Does PS3 have a Dolby Digital and DTS Encoder?

[BozQ]

I have an old PS3 "fat" console and I've been using it as my primary Blu-ray player.

I don't have a HDMI receiver, so I've been playing audio via TOSLINK Optical output, hooked up to a Logitech Z5500.

Recently, I decided to mess around with my PS3 settings and figured I'd try checking only DTS (no Dolby Digital) in my PS3 audio settings and see what happens. And to my surprise, when I load in a Dolby only BD, like the first Transformers (Dolby TrueHD BD), it would play back in DTS, even though the display information showed it was playing Dolby TrueHD.

My question, is the PS3 capable of encoding soundtracks to either Dolby Digital and/or DTS?

[Petra_Kalbrain]

Yes. All PS3s have DTS and Dolby encoders/decoders. The fat models can't bitstream the HD tracks though if I recall correctly. However, since you are using an optical cable, you will only ever get lossy audio anyhow. Any PCM track will only eer output as 2.0 stereo as well.

Not sure if that fully answers your question. But, it should mostly answer it.

EDIT: Oh yeah. I remember that TrueHD -> DTS thing happening to me as well. I think I remember seeing it as a 2.0 signal as well. It's because TrueHD doesn't have a core lossy track included in its compression structure. The track can't simply be downgraded to lossy. So, the receiver is confused by the signal it's getting and thinks it's getting a DTS stereo signal... or something like that. It has been over 5 years since I've encountered/thought about this situation though. So, my aim may be off a bit on the details of the situation.

[BozQ]

I have this impression that the PS3 decodes the TrueHD 5.1 to LPCM 5.1 and then subsequently encodes it to DTS 5.1

I can guarantee it outputs as 5.1 and not 2.0
And I think I noticed quite a difference between the original Dolby Digital 640kbps vs. DTS encoded track from TrueHD.

[Tech-UK]

TrueHD has a hidden lossy track, this is read from the disc i.e. why it is displaying TrueHD on your PS3's overly, the DD track is decoded to produce PCM which is then encoded to DTS, this is sent over S/PDIF to your Z-5500. What software version are running on the PS3?

[BozQ]

I'm using the latest firmware, if that's what you're asking.
I'm just asking here to verify what exactly is the PS3 doing. Because I can't seem to find a whitepaper of sorts to know what's been done.

Take the first Transformers for example, it comes with Dolby TrueHD. If I enable Dolby Digital in my list of TOSLINK outputs, the BD menu will show up as Dolby Digital. But if I enable only DTS and/or HDMI output, it will show up as Dolby TrueHD.

Question now is, does the PS3 take the lossless Dolby TrueHD track and encode it to DTS. Or is there something else at work here?

[chip75]

I find the PS3 a bit confusing to be honest, especially the sound outputs, although I think updates have helped a little.

[BozQ]

What they really need to do is to decode Dolby Digital EX from DVDs and play Dolby TrueHD with Blu-ray 3D.

[MikeCL]

Originally Posted by chip75

I find the PS3 a bit confusing to be honest, especially the sound outputs, although I think updates have helped a little.

The PS3 can't do DTS MA Audio over optical right?

[BozQ]

No way. No Blu-ray player can do that.
TOSLINK optical doesn't have the bandwidth to allow that. If it were, HDMI would have been more difficult to penetrate the market.

When a DTS-HD audio is played on a Blu-ray player using TOSLINK, the DTS Core (normally DTS 5.1) soundtrack is streamed through.

Good thing about DTS is, the core soundtracks are normally full bitrate 1.5Mbps. Very few uses half bitrate.

[winoni71]

Originally Posted by MikeCL

The PS3 can't do DTS MA Audio over optical right?

No, no player can.

[MikeCL]

Originally Posted by BozQ

No way. No Blu-ray player can do that.
TOSLINK optical doesn't have the bandwidth to allow that. If it were, HDMI would have been more difficult to penetrate the market.

When a DTS-HD audio is played on a Blu-ray player using TOSLINK, the DTS Core (normally DTS 5.1) soundtrack is streamed through.

Good thing about DTS is, the core soundtracks are normally full bitrate 1.5Mbps. Very few uses half bitrate.

So the DTS core track and DTS-HD pretty much just sound the same then right?

[pentatonic]

Originally Posted by MikeCL

So the DTS core track and DTS-HD pretty much just sound the same then right?

It's not a definite no or yes. DTS-HD does sound better to me, but honestly a good 1.5 Mbps core track sounds very very good. To be honest in a double-blind test I'd be curious if the difference would be night and day.

[crackinhedz]

Originally Posted by MikeCL

The PS3 can't do DTS MA Audio over optical right?

Originally Posted by BozQ

No way. No Blu-ray player can do that.
TOSLINK optical doesn't have the bandwidth to allow that. If it were, HDMI would have been more difficult to penetrate the market.

Originally Posted by winoni71

No, no player can.

Technically, Optical can support 2.0 Uncompressed PCM...and being that Dts-HD MA and Dolby TrueHD are nothing more than zipped PCM files, Optical is capable of 2.0 Dts-HD MA and 2.0 Dolby TrueHD as long as its decoded inside the player.

Downside is you lose surround sound.

[Mr.Twinks]

I just put my Ps3 in PCM mode and let the Denon handle the rest, because some 7.1 BD's do not output 7.1 in bitstream mode for the Ps3 fat. I think the Ps3 slim doesn't have this issue but I dunno for sure.