keith_swenson_1

Is DVD-Audio a Dead-End format? In my humble opinion: yes.

I have had by '06 TL for about 3 weeks now, and the sound system is awe inspiring! I really love it. The surround system add amazing depth, and the speakers are well balanced, it sounds like you are there.

Unfortunately, it does not play my mp3 disks. I knew this before I bought it. I have been driving a car with mp3 for about 5 years now, and I love the fact that I can put 11 hours of music on a disk, and it display the artist and title of the song while playing. I keep my CDs safe at home without danger of damaging them. And I download podcasts of my favorite radio shows and listen to them when I am driving.

But the TL does have the ability to play DVD-Audio. Thanks to a lot of people on this forum, I have succeeded in copying a small stack of my CDs to a single DVD-Audio. The sound quality is great, but in the end this format just does not stack up; I believe DVD-Audio is a dead end. Why?

• No song titles are displayed. We can forgive the original CD format designers who, in the days of black vinyl, did not forsee how multiple forms of digital information could be placed together in the stream. But DVD-Audio was invented in the days of DVD. It is unforgivable that they did not forsee that a small amount of metadata stored with the song would be valuable. I guess they did not realize that the "V" in DVD stands for "versatile".
• No song album, artist, year, genre, etc. No way to sort or filter songs according to your mood or whim.
• No compression. While some purists are critical of the lossy compression of an MP3, there are lossless compressions freely available which would give you at least double the playing time on the same media.
• Complex obtuse format instead of simply a set of files. MP3 is so easy because you simply put a set of files on a disk, and the player reads and plays them in order. The special purpose software needed to read and write the format makes it purposefully far more difficult to use. DVD_Audio is not a format designed for listeners, it is a format designed for the music companies.
• No folders, subfolder, and all the convenience you get from a normal file system. It is difficult to organize your content.
• no flexibility. With MP3 you can vary the transfer speed to fit the need. Those high fidelity songs can be accomodated with a high bit-rate, while the comedy from talk-radio can be given a low bit rate to save space. There is some flexibility in the WAV file format, but it is nowhere as complete and easy as MP3.

But wait, what about surround? It turns out there is a new "MP3 Surround" format from the Frauenhofer Institute (the origin of MP3) which provide your 6 channels in a compressed format which is backward compatible and playable on a normal 2 channel MP3 player.

I am not worried about the lossy compression. Sure at home with the $5000 threater system and complete silence I will notice the difference, but on the road with the wind and road noise the difference is hidden. And if I want higher quality I just crank up the bit rate until satisfactory. For example, my MP3 files always sound better than XM radio, and a lot of people (not me) find that fidelity sufficient.

So, I am really hurting. I hear the 2007 model TL will play MP3 format files among other things. Now I am kicking myself for not waiting. I am wondering how much it is going to cost to rip the current head unit out and replace it with the new one, and I wonder if it is compatible at all.

And I am wondering, just wondering: will they have the forsight to put in a decoder for "MP3 Surround"? I am not holding my breath.

-Keith, 2006 TL, Anthricite, Parchment.

count by 5s

The 2007 TL might play mp3s!?! I should've waited too! Just bought my car in May! Hopefully there's a way to upgrade.

datmrman

Seems like someone needs to do a little more browsing and reading...

Check out this thread: Type S Audio, Video, Electronic Upgrades

Adobeman

I don't completely disagree but...
I still can hear a difference between mp3 and commercial DVDA even with mp3s encoded using LAME's "extreme" profile. That is vbr method that produces files that are about 5:1.

Portability, tags, size are all really good benefits of mp3. Having recently gone over to the "dark side" of owning an iPod I can really say that having my music everywhere is the real benefit. So even though the new TL-S will play mp3 disks still think a good mp3 player hookup, like my BlitzSafe, in the car is a better choice. The navigation of the iPod is better than tags showing on a head unit.

I think Acura had a lot of balls putting DVDA into the car. Everyone uses the "road noise" argument as a way to "rationalize" the inferior quality of mp3. If you know what you are listening for you will notice it's not there even with road noise. The TL is pretty quiet and I find road noise tends to mask lower frequencies. It is the higher frequencies that set up a realistic sound field and that's where DVDA shines and mp3 falls.

About compression it is too bad that MLP hasn't shown up in some of the affordable DVD-A tools. And yes, the bit rates don't go that low with DVDA so there is a limit on how much fits on a disc. But about 80 CD quality songs on a disk is OK with me.

It's an argument that ultimately consumers will settle. And they ALWAYS choose quantity over quality. XM and Cable TV are good examples. Their quality sucks but they have lots of content at a reasonable (?) price. Quality is often left to a lesser "boutique" market that either has the money and/or knows the difference.

Besides, (as a frustrated EE that wanted to be in the audio electronics industry in a prior life) I'm having way too much fun writing code and making multi-channel disks for the car.

oblio98

You have to "work harder" to find DVD-A's and/or make your own DVD-A's, but it is well worth it, and can be great fun.

Acura is the LEADER in 5.1 sound. They get great kudo's in my book!

JERU

Cadillac and other companies now offer DVD-Audio in there cars. I think the future of car audio will not be CD/DVD audio discs, but flash media/hard drives/Ipod hookup stuff. You have an excellent point on the fact that overlooking media tags, etc for DVDA is just plain stupid. But like everything else, it is evolving. Look at the new blu-ray disc and like, will not be long before those are used for ridiculous amount of song storage.

6MTPlease

I think the value of DVD-A is a matter of what you're looking for, and the market will decide.

I absolutely love the hi fidelity the format promises and provides as long as the mix is good. In fact, I intend to get a DVD-A compatible player for the house just to listen to all the discs I'm buying for my car. The higher bit rate of DVD-A tracks plus the obvious isolations of sounds in the mix give good recordings a quality of immediacy unmatched by any other format, including SACD. Any thing else that other "formats" are capable of is secondary.

If such a format had emerged when actule fidelity mattered to people, this conversation would be different. However, today's mostly younger music fans seem to have abandoned fidelity for ridiculous, look-at-me, big-boom bass and the storage capacity convenience of mp3's. Anyone who claims that an mp3 sounds as good as a properly mixed DVD-A track either isn't really listening or cares only about volume and bass response--or already has damaged ears from the latter. Just read all the posts saying that the TL's speakers aren't loud enough. For what? They're plently loud for anybody actually IN the car.

Now, while I will never understand the need to share thumping bass with the next car or the entire neighborhood, I do own an iPod and wish OEM integration solutions were better simply for the occasional convenience of taking 20G of music on a road trip--or at least a DVD of mp3's that the head unit can play. However, it's about choice. How do I wish to use the capacity of a DVD? To pack in the tunes? Or to make the tunes sound better? My generation always prefered quality. Ultimately, today's mp3's don't match up.

Unfortunately, the market will likely decide. I think DVD-A will likely go the way of the BETA videotapes of the 80's since the mass market always values low-quality frugality more than the alternatives. But here's to DVD-A! I hope the format survives.

oblio98

Great post, and you are correct on all of your points.

The one thing to remember.........we should not BLAME (the fact that Acura is putting) DVD-A capability (in their cars) for the lack of MP3 or iPod capability in these cars. It is two seperate issues, and Acura is finally addressing this. Please note that they are not REMOVING the DVD-A capability when they add the MP3/iPod stuff.

DVD-A capability is great, and the 5.1 DTS processing is great too. Heck, I wish these units played SACD as well. I love surround in the car!

Just remember that having one does not preclude the ability to have the other. You can complain all you want about what these audio units do not do, but do not blame that on the capabilities that it CAN do.

DMZ

DVD-A may be a dying format, or if not, stay limited. keith_swenson_1's supposition is quite correct. In the 2 1/3 years I've had this car, I've witnessed the selection of DVD-A discs dwindling rather than increasing in places like Best Buy. In fact except for a few, they've been a waste of money. Most of the DVD's I've purchased are remakes/remixes of albums from the 60's and 70's that turned out to have CRAPPY phony sounding remixing jobs where the original 2 channel CD actually sounds better in this car. Santana Abraxas is a prime example of this. The 1st time I played that DVD-A, I felt ripped off and wanted to shove it right up the ass of the engineer who did the remix. Overall from what I've experienced so far, the extra price for these discs has not turned out to be worth the extra $$. The best DVD-A I've heard is the demo disc that came with the car. Whomever remixed those old tunes DID IT RIGHT, and if all remixes were of this quality, I wouldn't be complaining. Nowadays, recording studios are completely setup for surround sound so new albums would probably be OK.

As for the MP3 issue, keith_swenson_1 is 100% dead on. This was already an iPod based world when the 2004 TL was introduced and Acura has no excuse for not giving the 3G TL MP3 capability from the start as so many other cars have had it. Like the turn signal mirror issue, if they could do it on the '05+ RL and the '04+ TSX (the '06 TSX plays MP3 and WMA) .................
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oblio98

The Santana Abraxas is not a DVD-A. It's a DTS CD that was created from the 1970's Quadraphonic 8 track tape master, so the mix is old and from a different time. Listen to a modern DVD-A disc like Dire Straits "Brothers in Arms" and you will hear an excellent surround mix. There are many more. Unfortunately, the early DTS CDs and Silverline DVD-A's are not good examples of great 5.1 mixes, although there are exceptions as with anything.

Again, they should have had AT LEAST MP3 capablilty in the TL's (as they do in the RL) from the get go, but you cannot blame that on DVD-A capability.

2002Dawg

Discs in general are a dead-end format. As flash-based media gets bigger and cheaper, it will replace discs altogether. Case in point - my friend just bought an '06 TSX. He has yet to play a CD in the car because he has his iPod connected to the aux jack.

For me, it's a combination of my iPod and DVD-A discs. Since the portable media world hasn't figured out how to do imaging correctly, I have a need to play DVD-A in the dash, and man does it sound good. Once the devices get to that point, the format will die.

Hi There

I think the DVD-A format will be around for a little while longer, but it's days are numbered.

I like the enhanced portability of mp3's, and I think CD format has a lot of life left in it, but DVD-A is too much of a niche market to survive much longer. I hate to sound like an elitist, but I agree with those in this thread that say that there are too many people out there that just don't care about the high-end audio experience, or have access to the equipment or funds necessary to enjoy it.

In the future, a high bitrate standard like DVD-A may take over and become commonplace, but I wouldn't hold your breath until the storage technology issues are sorted and companies have been satisfied that there is a delivery vehicle available to get their products to consumers. For that to happen, you have to have a system that is affordable and can demonstrate the benefits to the average consumer, and we don't really have that yet. Modern speaker technology can't even keep up with the accuracy of CD's, I don't know if we need higher bitrate per channel. The fact that that delivery vehicle for such future technology will likely have to be portable is a sign of the times. Our children's children will laugh at the size disks we used to load our CD walkman's with, just as I snicker at the idea of a portable record player or my old dual-tape-deck boom box.

As for the Acura's execution of DVD-A, I appreciate a company that at least shows interest in high-end audio, but there are some aspects of their execution I have a problem with.

For example, since those who care about a high-bitrate audio experience are prone to spending money on after-market equipment, why not have convenient RCA out's with robust voltage and compartmentalized, accessable speaker enclosures using popular sizing?

My experience, short though it was, with the Acura's sound system and the demo DVD-A at the dealership wasn't overly disappointing (I'm buying my '06 in two weeks, or an 07 if there are none left) , but I have a few complaints that will be addressed as I tear much of the factory sound out and replace it with aftermarket components. For one, the factory center channel speaker in the dash does very little in general, and doesn't seem to help the staging up front one bit. Vocals seemed to emenate from either the left or the right depending on seating position, none of the vocals were "up front and big" like I like them. Although the 5.1 sound was enveloping, the apparent width of the stage up front left much to be desired, and neither was the timing of the front sound stage, or lack thereof, adequate. I could localize/point at every tweeter/mid in the car with my eyes closed easily. I know there are those listeners who feel that timing speaker output for a certain seating position artificially narrows the soundstage, but I quite prefer this to artificially expanding the soundstage by splitting the apparent center in half, or loosing accurate instrument spatial localization altogether. Those are just the opinions of my ears, however (my wife looks at me like I'm insane when I say I'm replacing most of the equipment). As far as the speakers themselves, I found them adequate at the volume levels I'm comfortable with, but they could be doing with a good dose of lower mid-bass up front, around, I think, the 300 Hz range (don't know if too much of that was being handed over to the factory subs, that would explain a lot)...but I only demo'd with the demo DVD-A, not my favorite CD's. The aforementioned Dire Straits is one of my favorite test CD's, and will be my first DVD-A purchase...it's got big sounding rock and roll, lots going on in the vocal range, lots of string plucks, and bass guitar hits, quiet passages like Ride Across the River, engineered to sound like it's right there, etc. .

DMZ

Quadraphonic 8 track or not, what I purchased is still being officially represented and sold as a DVD-A. And at the end of 1 of the songs, one instrument switches from 1 channel to the next and back and forth as if whomever did the mix was trying to fake out the listener just to get sound out of multiple channels. That's just 1 example of what I meant by a crappy remixing job.

What does DVD-A capability have to do with being able to play playing MP3's?

oblio98

1) DTS Entertainment unfortunately repackaged their original DTS CDs in DVD-A sized jewel cases, and called them DTS MUSIC DISCS. There is no where on the package that states or claims that the disc is a DVD-A or Advanced Resolution, and that, to me, confused quite a few people. In fact, some of those titles were later re-released as "real" DVD-A's, so in the same bin at Best Buy you might find the original DTS CD in the jewel box, the DTS CD marketed in a DVD-A case as a "DTS music disc", and also as a real DVD-A.

Panning a guitar swirl around the listening field was something that was done in the '70s. You had to be there! (Maybe you were!)

As for the second point, most people who complain about the TLs not doing MP3 tend to use the DVD-A ability as "the reason" - as in "Why do we have DVD-A capability when we should have MP3". They are two different issues.

keith_swenson_1

Absolutely right. Acura needed a way to get surround content playable in the car, and they deserve a lot of credit for using the absolutely highest quality format available, which is in line with their commitment to provide a no-compromises awesome sound system. Media formats come, and in most cases go. Anyone remember 'L-casette'? How about laser disks? 8-track tapes? And the war between beta and VHS? Consumers certainly settled that one.

So I am not criticizing Acura, but the music industry for not offering something better. I will be quite cautious about going and acquiring a large collection of DVD-As because I believe something better will come along and offer us consumers what we want. But who know what that will be?

By the way, I am quite impressed by your project to make a GUI for making it easier for people to put together DVD-Audio disks. Very nice. Great work.

keith_swenson_1

As multiple posts have pointed out: MP3 is a separate issue. Current MP3 format only does stereo. We need something that carries 5.1 channels. "MP3 surround" might be such a format, but it is too early to tell if this will be the one.

Another interesting post. One car I test drove while deciding on the TL (I don't member the brand but it might have been Audi) had two SD-memory card ports which were exposed when the CD door opened. It read the cards directly, and played the MP3/WMA songs directly from the memory. This is a great idea because there are no moving parts -- nothing to break. The price of this memory is going down, soon cards with storage capacity equivalent to a DVD will be readily available. But for the memory cards to work, we need a "file" format that carries 5.1 channels. Like 6 channel WAV, but with the meta-data convenience of MP3.

kenny5

If commercially made DVD-A discs cost the same as (or a fraction more than) CDs, I believe there will be a much greater demand. Currently, they cost two times more than CDs. It is undisputable that DVD-A sound quality is MUCH better than CD, and if the price comes down, I see a bright future for the better format.

thisguymo

DualDiscs have DVD-Audio on one side and CD audio on another. With support from some of the major record companies dvd-audio is not dead! New titles are being released as we speak!! Do a search at bestbuy for DualDisc and see for yourself.

Adobeman

FYI- you need to be really careful when considering DualDiscs. Some have SACD, not DVD-A on the non-CD side. Others have DVD-V (i think) as well.

The labeling is not always clear and many will only work on the CD side in the TL. At one time there was a post around here that discussed which DualDiscs worked in the TL and which did not. Search around and you will find it.

There were also some reports that DualDisc was a slightly different physical form factor from standard CDs and DVDs. Very slightly thicker but different enough that some players were jamming with them. It's supposedly a small risk but it is documented in many areas

Check this out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DualDisc. As always, remember the Wikipedia is not the end-all be-all but just once of many references.

enormus

I have had very mixed results with DualDisc. I have found that any disc that says "NTSC" anywhere on the label -- indicating it has video -- will not play in the TL. It seems to me that for most people, the value in the DVD side is for them playing the video back on their DVD player (unlike us lucky people driving TLs). However, I now work around this by ripping the tracks with DVD Audio Extractor and burning back to DVD-A either with the Adobeman GUI or Cirlinca DVD Audio Solo (depending on whether I use stereo or surround, respectively).

Adobeman, no chance your scripts are going to support multichannel WAV files down the road, I suppose?

Adobeman

Sounds like those are DVD-V with DD5.1 encoding. I can understand why they do that since it allows the masses to play them on their home DVD-V players and get multichannel out. If they insist on the DVD-V layer I'd prefer DTS since it usually performs better for music. Back in '98 I was considered an early adopter for having a fully DTS compatible HT. But now I can't think of any HT stuff that won't decode DTS. Otherwise screw the video stuff and use a DVD-A compliant layer. And then there is SACD which really has problems playing on ANYTHING other than an SACD device.

Probably little chance. The open source execuatable I use to do the "heavy lifting" of encoding seems to have withered with respect to multichannel. Plus Cirlinca's program does a really good job for the price. If Cirlinca could just get their activation code to not be so damn picky about machine changes then I'd feel better. I've had to ask many times for a new activaiton code from them even though I know I didn't change any hardware. They claim their version 1.1 is better at it. We shall see. If they go down and the activation screws up again then there is really nothing near it for the price. Ulead is overpriced and typically buggy.

LarsDee

Adobeman --- Thanks so much for putting together the GUI. I burned last night and played this morning. Woohoo! Used CompUSA 4x DVDs (on sale last weekend 50 for $7.99) and Roxio's Drag-to-Disc feature). Worked like a charm.

xcelir8TL

Let's just put it this way - we are lucky to have included and the ability to play so many different types of formats in a single vehicle albeit built in or add-on versus rip and replace.

oblio98

In the last few months, surround DVD-A's from Pete Townshend, the Flaming Lips, The Beatles, David Crosby, a six DVD-A set from the Doors, the soundtrack to Lord of the Rings Two Towers, and a double DVD-A set from the Barenaked Ladies have come out.

There is still activity in the DVD-Audio format. Let's hope there are more to come.

Gator5000e

The Beatles Love package which includes a DVD-A is incredible. Awesome sound on these 60's recordings, plus the new mixes make it sound like you are listening to these tracks again for the first time. Definitely a 5-star collection. Just wish they would include DVD-A text so we could see the name of the disc in the main Disc screen.

The Two Towers is also a fantastic DVD-A disc. Right up there with the FOTR. This disc is an audio/5.1 spectacle for your ears. Also 5 stars if you like this music (The trilogy is the greatest complete movie soundtrack in the history of the movies, IMHO). These 2 discs are sonic delights for the the Acura sound system.

klkitts

I got the Beatles Love for Xmas, and though I'm not a big fan of mash up stuff the production quality was obviously carefully planned.

Another DVD-A I really like is the Deep Purple "Machine Head" release. Although it is not as good as newer 5.1 DVD-A discs, it amazes me the quality and depth that they can get out of these old recordings - I don't know - maybe the original was a 4 track or something. It's too bad that a lot of the old stuff re-released is not that great - because with extra effort it's possible to hear qualities in the re-release of old music that you never heard before. I find that to be really cool.

Kevin