Playing DVD-A music on a non DVD-A player?

[Mojo]

Forgive me if this sounds to basic... I've researched this and cannot exactly find the answer that will satisfiy me.

1) I just bought an Arcam DVD 78 player that does not have DVD-A capability. However, I bought a DVD-A music title last night and played it on my Arcam. According to the receiver it did decode the music into Dolby Digital. How do I know if it decoded it to 5.1 or to a default surround setup. I am not as knowledgeable about this as most of you to make that differentiation. Also, does true DVD-A music sound even better than DTS 5.1 music?

2) When buying a DVD player that has 5.1 inputs, i.e Rotel RVP 1060, will it give me anything in terms of better connection and surround sound vs the Arcam D78 unit that only has 2 ch analog or digital out?

Mojo

[JonMarsh]

DVD-A disks have high res PCIM tracks, sometimes more than one set; may be at 24/48, 24/96, even sometimes 24/192, though the latter usually only in stereo. The data is compressed in a non-lossy fashion using MLP- Meridian Lossless Packing- think of it as like ZIPPING a file- everything is there, it's just that the file may be as little as half the size.

They ALSO have a convetional Dolby digital track- this is a lossy compressed format, as used for movie DVDs, and like ATRAC and MP3, uses psycho acoustic encoding principles to throw away musical information that is not as audible due to masking effects, in order to reduce the overall bit rate compared with straight PCM. (such as on CDs)

A DVD-A player that has 5.1 outputs may be able to output the full DVD surround signal, decoding it in the player. Digital out from DVD players, even ones that have DVD-A capability, do NOT have hi res DVD-A digital out, except for some proprietary systems, such as Denon's using I-Link (firewire). The analog output from the player is usually preferred, because it should be high res.

Keep in mind, the same issues that affect CD player playback (jitter, internal amplifier and DAC quality) apply to DVD-A and SACD players. You've got to have realistic expectations of what any player at a particular price class can do.

~Jon