Random thoughts

[PS3SACD]

It’s easy to forget but the Super Audio CD format is almost exactly as old as PlayStation 2. One can wonder what the course of history for multichannel music would have been if Sony had decided to implement playback of the standard one console generation earlier. The idea is not as odd as it seems. Mind you: originally PS2 not only included a DVD drive but also an i.link port. It was only removed at the introduction of PStwo, probably because too few titles used it.

Probably SACD fits better with PS3 though. Like we wrote in the general SACD FAQ, the SACD logo contrasts with the straight, angular CD-DA logo (and, arguable, the sharp-edged DVD logo) thanks to it soft, round, fluid shape. Remarkably, Sony appears to have decided not to use a logo for PlayStation 3, only the wordmark that uses the Spiderman font. (One can wonder what marketing ideas they had in mind when they made that decision.) PS2 however had an extremely angular logo.



What’s more: if you compare the start-up visual and sound of PS2 and PS3 you’ll notice how the PS2, however advanced for its time, looks and sounds very synthetic or, if you like, technical, even artificial. Or perhaps the right term is ‘digital’. The PS3 on the other hand shows a natural looking flow of fluid (or smoke?) and the sound is that of an orchestra tuning their instruments. All in high resolution.

It’s clear: PS3 may be digital but, like SACD, it brings an analog experience to surpass what’s typically come to be associated with digital i.e. sound and vision that lack resolution and suffer from all sorts of artefacts.

Any other thoughts?

[Jens]

Interesting thought. I'll buy it.

At the same time I wonder if it's coincidence that Sony removed PS2-compatibility and SACD-compatibility exactly at the same time.

[dvda-sacd]

Jens, I like your avatar.
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Poll: What is your favorite audio format?

[buckshot]

what if you could cross a pig with a pygmy hippo. creating a species of mini hippos that would be called pippos. you could keep your pippo in a kiddy pool with some pet grass around the edge for it to graze on. that would be awesome.

ok maybe that was too random. but my daughter plush hippo does look very pig like.

i think the ps2 would not have been able to pull off the built in sacd drive like the ps3 does. the ps2 was simply a game console that could play dvds if necessary. the ps3 is an all inclusive resort for the a/v lover. blu ray, sacd, dualdisc, music/video/photo storage, downloadable hd movie trailers, and occasionally video games. while adding sacd to the ps2 may gave helped it minutely i think the people interested in the sacd format and multichannel audio in general wouldn't be to interested in having the distinctly unpleasant look of the ps3 as its player. not that it would not have been cool.

[PS3SACD]

Well, behold the newly designed PS3 logo, launched concurrently with the PS3 Slim and PS3 branding (as opposed to PlayStation 3) in general.



The rounded corners of the PS3 logos as opposed to the (rect)angular PSP logo (just like PS2's) at least point in the very same direction, if they don't "prove" the point.