Can Ambisonics make use of DVD?
A consortium has announced a Digital Versatile Disc format which can contain between 6 and 22 times as much data as the current audio CD format. (The higher figure is for a double-sided double-layered disc.) The proposal for an audio-only version of DVD, called High-Quality Audio Disc, has been released by the Acoustic Renaissance for Audio. The proposal, which is available on the ARA Web page, is for: • Full 3-D surround sound with up to six channels as well as a separate (conventional) two-channel feed. • Sampling at either 48 kHz or 96 kHz. • Up to 24 bits of precision. (Normally 20 bits would be used with 48 kHz sampling and 16 bits with 96 kHz.) • The use of lossless compression, termed “packing”. • A trade-off, decided upon by the record producer, between precision, frequency bandwidth, number of channels and playing time. To carry Ambisonic Surround Sound the proposal suggests encoding the W, X, Y and Z signals onto the DVD as a set of five feeds for speakers arranged in a regul
A consortium has announced a Digital Versatile Disc format which can contain between 7 and 25 times as much data as the current audio CD format. (The higher figure is for a double-sided double-layered disc.) The proposal for an audio-only version of DVD, called High-Quality Audio Disc, has been released by the Acoustic Renaissance for Audio. The proposal, which is available on the ARA WWW page at http://www.meridian-audio.com/ara/, is for: • Full 3-D surround sound with up to six channels as well as a separate (conventional) two-channel feed. • Sampling at either 48 kHz or 96 kHz. • Up to 24 bits of precision. (Normally 20 bits would be used with 48 kHz sampling and 16 bits with 96 kHz.) • The use of loss-less compression, termed `packing’. • A trade-off, decided upon by the record producer, between precision, frequency bandwidth, number of channels and playing time. To carry Ambisonic Surround Sound the proposal suggests encoding the W, X, Y and Z signals onto the DVD as a set of five
