> you can store > uncomressed PCM on DVD-A discs, you still only get 9.6 Mb/s, but > that just gives you enough bandwidth for 4 24/96 or 6 24/48 > channels. How many minutes of audio can you get on a DVD-A then, assuming you use the maximum bandwidth available to get the highest sample rate for your number of channels? I can imagine this could work quite well without MLP encoding for stereo music, as opposed to surround mixes. As Mike Oldfield once put it, you only have two ears and your natural inclination is to face the thing you are listening to. I don't think he was very happy with some of the surround version done of his music, dating back to the quadraphonic vinyl days. A serious drawback I can see at the moment for 5.1 mixes of music is that if people are playing them back on systems designed for home cinema, the rear speakers are likely to be the those tiny plastic ones, really only intended for effects noises. I'm sure that two good speakers will sound better than six bad speakers. One factor that isn't really addressed by MLP is that DVDs are really cheap to make now. Plenty of films come with a second disc for the special features now - so is there any point in using an expensive compression system on DVD-Audio that requires hardware support? A two disc set is likely to retail for more than a single disc anyway - that's marketing for you... Cheers Daniel
