DVD vs Blu-ray (Audio)

[Carlsberg19]

I am wondering is their much difference in blu-ray audio vs DVD, to be more specific, the speaker system i am using can only decode Dolby Digital not HD sound, so is the only benefit i am getting out of blu-ray the HD picture or is their also and improvement on the sound. For example Cloverfield, the sound is amazing on that even on my dolby digital set up, but if i was to play the DVD version of cloverfiled would the sound be the same or have less quality?

[J.Cornelius]

Dolby Digital = Dolby Digital whether on Blu Ray or DVD, there would be no difference in sound quality. Dolby Digital True HD provided the proper equipment would sound better due to its lossless format.

[Carlsberg19]

I assume that i can decode 2 channel PCM, as i am using co-axial, that is something you wouldnt get on DVD tho right ?

[J.Cornelius]

That is correct no PCM on the DVD. I think PCM will only transfer via HDMI or Analog, but I am not certain. There are a ton of threads that discuss this issue though, just search the audio section of th forums. Good luck.

[Johk]

Originally Posted by J.Cornelius

Dolby Digital = Dolby Digital whether on Blu Ray or DVD, there would be no difference in sound quality.

Not entirely true, DD on Blu-ray would be at 640 kbps compared to 448 kbps on DVD (for the majority of titles...) but that's nothing compared to the possibility of 18 Mbit/s for Dolby TrueHD!

[Johk]

Originally Posted by J.Cornelius

That is correct no PCM on the DVD. I think PCM will only transfer via HDMI or Analog, but I am not certain. There are a ton of threads that discuss this issue though, just search the audio section of th forums. Good luck.

You can get 2ch pcm with digital coax or digital optical

[ricky_rocket]

Originally Posted by J.Cornelius

Dolby Digital = Dolby Digital whether on Blu Ray or DVD, there would be no difference in sound quality.
Dolby Digital True HD provided the proper equipment would sound better due to its lossless format.

I wonder how many people could really tell the difference in these two formats in a blind test - even with the proper equipment (i.e best speakers, best decoders) ?

[dobyblue]

Originally Posted by ricky_rocket

I wonder how many people could really tell the difference in these two formats in a blind test - even with the proper equipment (i.e best speakers, best decoders) ?

I would imagine a lot of people could tell the difference between Dolby Digital and Dolby TrueHD, particularly when listening to the higher end of the frequency spectrum.

With 1.5 Mbps Dolby Digital Plus or 1.5 Mbps dts-hd the difference becomes less apparent.

[ozzman]

Originally Posted by dobyblue

I would imagine a lot of people could tell the difference between Dolby Digital and Dolby TrueHD, particularly when listening to the higher end of the frequency spectrum.

With 1.5 Mbps Dolby Digital Plus or 1.5 Mbps dts-hd the difference becomes less apparent.

The first time i heard Rambo (the new one) DTSMaster 7.1 it blew me away.

Blackhawkdown ,PCM uncompressed 5.1.
Thats when i made my decision and started looking at recievers in the highend market.
If you love audio then there is no dought in my mind that you will hear the difference.
My wife can here the difference,enough said

[ricky_rocket]

Originally Posted by ozzman

If you love audio then there is no dought in my mind that you will hear the difference.
My wife can here the difference,enough said

LOL. That's really the true test.

My wife was playing some music CDs and didn't notice that there was only sound coming from the center channel rather than the mains. It's not a bad sounding center channel (Klipsch) but when I walked in the room I was like WTF ?

[Disky76]

Blu-Ray audio blows DVD out of the water. Reminds me of Laserdisc - but Blu-Ray takes it a big step further!

[BIslander]

DD and DTS are less compressed on BD than DVD. I doubt many people could tell the difference between lossless and these higher bitrate lossy versions in a blind test.

While there's no question that lossless has more audio data, there's a point at which that no longer matters. The lossy bitrates used on BD appear to be at, or close to, that point.

[chriharr]

DD & DTS on blu-ray is better because it has more bitrate over the DVD version. As for DD &DTS VS lossless, many can't tell the difference in a blind test and many variations factor into the topic also. such as speaker size and placement, many people on this forum position their large speakers way too close to the listening area so they require higher bitrate audio to get transparency at a close distance, if you positioned you home theatre speakers at the proper distance playing a lossy codec you would get the same effect of tranparency.

louder is not always clearer or better.

sound is optimally mixed in either format for clear presntation anyway, so really it comes down to what you think is better, not what's technically superior.

[dobyblue]

Most people can tell the difference between 448KbpsDolby/768Kbpsdts and lossless audio.

When you get up to 3.0 Mbps lossy dts-hr or Dolby Digital Plus at 1.5 Mbps and higher the difference is far less apparent, but don't kid yourself when it comes to the legacy codecs, in comparisons the difference is rather noticeable.

Originally Posted by chriharr

DD & DTS on blu-ray is better because it has more bitrate over the DVD version.

Not necessarily as far as dts is concerned. There are numerous 1.5 Mbps full bit rate core dts releases on DVD, usually where concerts or music releases are concerned. There were 40 movie releases in North America featuring full bit rate dts, these are usually easy to spot because they have dts or 2.0 Dolby stereo on them. Universal did a number of them.

[BIslander]

Originally Posted by dobyblue

Most people can tell the difference between 448KbpsDolby/768Kbpsdts and lossless audio.

Yes.

When you get up to 3.0 Mbps lossy dts-hr or Dolby Digital Plus at 1.5 Mbps and higher the difference is far less apparent...

Yes.

but don't kid yourself when it comes to the legacy codecs, in comparisons the difference is rather noticeable.

No.

I try not to kid myself. In my room, on my equipment, I hear little or no difference. I find that Dolby at 640kbps and DTS at 1.5mbps rival lossless.

You have a different experience, which is fine. I would only ask that you express it as your opinion rather than presenting it as a statement of fact.

[kingofgrills]

You may not be able to tell the difference between lossless audio and lossy Dolby Digital and DTS codecs, but I don't think you're in the majority on this one, which is fine. I have set up systems for several people, and so far they have all been able to tell the difference between the two. Obviously not everyone will be able to tell the difference, but most home A/V enthusiasts certainly can.

DVD's are selling for $5 now at Walmart, so you can save yourself a ton of cash on releases.

[BIslander]

Originally Posted by kingofgrills

You may not be able to tell the difference between lossless audio and lossy Dolby Digital and DTS codecs, but I don't think you're in the majority on this one, which is fine. I have set up systems for several people, and so far they have all been able to tell the difference between the two. Obviously not everyone will be able to tell the difference, but most home A/V enthusiasts certainly can.

DVD's are selling for $5 now at Walmart, so you can save yourself a ton of cash on releases.

Excuse me. Did you even read my posts? Or, did you simply not understand them?

Perhaps you don't realize there's a difference in compression between legacy encodes on DVD and BD. You obviously missed that part of the discussion, although I'm not sure how because was the only thing being discussed. Allow me to repeat it. The comparison is not between lossless and DD/DTS on DVD. It's between lossless and the higher bitrate versions of the legacy codecs on BD. I doubt many people would pick lossless over those higher bitrate lossy encodes in a blind test.

[chriharr]

The difference in clarity is easy. Lossless wins hands down everytime.

However I don't mind legacy codecs, in fact I couldn't care less for lossless audio, I don't need it with such a small setup that I have.

I would prefer to have a lossless setup, but I won't fork out the cash for a new system and speakers until I get my house to put them in first.

I play my blu-rays discs in either DD or DTS, and if either one of those codecs isn't available my reciever converts the 2ch PCM stream into 5.1 Dolby Prologic 2 surround sound. It sounds perfect to me.

If blu-ray wasn't backwards compatible with older technology I wouldn't have bought into the format

In the past I preferred the DTS audio tracks everytime, they sounded much clearer than Dolby Digital and the center speaker and LFE had more natural punch IMHO, now that blu-ray offers me higher bit rates on those legacy codecs I can now enjoy the formats I've always loved with higher bit rates

And with the core DTS track being 1.5Mbps (that's slightly higher than the bit rate of a compact disc) I can get (almost uncompressed sounding) audio with a slightly higher resolution than a CD. That's awesome in my books.

Dolby Digital has an extra 192Kbps added to it to make it 640Kbps and the difference is quite noticeable to me, it sounds almost the same as a 750Kbps DTS track and most DVD's that feature DTS tracks are encoded at 750Kbps because 1.5Mbps takes up way too much space on a DL DVD disc.

I love my legacy codecs and won't part with them for at least the next 10 years.

[dobyblue]

Originally Posted by BIslander

I would only ask that you express it as your opinion rather than presenting it as a statement of fact.

I think you should read this, I live by it: (the second phrase)

http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse....=boiling_blood



It is fact that most people will be able to tell the difference, of course it is not exclusive - I would not expect people with TV speakers or $50 PC 5.1 speakers to be able to hear the difference...but for most people with a half-decent set-up and anything that could be considered normal hearing the difference in a direct comparison is immediately noticeable.

Originally Posted by BIslander

Perhaps you don't realize there's a difference in compression between legacy encodes on DVD and BD.

Perhaps you didn't read my post in that there is NO difference between bitrates of legacy dts on numerous releases. There are plenty of 1.5 Mbps dts tracks available on DVD.

Originally Posted by chriharr

And with the core DTS track being 1.5Mbps (that's slightly higher than the bit rate of a compact disc)

Ah but the dts bitrate is for 6 channels, the CD is two channels, hence the CD is still far better resolution.

I can get (almost uncompressed sounding) audio with a slightly higher resolution than a CD. That's awesome in my books.

Again, divide 1.509 by 6 and 1.411 by 2 and you'll see that's not the case.

and most DVD's that feature DTS tracks are encoded at 750Kbps

768 actually!

In case anyone's interested, here are the DVD's available with 1.509 Mbps dts:

• 12 Monkeys (Universal) 1509kbps
• Amistad (DreamWorks) 1509kbps
• Antz (DreamWorks) 1509kbps
• Apollo 13 (Universal) 1509kbps Discontinued
• Babe (Universal. Warning: Pan and Scan) 1509kbps Discontinued
• Born on the Fourth of July (Universal) 1509kbps Discontinued
• Boxer, The (Universal) 1509kbps
• Dances With Wolves (Image Entertainment) 1509kbps Discontinued
• Dante's Peak (Universal) 1509kbps
• Daylight (Universal) 1509kbps
• Dragonheart (Universal) 1509kbps
• EdTV (Universal) 1509kbps
• Flintstones, The (Universal) 1509kbps
• For Richer or Poorer (Universal) 1509kbps
• Galaxy Quest (DreamWorks) 1509kbps
• Interview with the Vampire (Warner) 1509kbps
• Jackal, The (Universal) 1509kbps
• Lethal Weapon (Warner) 1509kbps
• Lethal Weapon 2 (Warner) 1509kbps
• Lethal Weapon 3 (Warner) 1509kbps
• Liar Liar (Universal. Warning: Pan and Scan) 1509kbps
• Little Rascals, The (Universal) 1509kbps
• Mercury Rising (Universal) 1509kbps
• Mouse Hunt (DreamWorks) 1509kbps
• Nutty Professor, The (Universal) 1509kbps
• Out of Sight (Universal) 1509kbps
• Passion of the Christ, The (20th Century Fox) 1509kbps Canada/754kbps US Standard and Definitive Edition
• Patch Adams (Universal) 1509kbps Discontinued
• Paulie (DreamWorks) 1509kbps
• Peacemaker, The (DreamWorks) 1509kbps
• Primary Colors (Universal) 1509kbps
• Prince of Egypt, The (DreamWorks) 1509kbps
• Re-Animator: Millennium Edition (Elite Entertainment) 1509kbps Discontinued
• River Wild, The (Universal) 1509kbps
• Shadow, The (Universal. Warning: Pan and Scan) 1509kbps
• Small Soldiers (DreamWorks) 1509kbps
• Super Speedway: The Mach II Special Edition (Image Entertainment) 1509kbps
• Thin Red Line, The (20th Century Fox) 1509kbps
• Twister (Warner) 1509kbps
• Virus (Universal) 1509kbps
• Waterworld (Universal) 1509kbps

[BIslander]

Originally Posted by dobyblue

I think you should read this, I live by it: (the second phrase)

http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse....=boiling_blood

I thought you might be linking to something substantive. My bad.

It is fact that most people will be able to tell the difference, of course it is not exclusive - I would not expect people with TV speakers or $50 PC 5.1 speakers to be able to hear the difference...but for anyone with a half-decent set-up and anything that could be considered normal hearing the difference in a direct comparison is immediately noticeable.

And you establish this fact how? Care to source it? If it's so obvious, that shouldn't be a problem. And, please, source it with scientific integrity. Not another opinion.

Perhaps you didn't read my post in that there is NO difference between bitrates of legacy dts on numerous releases. There are plenty of 1.5 Mbps dts tracks available on DVD.

I originally started to respond to that overstatement as well, but opted against it. My bad again. Your post characterized the number of 1.5 mbps DTS releases as "numerous". There are dozens of them, fewer than a hundred. Out of the thousands of discs that have been released, that hardly seems numerous. EDIT: Thanks for the list, all 40 or so.

Do you just like to be argumentative? Kingofgrills made a rude remark not relevant to the discussion at hand. Why weigh in on his behalf?