Oh dear, that's not good. Most DVDs I come across are dual layer.
I'm not being funny or anything, but why would anyone actually want to play DVDs in a car (on the screen in the front console)? Am I missing something?
I've stuck a few music DVD-videos in while driving to work and back. You get the 5.1 surround sound, but no pictures. Good enough as a listening experience nonetheless. I haven't bothered trying to play any other DVD-video. The one DVD-A that I tried played splendidly and the MLS handles the high resolution 5.1 material very nicely indeed.
I've played a few DVD+RW with AAC-encoded audio on (is that right? All these standards puzzle me a little) and that was fine as well. Lots of albums (approx 17 unless I'm mistaken) in very acceptable quality.
As I mentioned earlier, I've played half a dozen hybrid CD/SACD and they played as CDs. The manual is a little cagey and says that SACD might not play. Well the hybrids certainly don't, but I've got no non-hybrid SACDs so I wouldn't know if it's the presence of the CD layer that prevents the SACD layer playing.
As for DVD-A and SACD being competing standards, yes, it's quite true, but there are plenty of players out now that will happily play both. I've only recently picked up a Pioneer DV600AV, which upscales DVD-video to 1080p and plays DVD-A and SACD too, as well as dts-CD. Not bad for £130, but I digress...
I suspect that most dual discs (that's one side CD and the other DVD, rather than dual layer, one-sided DVDs or double sided DVDS) don't have DVD-audio encoding on the DVD side,which should be OK as far as I can tell from the manual, which only goes as far as saying the DVD-A material won't be played from CD/DVD dual discs. I believe that the discs I'm thinking of buying have dts and dolby 5.1 tracks, but no DVD-A as such. But if anyone has first-hand experience of these blighters I'd be interested to know.
I may have said that earlier!
Finally, I THINK I've played dual layer DVDs without any bother, but I'm not sure so I may go and give it a try just for the hell of it.
Cheers...