the ability to do 24-bit samples up to 192,000 times a second.

SACD is based on a completely new technology called DSD (Direct Stream Digital). This uses a 1-bit sample taken 2,400,000 (roughly) times a second.

So at the very basic level of sound card technology, DSD is not even supported. It has only now begun to penetrate the high end recording studios. Even DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations) such as Pro Tools cannot yet record DSD material.

From a production point of view, at this point SACD is really best suited for re-releasing older analog recordings (or new analog recordings for that matter). Pro Tools can record at high res (192kHz) and then convert to SACD in the mastering stage but you lose many of the quality benefits when doing it this way.

All that said, the first thing we need standard in all computers to play SACDs is for the sound cards to support DSD. I believe that is part of the new Azelia standard others are talking about. Once that becomes standard on PCs, then we will begin to see the ability to play SACDs on the computer.

Post by Sam December 6, 2004 (18 of 18)
samtherobot said:

All that said, the first thing we need standard in all computers to play SACDs is for the sound cards to support DSD. I believe that is part of the new Azelia standard others are talking about. Once that becomes standard on PCs, then we will begin to see the ability to play SACDs on the computer.

Sorry, this is not going to happen. Sony quite deliberately made SACD unreadable on DVD-ROM drives. Since there is no source of DSD, there is no point in including it in soundcards.

This isn't really so bad, since SACDs include a CD layer which can be played/stored on a computer.

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