Video Asylum

In Reply to: 24/96 audio/data from DVD digital out posted by John on April 09, 1999 at 08:36:50:

John,

I am not an expert in this area, but here are some of my thoughts (which I admit may be wrong since I am still learning myself):

I think, but am not positive, that DVD's currently don't have enough bandwidth to support 5.1 channels of 24/96, so instead they use 16/48 for all the channels. As far as 24/96, the Chesky record label (they have a website) makes a couple of dozen DVD audio discs encoded in 2-channel 24/96 for stereo listening. But I believe that only Pioneer and Theta DVD players send out a 24/96 bitstream. Every other player on the market downsamples the signal to 16/48. MSB (website = msbtech.com), however, will modify any DVD player to output a pure 24/96 signal for $385. I am considering doing this to my Panasonic A310, since I just bought a Wadia 830 with a 24/96 DAC.

All of this has nothing to do with the new DVD-Audio specification. That spec is still being worked on. Hope this helps, I am still trying to hash it out myself.