Will Microsoft kill DVD-A and SACD?

As to why MS is interested in HDCD. Might it relate to the long rumored potential sales of music by the record companies directly over the internet. These would likely be compressed and perhaps HDCD will make them more palatable.

To answer your question (IMO): Microsoft will try to kill or steal anything they can't control. I hope Twl is correct and they won't be able to get it to work -- but that's never slowed them down before. My anticipation is that without an initial corner on the market and without the ready means to corner the market, they won't be able to function since the notion of competition is beyond their experience (let's see if their foray into video games pays off -- we're in trouble if it does). Sorry, but I had to get that off my chest -- for those who've read my posts, you know I rarely fly off the handle, but microsoft invading our passion is cause enough for nightmares.

I can see it now, Bill Gates image on every album cover.......posed, head cocked, listening to an antique record machine.

That old shaded dog "Nipper" will be missed.

I argee with Garfish, CD's with or without HDCD are a low density storage medium by today's standards. For multi-channel music storage they are either too limited in resolution or running time to provide a viable high quality medium. I don't have personal experience with the "multi-channel CD's" referred to above, but every CD player I have seen has just a stereo output, meaning any extra-channel info would have to be matrixed into the 2-channel mix and decoded with an outboard device (possibly even in the analog domain), which could not provide anything near even Red Book resolution for all channels, and would presumably be running time-limited to boot. A multi-channel HDCD could hold no more, either. And I don't see how HDCD could be of any help with internet-distributed audio. Just getting the fidelity up to regular CD standards would be a feat, so whatever incremental improvement is supposed to offered by HDCD wouldn't apply here. And since MS is not a record label (yet!), I don't suppose they're going to be releasing HDCD music software themselves. There could not possibly be enough money to made in the current HDCD market to interest the likes of MS, so again, I have to wonder: What's it all about, Billy?

Several Microsoft principals are known to be deeply interested in music. When you're as rich as Microsoft, you can buy things just for the fun of it. Maybe they bought it for no better reason than that.