Audio questions on Blu-ray players...

[didihala]

Is there any Blu-ray player that has on board decoding of BOTH dts-HD Master Audio and Dolby True-HD?

Sony's latest $1700 BDP-S2000ES only has Dolby True-HD on board! Am I seeing this right??!

dts®-HD Decoding
Hi-resolution Audio: N0; HDMI™ bitstream out: Yes

dts®-HD Decoding-2
Master Audio: No; HDMI™ bitstream out: No

Any thoughts?

One more question...

In my opinion DTS audio quality is superior comparing with Dolby Digital. Is that going to be true as well in the HD versions? In ther words, is the dts-HD MA audio quality superior to Dolby True-HD?

TIA

[Vonscoot]

I can't tell you for sure, but my understanding from everything I've read is that the two audio codes are roughly similar. The main difference seems to be which studio uses which code (Fox is a big fan of DTS:HD-MA).

Of course, both DTS:HD-MA and Dolby TrueHD are compressed forms of audio (however minutely it may be). It would seem that uncompressed PCM (true lossless) would be the way to go, IMO.

[WickyWoo]

Of course, both DTS:HD-MA and Dolby TrueHD are compressed forms of audio (however minutely it may be). It would seem that uncompressed PCM (true lossless) would be the way to go, IMO.

You're confusing lossy compression with lossless. DTS HDMA and Dolby THD are lossless compression, it's the same as PCM on the other side.

[sokrman14]

It's $1200, not $1700

[Joe Cain]

Originally Posted by WickyWoo

You're confusing lossy compression with lossless. DTS HDMA and Dolby THD are lossless compression, it's the same as PCM on the other side.

I thought the PCM audio on BDs was actually uncompressed?

[reiella]

Originally Posted by Joe Cain

I thought the PCM audio on BDs was actually uncompressed?

Lossless compression means it gets restored 1:1 to the source.

Therefore, they should sound identical.

[KingDeezie]

If I am reading those specs correctly though, it does seem that the Sony player does pass the information to your receiver in which case it will decode it there....

I am really hoping that the PS3 does at some point gain access to internal decoding of DTS HD and MA....

I do not feel like having to buy both another bluray players and a receiver just yet....

Something tells me though that the PS3 will never have this ability, atleast not until similarly priced stand alone players can do it as well...

Why would someone buy this new Sony BD player at 1200 dollars, when they could spend 500 and do the same thing??

I understand that people that would spend 1200 dollars on a bluray player feel that external decoding by the processor is more accurate, but I think Sony at this point is still trying to penetrate the market and not already be catering to those small few who are philes of the home theater arena..

[Joe Cain]

Originally Posted by reiella

Lossless compression means it gets restored 1:1 to the source.

Therefore, they should sound identical.

I think I understood the concept of lossless compression, it's just that I've seen many references to PCM as "uncompressed;" it would seem that uncompressed would mean something other than losslessly compressed, whether my ears can tell the difference or not. I'm just hoping for some clarification on that.

[reiella]

Originally Posted by Joe Cain

I think I understood the concept of lossless compression, it's just that I've seen many references to PCM as "uncompressed;" it would seem that uncompressed would mean something other than losslessly compressed, whether my ears can tell the difference or not. I'm just hoping for some clarification on that.

Prolly two different issues. Compressed sound is compressed off the digital source, which general is the PCM.

PCM is uncompressed digital.

Now the big advantage pcm has over Lossless compression is, well, it doesn't need to be decompressed. Easier on the systems to handle.

And in teh case of Dolby TrueHD. It lacks dialog normalization [which isn't so much an effect of the compression, but of how people use the codec].

That's how I understand it anyway.

[ add / edit ]
The other big thing, well, aside from Dolby TrueHD not many recievers or players currently out actually decode them.

[WickyWoo]

I think I understood the concept of lossless compression, it's just that I've seen many references to PCM as "uncompressed;" it would seem that uncompressed would mean something other than losslessly compressed, whether my ears can tell the difference or not. I'm just hoping for some clarification on that.

If you've ever used a .zip or .rar file on your computer. They compress the information, but it's the same when you "unzip" it as before you compressed it

The same goes for THD and HDMA.

The big advantage is that you can do nice high sample size audio in the same space as PCM. So while the PCM might be 16bit-48KHz, the THD will be 24bit/96Khz

More efficient use of space, same end results

[Joe Cain]

And for either HDMA or THD,
A) I need a receiver that can decode them, or
B) I hope for a PS3 update that would support these formats. Right?

I'm not an audio idiot, but I have very little experience in HT audio. Without PS3 decoding, allowing me to go direct into the receiver, DTS 24/96 would be processed by my receiver as normal DTS---so says the manual. Unless run direct or in stereo it even downsamples PCM above 64kHz. And multichannel PCM is still out of reach for me; my receiver's HDMI is strictly pass-thru so I have to rely on optical.

So I'm only living half the dream! But I tell you, the first time I popped in PotC DMC, set audio out to PCM, and stumbled on the XM "Neural Surround" setting...it's totally forced surround, of course, but the improvement in SQ over legacy Dolby or DTS is almost unbelievable: I sat and listened to the talking skull menu for at least three minutes.

Thanks for your help!

[WickyWoo]

You need a new reciever yes. Your PS3 will send THD and probably DTS HDMA once the update happens as PCM to the reciever over HDMI, so you don't need one with onboard decoding

[gvortex7]

Originally Posted by WickyWoo

If you've ever used a .zip or .rar file on your computer. They compress the information, but it's the same when you "unzip" it as before you compressed it

The same goes for THD and HDMA.

The big advantage is that you can do nice high sample size audio in the same space as PCM. So while the PCM might be 16bit-48KHz, the THD will be 24bit/96Khz

More efficient use of space, same end results

The .zip or .rar analogy is probably the best way to describe the the technology behind DTS-HD MA's and Dolby TrueHD's compression method.

[didihala]

Originally Posted by WickyWoo

If you've ever used a .zip or .rar file on your computer. They compress the information, but it's the same when you "unzip" it as before you compressed it

The same goes for THD and HDMA.

The big advantage is that you can do nice high sample size audio in the same space as PCM. So while the PCM might be 16bit-48KHz, the THD will be 24bit/96Khz

More efficient use of space, same end results

[/QUOTE]
From your above comment, the impression I get is that Dolby TrueHD has a better sound quality. But I keep reading from oher posters that uncompressed PCM is better!?

[MouseRider]

Also remember that DTHD and DTS-HDMA are classified as Advanced Content, which means that publishers can opt to set the Advanced Content flag on the disc to disallow outboard processing of the bitstream and require onboard player decoding which will output multichannel PCM via HDMI with HDCP.

So even if the PS3 gets updated to support HDMI 1.3a you might not be able to pass Advanced Contact bitstreams to your receiver/processor for decoding but likely the PS3 will be updated to be able to decode those streams and send out PCM via the HDMI port with HDCP.

[reiella]

From your above comment, the impression I get is that Dolby TrueHD has a better sound quality. But I keep reading from oher posters that uncompressed PCM is better!? [/QUOTE]

With Dolby TrueHD, you have to deal with dialog normalization. Which is the content authoring pretty much changing the audio levels for spoken dialog from the digital master. This can be seen as a bad thing.

Uncompressed PCM has the advantage of not having to be decompressed [ie, less room for 'failures'], and well, it's cheaper to produce for the studios I imagine, just take the digital master and resample it to the specs and go, as opposed to actually paying dolby money.

[MouseRider]

There's a lot of different opinions floating out there with dialnorm and it really isn't that big a deal to overcome, just bump your center channel up by 4db if you feel the need too.

Just because you're getting uncompressed PCM doesn't mean that the studio didn't apply dialnorm in their mix, there's nothing to say that they put the exact print master sound on the disc.

Properly done lossless compression is going to be exactly similar to uncompressed PCM, the earlier analogy of ZIP and SIT compression is the best way to explain it.

Why use DTHD and the like then? Well, it saves space on the disc as compared to mutli-channel uncompressed PCM.

[WickyWoo]

Just because you're getting uncompressed PCM doesn't mean that the studio didn't apply dialnorm in their mix, there's nothing to say that they put the exact print master sound on the disc.

Applying dialnorm is a standard automatic step of Dolby encoding unless you specifically turn it off. PCM they just toss the wav files on the disc. While further work can be done, virtually, if not all PCM tracks are just dumps

[supersix4]

Originally Posted by WickyWoo

Applying dialnorm is a standard automatic step of Dolby encoding unless you specifically turn it off. PCM they just toss the wav files on the disc.

here HERE!

[dobyblue]

Originally Posted by reiella

With Dolby TrueHD, you have to deal with dialog normalization. Which is the content authoring pretty much changing the audio levels for spoken dialog from the digital master. This can be seen as a bad thing.

Uncompressed PCM has the advantage of not having to be decompressed [ie, less room for 'failures'], and well, it's cheaper to produce for the studios I imagine, just take the digital master and resample it to the specs and go, as opposed to actually paying dolby money.

Fortunately Sony do not use DN on their THD encodes, so if TrueHD means they're willing to use 24-bit instead of 16-bit where the master is 24-bit, I'm all for it.