Firewire approved for DVD-A

How or will this affect the 950? Don't know, but I'm glad it's here.

How would one use this feature? I really don't understand it, can you explain to me how this would effect me and my buying habits

Has it been approved then? It won't affect the 950 (too late), but if it has been approved then it may free the Outlaws to start on some serious development of their DVD player and the 950's planned big brother.

As for what this is, there's been a big fight over DVD-Audio and SACD and copy protection. Currently, all DVD-A/SACD players must output an analog signal -- so you get 6 analog cables to deal with. The hope is that the powers that be can settle on a standard digital output format so the digital decoding of DVD-A & SACD can move to the receiver or pre/pro where all the other digital decoding is typically located. Firewire has been a likely candidate for the data connection, but I'd gotten the impression that it would be next year before anything was actually agreed on.

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Gonk

Gonk, here is the link for the Firewire announcement. Interestingly enough, they backdated the announcement to September.

http://www.highfidelityreview.com/

Now that is an interesting article. The only question remaining for the adoption of a standard DVD-Audio digital output is encryption that RIAA will accept, which the article seems to suggest hasn't been finalized. It also notes that SACD is still apparently going to remain analog-out only. Of course, most or all SACD material is still 2-channel I believe, but that means that you'll still be relying on the SACD player for bass management.

That may be great news for the future of the Outlaw DVD player -- digital output was one thing the Outlaws had said they really were serious about including. They were also talking about including bass management for the analog outputs, though, so those of us with older processors (1050's and 950's, for example) could still do DVD-Audio and SACD without needing an ICBM for bass management.

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Gonk

But how would the digital output benefit us since the 950 has no firewire compatibility.
Unless there is some upgrade, am I right
gonk?

Digital output won't do any good for the 950. Zilch. (Unless I'm missing something, but I'm pretty sure.) Upgrading the 950 later to support it would be a major deal -- aside from adding the port, you'd need to add the digital processing, which would very possibly mean an additional chip of some sort.

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Gonk

What baffles me is why there needed to be a different format for dvd-a. Why not use the existing format as is, other than to make every one upgrade there current player. And who was the body of people that said for dvd-a and sacd you must use analog out? The artists, recording studios? If they would have made the dvd-a play just like a regular dvd in any player none of us wouldn't even know what sacd is. It would have never even gotten off the ground with such a huge established base of players. So now when you go and buy a player that does both your supposed to use the analog output or if you like the digital output you have to use both. So you buy more interconnects. What a scam. I have listened to both and they both sound nice but so far I only have 2 dvd-a's.
We will see if cd's disappear or not.
m-mmeyer

The initial reason or rational for the analog outputs was for copyright protection. I find the argument a bit hollow, but that's their story and I guess they are sticking to it.

You can't use the traditional digital outputs (digital coax) since they aren't capable of carrying the increased data that DVD-A outputs.

We have analog-only DVD-A/SACD output for much the same reason we have region coding -- because the movie and music industries demanded it, not for any real technical reason...

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Gonk

So that being said..whats the point of 192/24 processors built into the 950? You dont need that for CD's since they are 48 or 44/16. So what do the higher bit rate decoders do for us? A question Ive wondered before when all the manufacturers were scrambling to add 96/24 decoders.

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The analog waveform that our amp wants to see is produced by the DAC's (Digital to Analog Converter). If you think of a DAC doing a similar operation to calculus (i.e. using infinitely small slices to approximate curves etc) then the higher the bit rate and bit size would allow for a more precise approximation of the analog waveform in the time domain. Imagine a staircase: If you had a 10 foot rise and used 10 steps at 12" high to get there, you could easily discern the steps. But if you used 120 steps at 1" high, it would look very similar to a smooth surface. That's why (I think) the better your DAC is, the better your analog output to the amp would be. The specifics of DAC design (successive approximation, oversampling etc) are a bit (no pun intended) beyond me for sure.

Where is the limit of human hearing? I have no clue, but the better a signal is, the better it could sound, even if we couldn't hear the difference.

That's my understanding at least. If there’s a DAC designer out there, I’d love to hear his/her take and a correction to anything I may have misstated.

S.

hmmm I'd been thinking along the lines of decoders working for specific bit rates as in the one for cd's was specific to cd's 48/16 and that oversampling was used to refine that process.. and if you had a 96/24 source you would use a 96/24 decoding algorythm in the dac etc..not sure if Im explaining this correctly but if you use encrypted code as an example you need the correct key to decript the code and that one was specific to each type of signal...lol I should probably stop before I confuse myself..your point being higher resolution dacs can enhance the sound quality of all signals passing through them as a wider frequency response amp say 0 to 100K can enhanse the audio spectrum 20 - 20K

<<48/16. . . 96/24 etc>>

I agree with you there. But I think that is just the digital processor being able to interpret the digital signal. I think that the processor can't decode the 96/24 DTS signal, but that is just a design (and price) decision, I think. I don't think the DAC comes into play until very late in the game, i.e. right before being pre-amp'd to go out to the power amp. Up to that point, I've always assumed that the signal is completely digital, but interpreted differently by the processor.

You've got me thinking a bit more, though. I could be off base. I'll try to research it and pass along anything of interest I find.

S.

WooHoo!
Finally what I've been waiting for. No more octopuss out back. Just think of all the money that can be thrown back at the Outlaws newest hardware(i.e. dlp projector, dvd v/a) instead several c-notes spent on interrconnects.

With 192/24 DACs, will the processor do any "smoothing" of a 48/16 signal, such as linear interpolation, or curve fitting, to make use of the extra sampling frequency available, or will the DAC simply run in a 48/16 mode?

Mathew

Thanks thats more or less the question I was asking..you managed to ask it better and simpler..and I have to admit that I dont know enough about dac's and there processes to ask it intelegently...Im hoping that the 192/24 processing actually does something more than just be a spec they can advertise. as the oversampling spec was a few years ago

Yes, I was thinking the same thing. Without some kind of smoothing, then having higher frequency DACs is no good whatsoever, since nothing the 950 can currently process will produce a sample rate that high. Unless, I guess, maybe it's used to sample analog inputs at a high rate.

Can anyone out there shed some light on this?

I don't really know a lot of the details of the recent generations of high-bit-rate DAC technology like 96/24 and the like, but that last bit you mentioned caught my attention. If you want to use any sort of digital bass mangement or signal processing on analog inputs, you'll need to perform an A/D conversion and D/A conversion. Higher bit rate DAC's could minimize the losses involved in that process.

Maybe I need to go hunting for info on the real benefits of 96/24 and such in general application. Might make it easier to actually speak knowledgeably...

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Gonk

Well today I went out and found a 96/24 Terry Evans dvd by Chesky records. My current system does 96/24 on either the DVD or the processor...sounds pretty damm good..so I guess thats one use..I wasnt aware there were such beasts out there..maybe there is going to be 192/24 audio discs that aren't DVD-A

It has come to fruition. Did anyone else see the pix of the Pioneer equiped1394 DVD-A&V as well as 1394 equiped reciever? Nice I can't wait.

the only 1 thing i dont like about SACD and DVD-A is the price of each disc!!! its outragous.

I have a simple question:

Will a firewire digital output from SACD and DVD-A only be needed if you want those discs to be decoded by a different DAC? In other words, if the DVD-A/SACD player has the same quality DAC as an outboard one, will the sound quality be pretty much the same?

thanks

You won't be able to perform any processing such as time alignment or bass management in the processor if you're using external DACs from the SACD / DVD-A player. Also, the signal is travelling farther in analog mode, through more cables, which could affect its quality.

A good point to those that worry the Outlaw is obsolete without firewire.

This is just another technical hoop DVD-A expects their users to jump through, narrowing their buying public even further. Not enough to have a DVD-A player with mutlichannel speakers properly set up with a 5.1 passthrough. Now you need equipment with a firewire port and software to handle the input?

Even DTS discs don't throw those kind of requirements at you, and look how few people buy those?

With SACD needing nothing other than the right cd or dvd player, it has a much better chance of reaching the broader public.

The outlaw will already work DVD-A through analogue inputs. The only obsolescence I'd worry about is with the DVD-A format itself.

Here is a little update on the DVD-A with Firewire output:

http://www.highfidelityreview.com/news/news.asp?newsnumber=424422

Basically, we will not see any solution for DVD-A digital output anytime soon. Long enough for Outlaw to come up with either an upgrade or trade-up option for the 950. I am still planning on buying one...

-Kurt

I beg to differ. If you saw any reports from the CES show(obviously you didnt) You would have saw the 2 new products from denon and pioneer slated for release later this year. In fact the denon 9000 is coming in March 2 months away. It has a digital link output to the new 5803 reciever. Please I wish everybody would stop with the never gonna get here, or have to wait a while or not coming soon. Its here now, live with it and quit trying to make excuses. We are all buying the 950 because $899 is alot cheaper to replace than $4000. There is nothing wrong with that. The 950 is an exceptional value and thats that.

Yes, but isn't the Denon link a proprietary one? I didn't think it could connect to anything other than a Denon receiver, unless I misread it.

Yes, Matthew, you are right-- you will need Denon's new 5803 ($4200?) and their new $3500 DVD machine if you want a DVD-A digital out connection- and it is propriatary. (I must have missed the Pioneer solution so maybe somebody can point me to it?) I'm afraid a "generic" connection will be later rather than sooner (IMHO)! Thanks

Jeffery,

I work for an open standards digital consortium. The Denon and Pioneer connections are proprietary solutions. The Denon solution is different from the DVD-A solution and will probably require at least a software change in both the receiver and DVD player to work with any DVD-A solution.

What I am saying is that people shouldn't worry about "future" solutions that have no end in sight. A digital solution for DVD-A is at least 2-3 years away...

Adding a currently useless Firewire connector will do nothing to enhance the 950. On the contrary, it would just slow the release down. Worry about Firewire when there is actually "stuff" that supports it. The 950 isn't being marketed as "upgradeable" and "futureproof". For that, currently, expect to pay $3000-4000 from other companies.

The 950 is the BEST bargain out there for what it has! Buy it! Don't worry, be happy!

-Kurt

P.S. I don't buy proprietary solutions, if I can help it. So Sony and Phillips can take SACD and shove it. I will not buy a player for it or the discs. IMHO, SACD is a poor solution for digital high fidelity anyway.