What are the audio details?
There are two home-entertainment flavors of DVD: DVD-Video and DVD-Audio. Each supports high-definition multichannel audio. DVD-Audio includes higher-quality PCM audio. [3.6.1] DVD-Audio details LPCM is mandatory, with up to 6 channels at sample rates of 48/96/192 kHz (also 44.1/88.2/176.4 kHz) and sample sizes of 16/20/24 bits. This allows theoretical frequency response of up to 96 kHz and dynamic range of up to 144 dB. Multichannel PCM is downmixable by the player, although at 192 and 176.4 kHz only two channels are available. Sampling rates and sizes can vary for different channels by using a predefined set of groups. The maximum data rate is 9.6 Mbps. The WG4 decided to include lossless compression (it’s about time!), and on August 5, 1998 approved Meridian’s MLP (Meridian Lossless Packing) scheme, already licensed by Dolby. MLP removes redundancy from the signal to achieve a compression ratio of about 2:1 while allowing the PCM signal to be completely recreated by the MLP decoder
When DVD was first released in 1996 there was no defined DVD-Audio format, although the audio capabilities of the DVD-Video format far surpass CD-ROM. The DVD-Audio 1.0 specification has been finalized and will be released in October of 1998. [3.6.1] DVD-Audio details LPCM is mandatory, with up to 6 channels at sample rates of 48/96/192 kHz (also 44.1/88.2/176.4 kHz) and sample sizes of 16/20/24 bits. This allows theoretical frequency response of up to 96 kHz and dynamic range of up to 144 dB. Multichannel PCM will be downmixable by the player, although at 192 and 176.4 kHz only two channels are available. The maximum data rate is 9.6 Mbps. The WG4 decided to include lossless compression (it’s about time!), and on August 5, 1998 approved Meridian’s MLP (Meridian Lossless Packing) scheme, already licensed by Dolby. MLP will allow playing times of about 74 to 135 minutes of 6-channel 96kHz/24-bit audio on a single layer (compared to 45 minutes without packing). Two-channel 192kHz/24-bit
The DVD-Audio format is not yet specified. The January 1998 WG4 draft indicates that LPCM will be mandatory, with up to 8 channels at sample rates of 48/96/192 kHz (also 44.1/88.2/176.4 kHz) and sample sizes of 16/20/24 bits. Multichannel PCM will be downmixable by the player. All other audio formats of DVD-Video (described below) will be optional. Sony and Philips are promoting a competing format based on DSD. See 1.12 for more info. The following details are for audio tracks on DVD-Video. Some DVD manufacturers such as Pioneer are developing audio-only players using the DVD-Video format. A disc can have up to 8 audio tracks (streams). Each track can be in one of three formats: • Dolby Digital (formerly AC-3): 1 to 5.1 channels • MPEG-2 audio: 1 to 5.1 or 7.1 channel • PCM: 1 to 8 channels. Two additional optional formats are provided: DTS and SDDS. Both require external decoders and are not supported by all players. The “.
