In reply to:
What is SVCD and DVD-A?
and
In reply to:
but for not too much more you can pick up used DVD-A / SVCD Players
Bah - I was apparently too tired (and thus incredibly wrong
) when I said that - I meant SACD and DVD-A player. SACD and DVD-A are similar to audio CD's in that they are a digital storage medium for audio, but after that they are completely different. SACD and DVD-A deliver aproximately the same quality, but do it in very different ways. To my knowledge SACD uses a 1 Bit stream that is sampled at 2.8224MHz (even in multi-channel configurations) that can give up to 500 kHz upper extension and 100 kHz without any roll-off, and DVD-A uses a 24 bit stream in 96 kHz (6 channels) and 192 kHz (stereo) that can extend to about 96 kHz and 48 kHz, respectively (theoretically, although in practice, the inefficiencies of the Nyquist Theorem makes it around 86 and 40, which are still incredible). Both of them create a more complete image of the sound (with a hugely wider frequency spectrum and dynamic range), although most people can't really tell the difference with double-blind testing even if all of the equipment and speakers is of fairly high quality.
SVCD on the other hand is Super Video CD - an important thing to have if you want to make your own movies but don't have a DVD-R drive on your computer. SVCD / VCD are even more popular than VHS in Asia to my knowledge. (But obviously DVD has a higher resolution and supports DTS, DD, and 2 ch PCM streams, whereas VCD and SVCD only support 2 ch).
