Korgscrew
Group: Super Admins
Posts: 3511
Joined: Dec. 1999 |
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Posted: Feb. 15 2004, 15:18 |
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I think you're trying to wind me up, that's what I think 
DVD comes in two flavours, of course - DVD-Video and DVD-Audio. DVD-Audio certainly offers higher quality than CD, and gives the possibility of multichannel sound. DVD-Video obviously gives the extra visual content, but only if used with a TV - if not then you're generally either getting data-reduced sound (with dolby digital or DTS, though DTS is less aggressive) or sound that's not too different to CD, so not much advantage there (it does support up to 24 bit / 96 kHz but I believe is generally 16 bit / 48 kHz). Remember that it's possible to get DTS and AC3 sound from a CD as well, though it's not usually done (DTS CDs are more common) - the digital output of the CD player can be plugged into the surround decoder just as a DVD player can be.
There isn't exactly much of Mike's music on either kind of DVD anyway, and the only release that's on both DVD and CD is Tubular Bells 2003 (and that's not available on vinyl...it is available on cassette apparently, though), so hardly much matter for discussion here!
If you see surround sound as an advantage, consider also quadrophonic vinyl - I believe there are some CD-4 Vinyl releases of Mike's music out there, which would give 4 discrete channels from an LP, providing you have the correct stylus and decoder. SQ releases are more common, and simpler to deal with, as any stylus will play them (the CD-4 and UD-4 formats relied on using super-high frequency signals as part of the system, the extra channels were encoded/decoded using frequency modulation. It meant that discrete channels were possible, which wasn't the case with SQ and QS, which depended on a sophisticated active decoder to provide more than a few dB of channel separation) - in fact, SQ works fine with CDs as well, try playing the Boxed CDs, or Exposed, through an SQ decoder and you'll see what I mean!
I think the same still applies that digital formats offer a generally cleaner sound, but don't have the mystique of old vinyl records. Whether you enjoy that mystique or not is obviously a matter of taste!
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