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Originally posted by Bassman:
Here's what Arcam thinks in response to a mail I sent them>

We have given 100% commitment to DVD-A not only because it is a faster growing format and that every music company except sony has committed to DVD-A, we also feel it has much more potential in the market place as the format that finally topples the mighty CD from the top spot will not be another CD format it will be DVD based.


Of course sony supports SACD, it created the format. "Every music company" is a bit of an exageration.
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Another CD based format cannot win this war as allot of budget manufacturers are dropping CD players from their ranges and producing DVD players only.


IMHO, it would be suicide for companies to produce DVD players that in some way do not support CD playback in the present market and probably for the next 5 years plus. CD has been entrenched as the consumer format for around 20 years and it isn't going away anytime soon as much as some companies would want it to.
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We just feel that SACD was defeated before it had started and although it is a good format and there are people that enjoy it it is a fact that DVD-A is out selling it by 10 - 1 and when we produced a survey of our customers we found that 79% wanted DVD-A, 10% wanted SACD and 11% were not interested and that was the basis of it all.


One companies feeling does not a format make. According to reports that I've read, neither format is selling all that well. Also, I think there may be some consumer confusion in there survey to exactly what each format is. An uninformed consumer may pick DVD-A just because it has DVD in its title.

Of course, you can take all of this as my thoughts and feelings on the matter just as Arcam has their thoughts and feelings.

My personal feeling is that both formats need better marketing, cheaper players, and more titles. I completely agree with Jeff that consumer confusion is going to bring down these formats faster than anything else. That would be a shame as technology has allowed us to get beyond 16/44.1.