DTS MA Essential

[Harry88]

I recently purchased a Sony BDP-S360. This player decodes Dolby True HD & DTS MA. I noticed that it is DTS MA Essential, is this somehow different to dts ma? I'm a bit of a newbie when it comes to the audio side of things

[jonesyg27]

From Home Theater Magazine

January 21, 2009 — There is a new wrinkle in DTS-HD Master Audio, the lossless audio codec. In a new version called DTS-HD Master Audio Essential, it will keep the new and ultra-hip lossless surround codec MA, but will downconvert several lesser-known ones to basic DTS 5.1

As the brief press release explains: "The main difference between DTS-HD Master Audio Essential and DTS-HD Master Audio is that Essential does not support DTS Neo:6."

It adds: "For standard-def DVD only, DTS-HD Master Audio Essential products do not currently support DTS 96/24, ES, ES Matrix, and Neo: 6. However, DTS' backwards compatibility for content playback makes it possible for you to automatically enjoy your standard-def DVD entertainment experience with DTS Digital Surround."

These omissions are not necessarily fatal. In Blu-ray, the most frequent use of DTS is lossless Master Audio, and you'll get that under either the original MA logo or the Essential logo. Neo:6 is a matrixed process designed to convert two-channel signals to surround, so it's never used in movies and therefore not a factor in either Blu-ray or DVD. 96/24 is mainly for high-res DVD music releases, but not too many of them. The only concern for movie buffs might be the downconversion of ES and ES Matrix soundtracks, the 6.1- and 7.1-channel versions of old-school lossy DTS, in DVD.

Even this may be avoidable, says DTS: "If you desire to playback the full DTS technology feature set with a DTS Master Audio Essential player for either high-def or standard-def content, you can simply change the audio setup mode in your player to stream out over HDMI and let your DTS-HD Master Audio receiver decode the DTS 96/24, ES, ES Matrix, and Neo: 6. Please reference your player user manual for details on audio setup." I think what DTS is saying is that you can avoid the downconversion by setting your Essential player to output the bitstream, so your receiver will do the decoding.

[BIslander]

All flavors of DTS are built on a core + extensions approach. The core is a standard lossy DTS 5.1 track. The extensions are used to augment the core to produce DTS-ES, 96/24, Neo:6, and lossless dts-MA. Fully featured dts-MA decoders can process all types of extensions. Essential decoders can do the lossless extensions, but not the others. That's why DTS recommends bitstreaming ES and 96/24 tracks to a receiver for decoding. ES and 96/24 tracks are pretty rare, so this doesn't come up very often.

Many of the moderately priced players have Essential decoders, including Panasonic, Oppo, and the PS3. The Sony S550 had a fully featured dts-MA decoder. But, it looks like Sony opted for the Essential version for the S360.