Will SA-CD be superseded by Blu-ray Disc?
It might. Blu-ray Disc (BD) can carry high-resolution discrete multichannel lossless audio. As far as we’re aware, DSD has not been specified as one of the optional audio formats in the Blu-ray Disc standard (nor has DXD) but formats such as Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio, even though PCM-based, provide sound quality comparable to SACD, with up to 7.1 channels. It’s also possible to create audio-only Blu-ray Discs; these contain a menu but no further video and can be operated without the need to use a display, simply using the number keys and colour keys on the remote control. See Pure Audio Blu-ray. So far however there’s little sign of this succession happening. Not only the catalog of ‘BD-Audio’ titles is negligible compared to that of SA-CD but also the number of titles released annually is hardly significant. Even if you only consider pop/rock titles, BD-Audio is just beginning to have some impact. BD-Audio titles are covered on our news page and in this modest store. If you
