Poll: Should Sony use DTS-HD Master Audio or Dolby TrueHD?

[Monkey]

Originally Posted by Krelldog1977

I am not just speaking for myself, but for all the people who have invested a good deal of money and time on this wonderful hobby!

I'm curious, what $1000 system will allow you to enjoy blu ray and all its glory? The cheapest pre/pro will run at least $600 if you want to decode master. Then add another $400 for the blu-ray player ( capable of DTS-MA )
and all the cables and wires for the system.
A new set of speakers will run about $1000, which includes fronts, center,and rears. Then a capable subwoofer will cost at minimum $650. This brings you to $2650 for a new system.

If you can build a decent setup for under $1000, then I'd love to hear your ideas....otherwise your statements are a slap in the face to those who saved up, and paid the piper, for seperate amplifiers and high fidelity speakers. The bottom line is you pay for what you get my friend...

Bri

Sure, $1,000 might not get me far for your tastes, but still I can tell the difference between a superbit DVD and Blu-ray with DTS-MS or TrueHD despite listening on a budget system.

It's unfortunate you take that as a slap in the face, you shouldn't. We're not all created equal, some have decent hearing, some not so good, some great, same with eyes site. Don't worry, if you tell me you can't tell the difference on something less, I'll take your word for it. Many others however can

[Rob J in WNY]

Originally Posted by BIslander

I voted that it doesn't matter to me. And, it doesn't. I am not affected by any of these problems. But, I think accurate information is of some value.

+1, except to add that accurate information is of immense value!

[Krelldog1977]

Originally Posted by Monkey

Sure, $1,000 might not get me far for your tastes, but still I can tell the difference between a superbit DVD and Blu-ray with DTS-MS or TrueHD despite listening on a budget system.

It's unfortunate you take that as a slap in the face, you shouldn't. We're not all created equal, some have decent hearing, some not so good, some great, same with eyes site. Don't worry, if you tell me you can't tell the difference on something less, I'll take your word for it. Many others however can

...on a $1000 budget for everything...cmon. The only thing you can discern on systems of this caliber is hollow bass and a true lack of dynamics.

[Monkey]

Originally Posted by Krelldog1977

...on a $1000 budget for everything...cmon. The only thing I can discern on systems of this caliber is hollow bass and a true lack of dynamics.

fixed it for you

[Krelldog1977]

Originally Posted by Monkey

fixed it for you

Thanks Monkey, and I'm still waiting to hear about your budget reference system. Let me guess, you have wireless speakers and a passive sub ?

Bri

[Monkey]

Originally Posted by Krelldog1977

Thanks Monkey, and I'm still waiting to hear about your budget reference system. Let me guess, you have wireless speakers and a passive sub ?

Bri

I think I'll need a refresher, can you show me the quote where I mentioned a budget reference system. Granted it my speakers do have the word reference in their name.. If you are quick you can figure it out, of course that had nothing to do with my statement as I didn't state my budget was under a $1,000.00

You did guess wrong on the speakers and sub (which if you read any of my posts about my system you wouldn't have had to guess, lol). Strike Two

[Blu-Dog]

Originally Posted by Krelldog1977

I am not just speaking for myself, but for all the people who have invested a good deal of money and time on this wonderful hobby!

I'm one of those, but my expenditures are relatively recent - within the last four years or so.

Before that, I scrimped and saved where I could. I wound up with terrific sound, and I'm saying that even though I've replaced virtually everything in my "public" setups. I'm still using most of it.

Originally Posted by Krelldog1977

I'm curious, what $1000 system will allow you to enjoy blu ray and all its glory? The cheapest pre/pro will run at least $600 if you want to decode master.

There are several very clean receivers out there in the $300/$500 range that can do this, with obvious sacrifices. Mainly volume that can be attained.

Originally Posted by Krelldog1977

Then add another $400 for the blu-ray player ( capable of DTS-MA )
and all the cables and wires for the system.

Pioneer 1018: $300/400 (1kHz w/0.05% THD @ 8 ohm)
Monoprice HDMI cable and wires for five speakers: Maybe $40
Panasonic BD60: Some guy found one for under $200 in the Hot Deals section
Speakers: Another guy found Polk Model 70's for about $80 each at Newegg, but let's say we're going to go nuts and spend $150 each
Sub: A decent beast starts at about $300, go nuts and spend $500

Before taxes, we're at about $1800.

What you sacrifice is VERY LOUD sound. Distortion steps in.

Originally Posted by Krelldog1977

A new set of speakers will run about $1000, which includes fronts, center,and rears. Then a capable subwoofer will cost at minimum $650. This brings you to $2650 for a new system.

I spent ten times that much on just one HT, and I have two. However, much of that funding was spent on style...the stuff is as good to look at as it is to listen to. You pay for aesthetics; look at your own gear, you'll see what I'm saying.

Originally Posted by Krelldog1977

If you can build a decent setup for under $1000, then I'd love to hear your ideas....otherwise your statements are a slap in the face to those who saved up, and paid the piper, for seperate amplifiers and high fidelity speakers. The bottom line is you pay for what you get my friend...
Bri

Think about something for a minute. Folks don't have a ton of money to spend - and may not have a place to "crank it up". So they go to Parts Express, build up a speaker series, or buy it used, or just shop hard and get the right stuff.

Then TruHD comes along, with a system that can't crank all that hard even if it's clean (and yes, they can be very, very clean, trust me on this) and kills the volume by -4DB with Dialnorm and sucks the air out of the tweeters with DRC - and no, you won't get very good sound.

Say the guy got a cheapie Magnavox or Curtis Mathes Blu player, and the menu system isn't all that good, and he can't turn off DRC. What then?

You can get very good sound - maybe not and concert hall volume, but very good indeed - with care, attention to detail, and good advice. I'm hoping the manufacturers and film producers pay attention to the needs of the marketplace, and quit crippling the output of their products.

There was a time when I had all of $800 in my home theater, with speakers and subs I built myself, and it sounded ten times as expensive than it actually was. Don't go into elitist mode - money ain't everything, and a Bose Lifestyle system still costs well over two grand.

[D]

Here's an idea. How about the studios, and the manufactures collaborate on say an educational disc. Not some demo disc, but a disc explaining the format, and it's advantages, picture and sound qaulity, as well as all of the other benefits. Maybe do a promotional spot in the theaters with the trailers before the feature. Educate the consumer, make it available through their websites. People get informed. Maybe sales increase? Just a thought.

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by Blu-Dog

Then TruHD comes along, with a system that can't crank all that hard even if it's clean (and yes, they can be very, very clean, trust me on this) and kills the volume by -4DB with Dialnorm and sucks the air out of the tweeters with DRC - and no, you won't get very good sound.

So the folks are incapable of turning up the volume knob? The power needed to PUSH the speaker is the same if the level is -4dB or -8dB.

People who like "louder is better" are destroying the CD market as producers push the recording levels to "11".

Say the guy got a cheapie Magnavox or Curtis Mathes Blu player, and the menu system isn't all that good, and he can't turn off DRC. What then?

Perhaps turning it off on the amp for one? The "Night Mode" switch on the remote?

You can get very good sound - maybe not and concert hall volume, but very good indeed - with care, attention to detail, and good advice. I'm hoping the manufacturers and film producers pay attention to the needs of the marketplace, and quit crippling the output of their products.

Meanwhile those who have a lil' speaker system blow them out because they were listening to what was a fairly quiet film and then an explosion occurs because MA didn't have DRC.

[Audiophile_At_Birth]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

Meanwhile those who have a lil' speaker system blow them out because they were listening to what was a fairly quiet film and then an explosion occurs because MA didn't have DRC.

It has nothing to do with a 'lil speaker system', but mostly with what's driving the 'lil speakers'. If they blow they're speakers it's because they didn't have the dynamic 'head room' demanded by the speakers from the amp. The amp is over driven to produce a signal it can't, thus it sends clipped signals to the speakers. Good bye speakers.

[BIslander]

A couple more facts to throw into the discussion:

There seems to be a feeling that Dolby and DTS are responsible for using dialnorm. They aren't. Dialnorm settings are present in both Dolby and DTS encoders. The decision to use an offset rests with the content producer. Dolby doesn't make anyone use dialnorm and DTS doesn't prevent it. The studio makes that decision. Now, it is my understanding that Dolby encoders have a -4db offset as a default and DTS has 0 as the default. It would appear most studios don't much care one way or the other whether it's used and they simply use the defaults. But, they are the ones who make that call. So, complain to them. From what's been posted in this thread a couple of times, I gather Sony uses a 0 db offset in its TrueHD releases. (But, again, this is an insequential issue to begin with.)

It's much the same story with setting the DRC flag to On. The studio makes that call. And, it's the On flag in the metadata that causes the problems because it engages compression in playback devices where DRC is set to Auto. Personally, I don't see any justification for a studio turning that flag On. It should always be up to the end user to engage DRC.

[BIslander]

Originally Posted by Blu-Dog

You've never explained why an "opt-in" method for controlling DRC isn't your preference. I'd be glad to hear your reasons.

Opt-in is my preference. I never said it wasn't. There's no reason for a disc to engage DRC on its own.

My responses to you have been about how easy it is for the end user to avoid the DRC problem. You simply set DRC to Off instead of Auto in your playback device. Do that in the initial player set-up, problem solved forever.

This type of pot-kettle-black discussion doesn't add up; the davcole poster made a very good point about hardware issues, and I previously noted that the DTS-MA Essentials mode was a reason to avoid purchasing certain manufacturer gear if playing DVD's was something that was a priority for Blu player owners.

Let me get this straight. If all discs had TrueHD tracks, I could buy any player I want. But, if they have dts-MA instead, I have to limit my choice of players to those that can decode all discs properly? (That means no Pioneers, Panasonics, or the new Oppo.) Why is that better? DTS-HD Master Audio Essential decoding happened because manufacturers are finding it hard to implement fully a featured dts-MA decoder at the necessary price point.

As for hardware issues, I'm not sure what you mean. What hardware and what issues? It's decoding software that's the problem. But, even if it were hardware, it's hardware that only affects DTS. Sounds like TrueHD would be a better solution because it works with all hardware.

Your cite shows that the same practice you advise for DRC control could be used for the Essentials situation.

Nope. DRC can be fixed permanently by changing one setting just once. Then you never have to do anything about it again. That's not fiddling. It's a player configuration setting, much the same as choosing bitstream or PCM.

With the Essential decoder, you have use a second player, or run a second connection from your Blu-ray player and use it when playing ES and 96/24 discs, or change the player set-up back and forth between PCM and bitstream when switching between discs that can be properly decoded and those that can't. That's a lot more fiddling, to use your term, than the practice I've advised.

Perhaps my pointing out that fiddling with controls makes little sense has irked you in some way.

Nope. If I may, you are just being argumentative here. Once again, there's no fiddling with TrueHD beyond changing DRC from Auto to Off, a change that only needs to be done once.

And remember, you are the one who is trying to make a case for dumping TrueHD because you think it requires user fiddling while dts-MA does not. If dts-MA also requires fiddling, what's the reason for a change? I'm happy with either one. And I've never tried to say TrueHD is better than dts-MA.

EDIT: One more issue occurs to me about the need to fiddle with a player when using dts-MA. It's one that affects your S550 player, btw. If you set that player to Mix, it will decode TrueHD and mix in secondary audio. That means you can simply leave the player on Mix for the main feature and for PIP commentaries. But, because of the extra processing power required to decode dts-MA, the S550 cannot handle mixing at the same time. That means you have to go into the player set-up and set it to Mix when you want to listen to a PIP commentary and then go back in and change it back to Direct to get lossless for a movie. This is not about getting lossless with commentaries, which is kind of pointless. It's about ease of operation. With TrueHD, one setting works for everything. With dts-MA, you have to fiddle with the player depending on what you are watching.

[PeterTHX]

Interesting statistic:

The only 5.1 24-bit 192kHz track on Blu-ray is....

Dolby TrueHD (Akira)

For you spec watchers to consider...

[GoodToGo]

It strikes me as odd to see the replies defending TrueHD. They seem to be ignoring a serious point in this whole TrueHD vs DTS MA argument.

See when people pop in a Blu-Ray disc, they don't want to spend time turning off DRC and dial norm. They just want to enjoy the movie. Heck, many of them don't even probably know what dial norm and DRC is, let alone turning it off. Add the fact that companies may have their own terminology for it and the already blurry picture get worse.

Secondly, the arrogance displayed is astounding. People who don't understand all the mechanics are being labeled as "uninformed". Here is a fact: not everyone is a sound engineer. Good for you if you understand the intricacies, not everyone does.

The biggest enemy any company (and I mean in absolutely any field) can have is arrogance. "We are good just cause we are". Uh huh, it doesn't work out that way. Throughout the history of corporations, arrogance will bring a company down faster than you realize. Dolby has not shown any serious effort to correct the inherent problems. Now people are arguing that it is in fact the studios that implement dialnorm, DRC blah blah Well the same can go for DTS as well, so why is only TrueHD impacted by it? Dolby needs some serious effort to correct these issues. Argue all you want in favor of Dolby, the market is composed of people who want hi def sound with the least of fiddling. In the end, whichever codec provides it will prevail. And as of now, it looks like DTS has a lot of votes for it.

[Blu-Dog]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

So the folks are incapable of turning up the volume knob? The power needed to PUSH the speaker is the same if the level is -4dB or -8dB.

I've never heard your answer on why they should be required to do this.

[dobyblue]

Originally Posted by GoodToGo

It strikes me as odd to see the replies defending TrueHD. They seem to be ignoring a serious point in this whole TrueHD vs DTS MA argument.

See when people pop in a Blu-Ray disc, they don't want to spend time turning off DRC and dial norm. They just want to enjoy the movie.

I only had to change my setting once. It now has DN off for every movie.

Originally Posted by Petra_Kalbrain

Does anyone in this thread know if there is anything that would force the PS3Dynamic Range Control setting to be turned off? As in, the setting becomes turned off for all future applications until the user themselves goes back into the XMB menu system to turn it off again?

I set mine to OFF and it has always stayed in that position. Are you seeing it going back to ON again somehow? That should not happen. All of the settings should be user configured at all times.

[dobyblue]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

People who like "louder is better" are destroying the CD market as producers push the recording levels to "11".

That is so true. Look at the initial release of Dave Matthews Band's first album, and this is a song that's pretty loud:

Minarets:



Now here's a look at the new track "Funny The Way It Is" on the top along with "Too Much" from 1996's Crash CD, both suffering from clipping and massive dynamic compression.



People should remember that the volume knob is under THEIR control and not the studio's. Bob Ludwig got GNR's new album right, no clipping and no compression, it's the best looking album I've seen in years.

[Krelldog1977]

Originally Posted by Blu-Dog

There are several very clean receivers out there in the $300/$500 range that can do this, with obvious sacrifices. Mainly volume that can be attained.



Pioneer 1018: $300/400 (1kHz w/0.05% THD @ 8 ohm)
Monoprice HDMI cable and wires for five speakers: Maybe $40
Panasonic BD60: Some guy found one for under $200 in the Hot Deals section
Speakers: Another guy found Polk Model 70's for about $80 each at Newegg, but let's say we're going to go nuts and spend $150 each
Sub: A decent beast starts at about $300, go nuts and spend $500

Before taxes, we're at about $1800.

What you sacrifice is VERY LOUD sound. Distortion steps in.

Sure, as you exemplified, it is possible to build a complete budget system for under $2000. But with this setup you are sacrificing a lot more than VERY LOUD sound. I didn't invest in Hifi to simply play my music and movies at deafening levels...I invested so I can play the movies at a normal listening level and still achieve great dynamics, room filled bass, and holographic like sound.

Also, a decent beast of a sub does NOT start at $300, unless it belongs in the trunk of a car,lol.

[Hep]

Originally Posted by GoodToGo

Secondly, the arrogance displayed is astounding. People who don't understand all the mechanics are being labeled as "uninformed". Here is a fact: not everyone is a sound engineer. Good for you if you understand the intricacies, not everyone does.

Calling an opinion uniformed is not an insult, or born from arrogance. Everyone is uniformed about certain subjects. I am quite ignorant about needlepoint, and being called uniformed regarding that subject would simply be an accurate "label".

[Blu-Dog]

Originally Posted by db01

Here's an idea. How about the studios, and the manufactures collaborate on say an educational disc. Not some demo disc, but a disc explaining the format, and it's advantages, picture and sound qaulity, as well as all of the other benefits. Maybe do a promotional spot in the theaters with the trailers before the feature. Educate the consumer, make it available through their websites. People get informed. Maybe sales increase? Just a thought.

I'm afraid it would turn into a sales session for things people don't really want, but are sitting on the manufacturer's shelves. There's so much bogus information out there that it would be hard for them to say things with a straight face and legal validity.

We're in the middle of a discussion here, that begins with confident assurances that a sound mode is "lossless", which is then followed by a list of caveats, warnings, instructions, and insults about the intelligence of the customer. A slick educational video might be able to convince somebody, but at the heart of it, something is wrong with the product - not just the presentation.