DVD-Audio on PC's?

DarkEdgeX asks: "I've been looking, admittedly for a brief period, for a player that will work with DVD-ROM drives to play DVD-Audio discs through a PC (any platform, Win32, Linux, etc). Does such a thing exist, free or otherwise? I know that DVD-Video players can play the audio tracks encoded for Dolby 5.1, but it doesn't get to the better quality sound that's embedded in the AUDIO-TS subdirectory on DVD-Audio, it just reads the VIDEO-TS files. (In fact, from what I've read, DVD-Audio discs often do this for compatibilities sake, otherwise the only directory on a DVD-Audio disc that's really needed is AUDIO-TS.) Finally, are there any *technical* differences between DVD-Audio players and DVD-ROM's in so far as hardware is concerned? (A home DVD-Audio player from Pioneer, retail anyways, goes for $2000-3000!)"

Comments

A couple possible technical differences

[Platinum Dragon]

1) CSS2: Remember the DVD Group/Consortium/Circlejerk popping off about CSS being cracked and having to develop a new algorithm? In this case, it might be just a matter of the accompanying software implementing CSS2, though a circuit change might be necessary within the DVD-ROM itself. I'm not entirely sure on this; there's a specific circuit in DVD-ROM drives to carry CSS info, but it might be just for key exchange data transmission.

2) Bandwidth: I wish I knew where my DVD drive manual was right now, because I don't feel like slogging through Creative's site. DVD-Audio has a higher bandwidth limit than DVD-Video; 9.6 Mb/s as opposed to 6.144 Mb/s. A slightly better laser is necessary (I think; I'm extrapolating from what I know of the format), and the data path coming out of the drive needs to be able to handle 9.6 Mb/s of data coming down the pipe. IDE and SCSI might handle this without sneezing; I'm not going to take completely wild guesses without studying the docs.

3) MLP and SMART: Meridian Lossless Packing is a wunderbar compression scheme that allows for more music to be packed on the disc and through the data stream. A decoder for this is necessary. As well, there's a downmixing scheme called SMART (again, don't ask when I don't have the docs in front of me) that attempts to mix multiple channels into a stereo mix. I'm not sure of anyone actually using this - who wants to trust the computer with your high-end audio mixes? - but it's necessary in DVD-Audio players.

CSS2, MLP and SMART decoding might be possible within software, but it would take a nice high-end chip, or, a dedicated DVD-Audio card with the firmware to handle that decoding. The "normal" DVD-Audio streams are Linear PCM, the same stuff on CDs, only at much higher bitrates, sampling rates, and with multiple channels. As you said, the Dolby 5.1/DTS tracks are there for compatibility. I've heard little to nothing about DVD-Audio-capable DVD-ROMs, simply because it's seen as an audiophile format at this point. Most people get off on two channel stereo CDs.

I find it unfortunate most people my age (around 21) think Mp3 and CD are as good as it gets, and having "theater-quality" sound is left to the theaters and a few insane audiophiles. I'm working with a group on a DVD-Audio project composed of all original music by a series of Canadian groups, and we're all in our early twenties. I've heard DVD-Audio in all its glory, and it's worth the investment in equipment if you're even a borderline audiophile. The competing format SACD is also a worthy option, especially if you want to have discs you can let your non-audiophile friends borrow, although they won't get the superior SACD sound.