How does multi-channel sound on SA-CD (and DVD-Audio) differ from surround sound on DVD-Video?
Dolby Digital and DTS were developed for movie sound effects and are perfectly tailored for that but less suited for high-fidelity music reproduction. Both apply lossy compression (much like MP3 does), whereas the DSD signal used on SA-CD does not. A lossless compression scheme called Meridian Lossless Packing (MLP) exists for DTS but this cannot be used with the DVD-Video format, only with DVD-Audio. Of course, on DVD it’s possible to use uncompressed PCM, even in high resolution up to 24 bit at 96 kHz, but DVD-Video only supports stereo PCM. Multichannel PCM is limited to the DVD-Audio format.
Dolby Digital and DTS were developed for movie sound effects and are perfectly tailored for that but less suited for high-fidelity music reproduction. Both apply lossy compression (much like MP3 does), whereas the DSD signal used on SA-CD does not. A lossless compression scheme called Meridian Lossless Packing (MLP) exists for DTS but this cannot be used with the DVD-Video format, only with DVD-Audio. Of course, on DVD it’s possible to use uncompressed PCM, even in high resolution up to 24 bit at 96 kHz, but DVD-Video only supports stereo PCM. Multichannel PCM is limited to the DVD-Audio format.
