News

SA-CD starts 2005 in confident mood at Philips and Sony (15/2/2005)

Each January sees the global music industry meeting in Cannes for Midem, and in many respects it represents an annual watershed - a time to reflect on past achievements and a time to announce future plans. The SA-CD Project Team, and particularly the two founding companies - Sony and Philips - see 2005 being another year of solid and steady growth in this new surround sound platform at a time when the music industry is addressing this significant growth area.

In 2004, in excess of 1000 surround SA-CD titles were created at a rate of around three titles each day. In fact, in some months new titles exceeded 100 albums and there were challenges in allocating replication resources to produce these volumes of discs. The total number of albums available on SA-CD is rapidly approaching 3000 with strong trends towards hybrid surround sound discs. This combination reinforces the format's compatibility with the massive installed CD and DVD-Video player base as well as offering the market's most sophisticated surround sound facility in the home.

Key music genre to date have been jazz and classical, and more mainstream pop artists are releasing their new and catalogue music on the format. The format is attracting support from major international recording artists, such as Diana Krall, Elton John, Roxy Music and Sting. On a regular basis, SA-CD releases are achieving top 10 rankings in local hit charts.

As we enter 2005, an increasing range of SA-CD compatible equipment is becoming available - both in terms of professional audio tools (required to create new titles) and also a broad range of consumer players and systems. There are more than 60 companies that are actively developing SA-CD compatible products and there are more than 150 products in the market place.

"We are seeing the introduction of many new players and systems to the market and we are finding that the key retailers are responding very positively to the SA-CD proposition," commented Jos Bruins, Marketing Director at Philips Intellectual Property & Standards. "The audio market is addressing the surround sound market and no format offers such a high quality and elegant solution as SA-CD. The format and the business model are in place and increasing numbers of consumers and companies are focusing on it and integrating within their future strategies."

David Walstra, SA-CD Project Director at Sony Europe points to Sony's new flagship Sony DAV-LF1 Home Theatre System as the kind of high-end product that will cement SA-CD's place as the aspirational audio format of choice. "The DAV-LF1 is a lifestyle product which oozes chic style and high-end performance," affirms David Walstra. "DVD-Video has succeeded in raising the bar in home entertainment and now consumers are looking for an audio equivalent that offers more than CD - a format that offers surround sound for music, not just an add-on to DVD-Video. At Sony, we remain committed to SA-CD - we have invested in this technology and we see the business developing along the same lines as CD in the 1980s."

www.superaudio-cd.com