History
HDCD technology was developed between 1986 and 1991 by "Professor" Keith O. Johnson and Michael "Pflash" Pflaumer of Pacific Microsonics Inc. It was made publicly available as HDCD-enabled audio CDs (often identifiable by the HDCD logo printed on the back cover) in 1995.
In 1998, Burr-Brown (now part of Texas Instruments) and Sanyo Electronics of Japan introduced low cost D to A converters with HDCD decoding included, allowing HDCD to be used in CD and DVD players in the $100 range. HDCD algorithms were included in DVD chips from many IC makers including Motorola and C-Cubed, allowing HDCD to be offered by mass-market DVD player makers such as Panasonic and Toshiba.
In 2000, Pacific Microsonics folded and Microsoft acquired the company and all of its intellectual property assets.
Microsoft discontinued the official HDCD website in 2005.
In January 2007, there were roughly the same number of titles available on SACD as on HDCD-encoded CDs.
In 2008, with HDCD in decline, it was reported that “conventional CD’s produce a quality of sound that is now equal to or even superior to an HDCD without the cumbersome need for special encoding”.
Read more about this topic: High Definition Compatible Digital
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