[kelly]

Ok, so I bought my first SACD last night -- Stravinsky's Firebird and Borodin's Music From Prince Igor by Robert Shaw and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra on Telarc. I'd gotten to sample dparrish's copy before and thought it was great and listened to this copy flawlessly in a car stereo last night.

I brought it to work today, where my transport is a Philips DVD drive in my PC. Unfortunately, the drive doesn't seem to acknowledge the disc as an audio disc. As implied by the topic, this Telarc disc is a hybrid meaning it contains both the SACD and redbook PCM "layers." Since it played back last night on a standard CD player, it's probably safe to assume the disc is not defective.

So... do PC drives in general have trouble with hybrid SACDs? Do DVD drivers in general? Is there something I need to configure to prevent the drive from attempting to read the disc as a DVD?

Anyone else have experience with this?

 

[JML]

I wouldn't be surprised if it is encoded for copy-protection, and that's interfering with your PC drive's efforts to read it. You might want to contact Telarc if there's nothing about this on the SACD itself. The PC's drive itself may not be able to read a hybrid disc, but I betcha that's not the problem.

In fact, run a quick Google search on "SACD Telarc Copy Protection" and you'll find your blood pressure rising as you read the results.

 

[kelly]

Does copy protection make the disc not read at all from a CD drive? I realize I'm a old 'folg and don't dig a lot of the new artists that have their fancy smancy copy protections but bear with me a little here, I've never had an ordinary CD not recognize at all in my PC.

 

[JML]

There are many different copy protection schemes being tested out on unsuspecting consumers. You'll have to figure out which one they're using on your SACD, and if there's anything you can do other than return the SACD and scream at Telarc and the retailer.

Most if not all copy-protection schemes are easily defeatable at some level, and the professional crooks who counterfeit commercial releases are not going to be detered by anything. The latest counter-measure is using a marker pen to write over the copy protection band on some CDs.

 

[dparrish]

Kelly,

After reading your post I became curious...

I just tried 4 differrent hybrid SACD/CD disks in 5 different machines. 2 disks were Telarc hybrids, including the disk you have; 1 was a Vanguard Classics, and the last was the San Francisco Orchestra's private label (Mahler's 6th Symphony).

The results for each was the same. None of these would play in any of my dedicated DVD players. I have a Yamaha DVP 700 (I think) that is several years old (one of the first to come out which had DTS capability), as well as a Toshiba 5109 and the Toshiba DVD player on my home computer. Each of these players would play a regular CD just fine, but not the hybrid.

On the other hand, I had NO trouble getting any of these hybrids to play on a dedicated CD player, including (in addition to my XA777ES SACD player) my 15-year old portable JVC player, a 6-month old cheap portable Audiophase player, and the new Yamaha 3200 CDRW player in my computer.

I don't have a clue as to why the DVD players wouldn't read them but the CD players, both new and old, would. Whatever the reason, my guess is that it may have something to do with the DVD specifications. If memory serves, I believe I have noticed in the past that some CDs had a hard time being recognized, and in the early days of DVD players some CDs wouldn't play at all.

I believe that DVD and SACD may use a similar laser which is different from the one used to recognize CDs. Is this correct, and if so, perhaps the DVD player is confused about which layer to read?

David

 

[dparrish]

So,

My guess is that one possible solution would be to add a CDROM drive to your computer

David

 

[JML]

Kelly, there also might be a firmware upgrade to the drive to address the problem. It's worth it to check with the hardware manufacturer.

 

[kelly]

The drive in question is actually a Toshiba SD-M1612, not a Philips as I mistakenly posted originally.

I've emailed Toshiba Customer Support to see if they have a workaround for the issue. Their site listed no drivers suggesting that Windows 2000 has all it needs. I saw no firmware upgrades listed on the site.

It doesn't surprise me that a DVD drive may become confused by an SACD. It seems, though, that there would be a way for a user to "force CD ROM mode" and there doesn't seem to be one--not even a jumper.

I just need to talk IT into installing a CDRW anyway--that's what message I'm getting here.

 

[kelly]

Toshiba's technical support was exactly as helpful as I suspected they would be:

Quote:

Unfortunately, this is a media issue and not related to the drive.

This is the reason people in my clan hate the people in the technical support clan. It's too bad geeks are too lazy to war.

 

[kerelybonto]

If it's an older DVD drive, chances are it's a watermarking problem. You've probably heard of DVD "watermarks" -- they're the supposedly indiscernable noise pattern written to the disk that allows the player to recognize it. If the disk doesn't have the right watermark, it won't recognize it. Chances are your player isn't finding the right watermark for its regional settings.

Try looking online for a DVD hack that sets your player to region code zero, which is zone-free. If you can't find a hack specific for your player, you should be able to download a software player that's set to zero that will work.

kerelybonto

 

[grinch]

i have a region-free dvd player and i'll be happy to give you guys my results if somebody will send me a hybrid sacd