I've been finding a few remixed/remastered albums with 24-bit/96khz audio on them, but they are not actually DVD-Audio discs.

I have The Moody Blues' Days of Future Passed that says 5.1 surround and 24/96 on the DVD. However, the DVD-Audio logo is not on the disc or case anywhere.



When I tried to rip it like a DVD-Audio disc, there was no information in the AUDIO_TS folder.

Now, I just recently ordered Hootie and the Blowfish Cracked Rear View 25th Anniversary Edition (damn I'm getting old), and it too says it has 5.1 surround and 24/96 Stereo Tracks, but also says on the case "Linear PCM"



Keep in mind that this is NOT the DVD-Audio release of the same album from back in 2001.

LPCM has always been a capability of DVD-Video (as I have a few music video DVDs that have LPCM sound), but has 24/96 LPCM always been a capability of the format that is rarely utilized? I do remember my first DVD player, the DVL-919 did have a front display message about 96 khz audio:



Does anyone else have any 24/96khz DVD-Video discs?

I wonder what the bitrate is on these tracks? The MLP tracks on some of my DVD-Audio discs went has high as 3 Mbps. Is the max on DVD-Video LPCM 1536 Kbps?

PS: I realize the 5.1 surround on these discs is your standard compressed Dolby Digital. I'm more concerned with the stereo tracks.

Well here's the answer about the bitrate. I used MediaCoder to try to rip the audio from the Days of Future Passed DVD and the analysis of the track gave me this:



4.6 Mbps!

It has been quite a while since I've stared at Scenarist or DVD-Audio Creator all day so my math is fuzzy at best....

However, DVD-V could support 96k/16bit (maybe 20bit) files in Sonic (Daiken) Scenarist. So you could bit budget a file that had up to 6 channels at 96/16 as long as it was less than 9.2 or 9.8 Mbps. The spec allowed 24 bit files but Scenarist didn't. *EDIT: Scenarist Pro allowed 24 bit files.* You might have needed to use DVD Creator on a MacOS 9 machine or Panasonic's proprietary Windows-based authoring system (MEI) to do that and even then I doubt it would be under the throughput limit.

This is an excerpt from page 47 of....

Publishing in the Age of DVD: A Primer for Creating Content for DVD by Mark Ely and Dave Block
2nd edition Copyright 1997-1998 Sonic Solutions

PCM Capture



This primer was written for Sonic DVD Creator on the Mac OS platform (as shown in the screen images). There is no mention of Scenarist as it had not yet been acquired from Daiken.

While DVD Creator could be used to author DVD-Audio discs, and it was, this information relates specifically to the DVD-Video format/specification.

Shame not too many distributors took advantage of this capability. We've had better than CD quality digital sound in our homes since 1997 but hardly anyone gave us any software to take advantage of it!!!

One wonders though why with some DVD-Audio releases, they gave us 24-bit/96khz 2-channel stereo tracks with Meridian Lossless Packing? Why not just go with LPCM and save MLP for the 24-bit/192khz 2-channel or the 24/96khz 5.1 audio?

My guess would be that there was additional content like a video zone or a 5.1 mix, or just the run time being long requiring the overall size of the disc to be taken into account. Otherwise, there could be licensing requirements. I know that with DVD-V the disc is required to have Dolby Digital or PCM audio, MPEG-2 Audio was optional. AC-3 was a licensing fee but PCM took up more disc space...and no one liked MPEG-2 Audio.

I agree that there should have been more straight up 192/24 or 96/24 Stereo PCM releases. However, that seems to be more of an SACD thing - high res stereo with a CD layer for legacy. DVD-Audio was more surround and video focused IMO. Video chews up a lot of space and often there were multiple flavors of audio available (MLP, PCM, DTS, AC-3, etc) or even separate mixes (stage vs. audience perspective). None of that was really a selling point for SACD which was marketed to "audiophiles" where as DVD-A was a more consumer/entertainment/home theatre oriented despite it being as good, if not better than, SACD fidelity. MLP encoded 192/24 sounds pretty good next to any SACD I've ever listened to. I'd wager 192/24 PCM would beat an SACD of the same material on the same system.

Usually the video content on the DVD-Audio releases I have is amazingly limited. Like a still image or a few at best.

I think only Stone Temple Pilots - Core has a single music video on the DVD-Audio release.

Of course, this was early on in DVD-Audio's life (like the 2nd DVD-Audio release in the US ever!) so they were probably going with MLP as it was new and shiny (plus 192khz.)

As far as comparing 24/192khz DVD-A to SACD, I did that with Chicago II as you might have seen, and found the DVD-A to be superior. Even some friends and family members think so too (despite thinking the SACD was going to be better going in.)

Well, here's at least one DVD-Audio release I've been able to find that has LPCM 24/96 stereo, but MLP 24/96 5.1 Surround . . .





Also cool that the DVD-Video compatible 5.1 surround track is DTS--if it is full bitrate DTS that is!

Queen - A Night at The Opera has the Bohemian Rhapsody MV. Beck - Sea Change also has a video I think.


Cool! Yeah my Chicago I has 192/24 which is nice. SACDs just sound harsh to me. Hyped. DVD-A just sounds like a well mastered CD with more dynamic range and fidelity. Smooth.

LZ - How The West Was Won has a 48k/24bit Stereo PCM track fro the DVD-V Zone.

Good catch on that Megadeath disc. Seems odd for that sort of music to be concerned with sound quality though...

If you're looking for the absolute best demonstration of the format look for both samplers from AIX records. They are feature packed with MLP, DTS, and video with multiple angles. Smaller independent artists who are recorded with surround mixing in mind by the guy that runs AIX. He was my college professor and the reason I am into DVD-A at all.




There is also a Panasonic/Technics Promo disc with mostly PCM tracks, even surround except the 96/20/5ch.


Enjoy