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 Post subject: We need a HDCD subforum
PostPosted: 16 Nov 2016, 04:33 
Young Padawan
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Some of my HDCDs below. There is about 5000 titles released worldwide. Of course they aren't well catalogued.

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It's not a well known format and usually advertised as regular CDs. They are difficult to spot. You need to look for the HDCD logo.

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Of course some titles don't have the HDCD logo although they are HDCD encoded(Bee Gees - Still Waters album for instance)

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Currently the technology is owned by Microsoft and just like anything they acquired they made it obsolete( see Nokia!). I don't believe there are any new releases and most new CD players don't include the necessary decoders. They are backwards compatible so any CD player can read them but in regular CD resolution only.

If you have a CD player with the appropriate HDCD decoder, it can extract true 20 bit 44.1kHz sound. They rival SACDs in quality. Even in regular CD players they sound amazing.

You can use dbpoweramp program to rip them in 24bit Lossless Flac files (only the lower 20bit used).

Below link has a good enough list of all releases.
near complete list


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 Post subject: Re: We need a HDCD subforum
PostPosted: 16 Nov 2016, 04:47 
Young Padawan
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My Oppo BDP-105 has this HDCD decoder built in. Most of the mid to high end universal player of early to mid 2000s have it as well. Last few years it being neglected.

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 Post subject: Re: We need a HDCD subforum
PostPosted: 16 Nov 2016, 04:58 
Young Padawan
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Here is my current downgraded setup. I listen to more music than movies now. As you can see, two channel only.

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 Post subject: Re: We need a HDCD subforum
PostPosted: 16 Nov 2016, 05:33 
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Good 2ch is far superior than sub-par 5.1ch for movies. Personally, I like my Ino piP so much that I bought myself another couple for my bedroom.
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 Post subject: Re: We need a HDCD subforum
PostPosted: 17 Nov 2016, 22:44 
Young Padawan
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I only have two:

City of Angels Soundtrack
Faith No More - Who Cares a Lot? Greatest Hits

Other than computers with Windows Media Player, I have no equipment with which to play them back properly.

As outlined in this thread . . .

HDCD

. . . the Skyworth 1050D DVD player that I have was supposed to have the capability, but it won't read the HDCD discs anymore.
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 Post subject: Re: We need a HDCD subforum
PostPosted: 19 Nov 2016, 15:23 
Young Padawan
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elahrairrah wrote:
I only have two:

City of Angels Soundtrack
Faith No More - Who Cares a Lot? Greatest Hits

Other than computers with Windows Media Player, I have no equipment with which to play them back properly.

As outlined in this thread . . .

HDCD

. . . the Skyworth 1050D DVD player that I have was supposed to have the capability, but it won't read the HDCD discs anymore.


Oppo dv-970 and dv-980 are excellent universal players. They will read anything you throw at them. For that they are highly regarder as transports. The build quality is not to your standards, not like 90s Pioneer Elite but it's a sub $100 player.
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 Post subject: Re: We need a HDCD subforum
PostPosted: 19 Nov 2016, 15:32 
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I read some technical data on HDCD. So it is technically 16 bit stream. It uses gain control and gain cues in the least significant bit. The decoder reads these cues and adjust the gain. For instance, in quieter passages in a typical CD, only the first few bits of tbe 16 bit CD are used to due to low gain levels. HDCD boost gain in the instances and move that low level signal up therefore uses more of the bits of the total 16 bits are used. HDCD decoder knows where these gains occur from the cues and reverses the gain at the output to compensate. You get a few extra bits but still linear output. HDCD claims the boost is 4 extra bits. This obviously works best for classical music which the range is so wide and a lot of quiet passages and peaks.

HDCD decoder also uses different low pass filters according to the cues which are inserted in the stream at the studio. So it uses a more soothing filter for high energy passages and more linear for quieter passages. This gives the effect of much higher than 44.1khz sampling.

Very smart indeed!!
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 Post subject: Re: We need a HDCD subforum
PostPosted: 21 Nov 2016, 17:48 
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There are tons of Chinese HDCD releases however they are all FAKE and bootlegs. They just carry the HDCD logo in order to fool the buyer.

I used to have a Panasonic DVD player I bought in China back in 2004 that had HDCD support.

I have the following French CD with music by the great John Carpenter:

https://www.amazon.fr/Directors-Cuts-Ca ... r+director

Even though the CD does not carry the HDCD logo the Panasonic DVD player I bought would show the HDCD logo on its front display but not with all songs !
Some of the songs appeared to be HDCD encoded and some not. This CD sounds really great !

I also have the following HDCD release: https://www.amazon.com/Steven-Spielberg ... B0000CDCU6

I have never been able to create those 24 bit FLAC files using dbpoweramp for some reason.
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 Post subject: Re: We need a HDCD subforum
PostPosted: 21 Nov 2016, 19:12 
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It feels a lot like a digital version of CX to me :)
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 Post subject: Re: We need a HDCD subforum
PostPosted: 22 Nov 2016, 05:41 
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Is the 5K estimation based on Discogs HDCD search?

https://www.discogs.com/search/?q=hdcd&type=all

The first time I noticed HDCD is when my CD Player (Denon) had a HDCD logo lit up when I played a Ryuichi Kawamura (Luna Sea lead singer) solo album CD I bought at Narita Airport, on the way back from Japan:

Ryuichi Kawamura - 深愛 ~Only One~

Turns out there was a standard and a HDCD release and I picked the HDCD one randomly.

Checking the rest of my collection, I only found few more, mostly King Crimson Japanese remasters:

King Crimson ‎– The ConstruKction Of Light
King Crimson ‎– THRAK
King Crimson ‎– Three Of A Perfect Pair
King Crimson ‎– Red

and

Dire Straits ‎– Brothers In Arms
Mark Knopfler ‎– Wag The Dog

You can't really search any serious online shop or music database to filter by HDCD mastering, it's really a needle in a haystack.

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 Post subject: Re: We need a HDCD subforum
PostPosted: 22 Nov 2016, 16:10 
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admin wrote:
Is the 5K estimation based on Discogs HDCD search?

https://www.discogs.com/search/?q=hdcd&type=all



No, it is not realistic. This, for example, is a Chinese HDCD "release":

https://www.discogs.com/de/Prodigy-Musi ... se/6747960

Kind of reminds of all the Chinese bootlegs that have the Blu Ray logo on them when in fact they are only crappy
single layer DVD editions.

EDIT: Just check out the screenshots here: https://www.discogs.com/de/Ace-Of-Base- ... se/6641435

It reads: "all rights of minufac tuner and of the owner of recorded workreserve dunavuthorized..." -> Bootleg.
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