Will new releases have HD audio, if so, how many channels?

Hi,

This is my first posting and I hope I'm not rehashing an old question.

My understanding of the new high definition audio formats is quite limited, but here is my current understanding. Please correct me if I've gotten something wrong.

1. The soon to be released Toshiba DVD-HD players will support HD (lossless)audio, but only two channels.
2. The soon to be released Sony blu-ray DVD player will support 8-channels of HD audio.
3. There are a few existing receivers/preamps that have either digital (HDMI) inputs or 8 analog input channels that will support playing 8 discrete, high resolution audio channels.

Which gets to my question, does anyone know what the various studios' plans are regarding recording high definition audio on their initial releases? Will there be any HD channels. If so, how many?

The reason I am asking is because I am more likely to become an early adopter of blu-ray if the DVD titles I bought eventually would support 8 discrete HD audio channels. I'd like to avoid having to purchase the same blu-ray title, first to get HD video, then to get HD audio.

Thanks.

Larry

[cws2882]

Originally Posted by Larry Chanin

Hi,
Which gets to my question, does anyone know what the various studios' plans are regarding recording high definition audio on their initial releases? Will there be any HD channels. If so, how many?

The reason I am asking is because I am more likely to become an early adopter of blu-ray if the DVD titles I bought eventually would support 8 discrete HD audio channels. I'd like to avoid having to purchase the same blu-ray title, first to get HD video, then to get HD audio.

Thanks.

Larry

I believe dobly website has a good article on how all of this is going to work on current A/V hardware. Also from what i read all blu-ray will contain the seperate channels of HD audio (forgot what it was called). you can output these directly to your receiver via multi inputs or use a hdmi 1.2 or greater interface (assuming your receiver can handel em). Also all blu-rays are supposed to include these HD channels i beleive. They may or maynot include the dobly HD and DTS HD bit steams. I would start reseaching the dolby website for more info

Originally Posted by cws2882

I believe dobly website has a good article on how all of this is going to work on current A/V hardware. Also from what i read all blu-ray will contain the seperate channels of HD audio (forgot what it was called). you can output these directly to your receiver via multi inputs or use a hdmi 1.2 or greater interface (assuming your receiver can handel em). Also all blu-rays are supposed to include these HD channels i beleive. They may or maynot include the dobly HD and DTS HD bit steams. I would start reseaching the dolby website for more info

Hi,

Thanks. Yes, I had already read the information on the Dolby site and I am aware that TrueHD is backward compatible. However, the player core standards (minimum standards) only require that they support two-HD audio channels and I have not been able to find a definitive source that indicates how many HD audio channels will be recorded on the discs that are scheduled to be released.

By the way, I may have been jumping to conclusions when I stated that the Sony blu-ray player will support the full 8-channel high definition audio standard. I was basing that statement on the sketchy information I read here. Since this page has a link to preordering Sony's player, in a casual read I thought the text referred to the player. However, a closer read shows that they were referring to the blu-ray disc capabilities, not the actual player.

I guess it remains to be seen how many channels the player supports. So its possible that regardless of how many channels are recorded on the discs the intial players might only support two HD channels anyway.

Larry

[GTP]

I am starting to see speculation at other A/V sites that hd dvd indeed does not support DTS HD losless...but rather only lossy.
It doesn't really matter as there will most likely be very few DTS HD releases anyway though.

The first multi channel uncompressed audio will be coming from Sony /MGM titles. but I am not sure on the bitrates