Playing SACD/DVD-A via regular PC DVD/CD drives?

You can play HiRez DVD-A if you have a Sound Blaster Audigy or X-Fi. These come with a software DVD-A player, and can play 24/96 surround.

As for SACD, you would only be able to play the redbook layer if it existed.

DVD-Audio and SACD are expressly designed to be uncopiable, so you're not going to find it easy to actually copy anything. But DVD-Audio playback is possible, as oblio says.

For copying, DVD-Audio has been partially compromised by tapping into the audio output code of PC-based players, but I'm not clear on whether that hack retained full quality. You wouldn't be able to copy the result back to a DVD-Audio anyway, as a DVD-Audio player would refuse to play it. The "inaudible" watermark helps ensure this.

SACD is basically impenetrable. No unlicensed drive can read the HD content at all, and a PC won't even see it. There are no PC-based players. Some Sony Vaio systems support DSD audio, but only for internal use; great for audio professionals preparing SACD content, perhaps, but they still won't play commercial SACDs.

I'm with ya! I wish I could replace my DVD-A/SACD player, DVD & digital audio streaming device, and HD-DVR with a single streaming device or eve a full-fledged PC. I guess it's never going to happen though. :-(

It would be nice if they threw us a bone here and made it possible to rip and play back both high-resolution formats on a PC. And they can't say they are worried about piracy when no one other than the few people on this forum really knows about these formats anyways. It seems that they made it inconvenient enough such that they killed the market for them altogether...

Sorry to jump in late. I want to do the same thing. I have some SACDs, but I can only rip the CD layer, which is a shame.

The fact that neither DVD-A nor SACD are taking off is pretty good indication that preventing fair use actually causes less profits. That, and the story of the original DivX player :-)

Anyway, the HDMI from my PS/3 contains PCM 7-channel data from SACD, so it's got to be possible at some point to tap into this and use it (once we have HDMI in, and a trusted kernel crack, I assume).

people have been ripping their sacd's to pc's for quite a while using the analog in to capture the sound as 6 wav channels then encoding those into dts. DVD-A can be ripped too, but you run into the problem of most discs having a watermark. I just wish I could easily back-up all the discs I own, because I know I can't buy a replacement most of the time.

[quote=David Scott;13051489]people have been ripping their sacd's to pc's for quite a while using the analog in to capture the sound as 6 wav channels then encoding those into dts.QUOTE]

Doesn't this defeat the hi-rez purpose?

[quote=elee532;13062630]
This method is no longer needed.

DVD-Audio's CPPM copy protection has been fully compromised in 2007, and opensource tools like DVD-Audio explorer are everywhere now! No need to "tap" or re-encode anything, just copy it bit-by-bit like you would do with a DVD-Video.

SACD uses a proprietary disc format, so the only way to copy this is to buy a standalone SACD player with a firewire output and tap on that.

How ironic that Sony used an impossible encryption on SACD (which, let's face it, didn't set the world on fire), and then allowed their standard CDs to be copied again and again for your gramma, Sid, the guy at work, and anybody else who I would make a copy for if they furnished a blank CD. I hate Sony.

[quote=elee532;13062630]
The SACD tracks can be captured as 96/24 and encoded as DVD-A.


There are some other ways, too.

The SACD tracks can be captured as 96/24 and encoded as DVD-A, too.


There are some other ways, too.

The SACD was developed at a time the big record companies were going through a shock, as the ease the Audio CDs could be copied was damaging their higly profitable album sales business model. And since CDs could not be copy protected, they needed a new format that could be copy protected, and they needed it now.

So, when the record companies heard that Sony was making a new audio format, the said to Sony something to the tune of "lock the content inside the disc and never let it out, or else you won't to see any releases on this new format. We don't want to have the CD debacle repeated again". Also, don't forget that Sony owns Sony BMG, a major supporter of DRM-everywhere.

Thus, SACD was designed from day 1 to be impenetrable, and that's the reason for the impossible encryption. Sony also banned the making of PC drives. This serves two purposes: First, it prevented the creation of ripping programs. Secondly, it cancelled the existense of software players (like WinDVD). By keeping the decrypton algorithm in hardware, they would greatly discourage any reverse engineering efforts (this trick is applied by the cable tv business as well).


The CD was developed in different times. Back then, CD recorders were still in prototype stage, and were bat f... expensive (they didn't start to go cheap untill 1996). There was no Napster, no torrent. No record companies going through a shock. Also, most formats back then were not copy protected (DAT, VHS, laserdisc etc), so the idea of a protected format was pretty much science fiction back then. Simply, there was too little incentive to put copy protection on Audio CDs.

By the time napster/torrent/CD recorders appeared, it was too late. CD players were everywhere, so you just couldn't break compatibility with all this huge installed base to put copy protection in them. So, the record companies kept their CD line of products rolling, hoping that the public would soon jump to the copy protected SACD for the higher quality, and CDs would be gradually phased out of the market. Just like DVD displaced VHS for the movie industry (however, I don't know if it would have if it was as heavily protected as sacd and no pc drives existed). But in the case of CD vs SACD, the public prefered good ol' CDs and passed on the SACD. Good for us.

Anyway, SACD is pretty old news now, it's being outclassed by DVD-Audio, which is generally more awesome AND plays on PCs (gotta like how the record companies always shoot themselves in the foot).

Since there aren't any SACD pc drives, what other ways are there? (without resorting to the analog hole, of course)

The only non-standalone SACD player I know of is the PS3, so unless you managed to pull of some uber hack at the PS3 that allows you to copy the SACD to the PS3's HDD, the only way is to tap on the digital output of a standalone.

The individual SACD tracks can be captured with the appropriate soundcard at a player's multichannel analog outputs.

There is an extensive player mod that provides 6 channels of SPDIF output (2 additional optical outputs for 6 channels of PCM). Conversions made with these modded players are more common than you might think.

That's all I was referring to.

Here's a Russian site where you can buy "images" of both SACD and DVD-A discs, download them and burn them to DVD via the DVD-A method.

http://www.sacdlab.cn/

They most likely have one of those modded SACD players and have captured the digital stream from it. Here is what they say about it:

"All Sacdlab's sacd dvd audio projects have 100% compatible with hardware DVD-Audio/Video players and have not "watermarks" and content protection for prerecorded media (CPPM) mechanism. In all our multichannel surround sound projects we have studio original Direct Stream Digital (DSD) and Hi-res uncompressed PCM, wich transferred into Meridian Lossless Packing (MLP) format according to specifications Red Book and Meridian Audio's MHR. We use the tools from M-Audio, Korg, Tascam, Pro Tool Studio Sys. and other brands in our work."

A shady site by the looks of it.

Man, that can't be legal!

plus .cn isn't a Russian domain

I have a little utility in Firefox that shows the country the domain is in and it shows a Russian flag. Don't know why it would do that if it isn't Russian, but maybe it stands for something else. But it does sound like the sort of stuff that goes on in Russia. Remember MP3.com?

Here is the lowdown on their site, look it over: http://geotool.flagfox.net/?ip=213.2...www.sacdlab.cn

It says the website originates in Moscow, Russia.

It sure is tempting me though... some OOP stuff there that I would love to hear, but couldn't possible afford at today's prices.

Ha! Ha! Good one!

R

The web server may be hosted in Russia, which is why the geo tool is telling you that.

http://www.webopedia.com/quick_ref/t...trycodeA-E.asp

So the .cn extension means it is actually a Chinese website hosted from a server located in Moscow, Russia. That explains the tortured English all over their web pages.