you can store
uncomressed PCM on DVD-A discs, you still only get 9.6 Mb/s, but
that just gives you enough bandwidth for 4 24/96 or 6 24/48
channels.
How many minutes of audio can you get on a DVD-A then, assuming you
use the maximum bandwidth available to get the highest sample rate
for your number of channels?
I can imagine this could work quite well without MLP encoding for
stereo music, as opposed to surround mixes. As Mike Oldfield once put
it, you only have two ears and your natural inclination is to face
the thing you are listening to. I don't think he was very happy with
some of the surround version done of his music, dating back to the
quadraphonic vinyl days.
A serious drawback I can see at the moment for 5.1 mixes of music is
that if people are playing them back on systems designed for home
cinema, the rear speakers are likely to be the those tiny plastic
ones, really only intended for effects noises. I'm sure that two good
speakers will sound better than six bad speakers.
One factor that isn't really addressed by MLP is that DVDs are really
cheap to make now. Plenty of films come with a second disc for the
special features now - so is there any point in using an expensive
compression system on DVD-Audio that requires hardware support? A two
disc set is likely to retail for more than a single disc anyway -
that's marketing for you...
Cheers
Daniel