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

[Hep]

Originally Posted by dobyblue

...suffering from clipping and massive dynamic compression.

People should remember that the volume knob is under THEIR control and not the studio's.

This trend is so sad, and I have started to hear the effects from some of my favourite bands; the latest REM album is a case-in-point.

[Blu-Dog]

Originally Posted by 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. (snip)

It should always be up to the end user to engage DRC.

Agreed, and here's the problem. End users don't know any of this.

I've seen warnings on movie packages to upgrade my firmware; I've seen videos in previews about stealing images; I see FBI warnings, Interpol warnings in multiple languages, you name it. All I see about the actual product I purchase is a logo telling me that the audio is lossless.

That's it.

When the sound does not match the original PCM track, it is not lossless. I could not care less about studio engineers flipping switches, adjusting settings, and then running double blind tests to compare audio tracks; I put a mass market disc into an expensive player, and I don't get the same results.

To tell users to "just adjust the volume" without a clearly defined baseline is simply nonsense. As I've noted before, the recording industry set the RIAA curve for LP recordings at least 45 years ago; without a standard, all these logos, confident claims, and the rest just don't impress me at all.

If DTS uses the baseline PCM track as a default, and Dolby does not, I'll go with DTS. It's that simple. If Dolby sees the light and stops playing shenanigans with the PCM track, I'll go with Dolby.

[Blu-Dog]

Originally Posted by dobyblue

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

I think you mean DRC, not Dialnorm. You can't change the Dialnorm setting.

The issue being discussed is why this should be necessary. The release is issued as "lossless", with no notification to anyone that if you don't adjust your player, you won't get lossless playback.

Originally Posted by dobyblue

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.

Speaking for myself, I have no idea what the Dolby standard does, or why, when it comes to the setting of flags and playback levels. I wasn't aware of the DRC problem until a few weeks ago.

This should not be "insider knowledge" that some select group, such as members of internet boards, share with each other. It shouldn't be necessary to deal with this at all.

The funny thing is, looking at the poll results, most people see a difference, and that's not good for Dolby on Blu-Ray.

[Damage Inc.]

Originally Posted by Hep

This trend is so sad, and I have started to hear the effects from some of my favourite bands; the latest REM album is a case-in-point.

Actually, a big part of the final product is in the hands of bands and their producers too.
It's a bit different from films and their releases and mass-productions from different studios.
You can really notice it in the releases too.

For example, Iron Maiden's Steve Harris has had a hand in most of their releases.
Possibly not in the latest "Flight 666"-release, but I'm not 100% sure.
And I noticed that for example about every 'Queen'-DVD was released with DTS.
I have no doubt that Brian May or at least someone in or close to Queen is behind that.

Personally, I would really care about the end-results of my CDs and video-media.
It's the thing that the consumers and fans would play over and over again.
So you bet I'd make sure the quality would be stellar.
In fact, one day I'll take it much further than that, a revolution in music as it were.

[Blu-Dog]

Originally Posted by Krelldog1977

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.

Ever hear a good 2.0 system?

Anyway, I'm sure that for $1,500 to $1,800, you can tell the difference between compressed audio and true, lossless audio.

It's best to bring this discussion to another area in the forum, it's getting pretty far away from this topic.

[dobyblue]

Originally Posted by Damage Inc.

Actually, a big part of the final products is in the hands of bands and their producers too.

It definitely is, the artist is very UNINFORMED about what the final product should sound like. They listen to other artist's products whose success they want to emulate, hear how loud it is and want theirs to do the same. I have spoken with a few mastering studios in Toronto and they've said that it's a case of either they make it loud, which results in dynamic range going out the window and lots of clipping, or they lose the project to another studio. In some cases I think a bit of clipping is preferred to compression, but what these artists don't realize is that a track from The Stone Roses, which has neither compression nor clipping on it, is going to sound identical on the radio to a track from Oasis, who are pretty much the worst recorded band in history. Their average CD has around 2dB of dynamic range.

The FM stations always compress what they're broadcasting so one song sounds the same volume as the other. In most cases people's first exposure to a new track or band is over the radio, so the whole volume war is really ridiculous and in the end it only negatively affects us, the consumer.

[davcole]

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. 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.



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.

I have to agree with you and I think that's the point that some posting on the thread want to overlook, but the same reason that people from Sony are interested in reading about. Ergonomics are very important in people's minds. From the ease of use and simple design of their products. Your expression and many other's in this thread is as a end user, they find DTSMA an easier implementation. Like it or not about the simplicity of a volume adjustment or turning a mode to OFF, you can't argue that DTSMA is a simpler application for the end user. The end user doesn't care about how much horsepower is necessary to run it. They just know if they have access, they can load the disc and it plays as advertised.

You are also right on a company's arrogance. Any company that reaches the prideful mark is always in danger of becoming obsolete, particularily when they don't listen to their market. Think of all the technologies that got burned cause they didn't listen. One needs to go no further than HD DVD to explain that scenario.

You make good points!

[davcole]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

Studios mandate the DialNorm level.

DTS has DialNorm.

I have to ask the obvious. If the studio's mandate, why is there a default level? I'd like to know what DTS disc have Dialnorm activated. If I recall from screenshot, the default is OFF.

[Yeha-Noha]

Time for another poll. This one's getting old and boring. How about: Should Fox use Dolby TrueHD?

[Rob J in WNY]

Originally Posted by Blu-Dog

As I've noted before, the recording industry set the RIAA curve for LP recordings at least 45 years ago; without a standard, all these logos, confident claims, and the rest just don't impress me at all.

The RIAA set an equalization curve, and I'm sure some standards on groove amplitude/modulation and volume thresholds, but I have plenty of vinyl, of varying ages, whose playback volumes are all over the map.

For the record, I voted that it didn't matter to me either way (I believe I may have mentioned this already).

[srrndhound]

Originally Posted by Blu-Dog

When the sound does not match the original PCM track, it is not lossless. I could not care less about studio engineers flipping switches, adjusting settings, and then running double blind tests to compare audio tracks; I put a mass market disc into an expensive player, and I don't get the same results.

So, your playback system has all signal processing turned off? No bass management, no gain trims, no room EQ--all to ensure you are hearing lossless audio unmodified? Seems a shame to give up on these useful features. But if you are not eschewing your AVR’s post-processing, how is the result any less lossless when the system uses dialnorm?

To tell users to "just adjust the volume" without a clearly defined baseline is simply nonsense. As I've noted before, the recording industry set the RIAA curve for LP recordings at least 45 years ago; without a standard, all these logos, confident claims, and the rest just don't impress me at all.

If DTS uses the baseline PCM track as a default, and Dolby does not, I'll go with DTS. It's that simple. If Dolby sees the light and stops playing shenanigans with the PCM track, I'll go with Dolby.

If you play movies without any dialnorm, how do you set the playback volume? There's nothing on the disc jacket to tell you. Do you just set the volume for 0 dB, THX reference level, and watch everything that way? I suspect not--like many of us, this is often too loud, so we sometimes turn down the volume.

Maybe you always set the volume for -10 dB or some other value you have determined over time is your "standard" level. No one told you what offset to use--you found it by repeated trials over time, adjusting the volume until it sounded "just right."

Once you have determined your personal “standard” volume setting, regardless of whether it is 0dB, -10dB, or some other, if you always use that setting, do you find all movies have the same subjective loudness--not the explosions/peaks, but that the dialog is uniformly loud, at an equally comfortable listening level? And do you find that you never have any movies that you feel need to be played at a slightly different volume? Even though dubbing stages and, to a lesser extent, commercial theaters, are well calibrated, the taste of the sound mixers is not. And sometimes the final mix's overall level will be shifted by the producer--it happens. Many factors affect a movie's final loudness. While there is good uniformity across movies (much better than the music industry!), I do not find that the exact same volume setting is right for every movie--some are too aggressive and need to be backed down, some are quiet and need a little extra. And this is totally separate from other factors like one’s own mood, or other listeners in the room, which can also influence how loud we might play a soundtrack. This is one of the great benefits of being in one’s home theater as opposed to the local Roxy—I can set the volume rather than suffer an onslaught.

I'd be interested to hear your experiences on this if you care to share.

Dialnorm is a measure of average dialog loudness relative to 0dBFS. It usually measures -27 dB, but as we've seen, sometimes it changes. If you empirically find a volume "standard" for dialnormed movies, just as you did for non-dialnormed movies, you'd also be able to use that setting for all such movies. In that case, you might find that there will be less need to fiddle with the volume from movie to movie, since the gross variations will be reduced.

Let me also give an example. Air Force One was mixed in 7.1 SDDS with 5 screen channels. In order to put the movie onto DVD, these 5 had to be downmixed to 3 (L/C/R), and there were two ways to do it: a) Leave the reference levels alone, and apply peak limiting to cap the loud parts. b) pull down all the channels 4 dB to allow extra headroom for the downmix. Sony chose b), and set the dialnorm to 31, thus maintaining the original dialog reference levels. Yes, this is not a typical case, but it just serves to illustrate the mechanism and benefit.

Regardless of however consistent movies may be mixed, or whether we could live in a utopian non-dialnormed, THX calibrated world, or for that matter in a world where everything is dialnormed to perfection (a hypothetical—to be sure), or even one where Dynamic Volume works perfectly (also a hypothetical), none of these alternatives results in enjoying the playback of all our movies at exactly the same volume setting for all time. We choose to use the volume control. Add to our home entertainment menu all your favorite music and TV shows, and that just underscores the conclusion.

[Polyh3dron]

DTS-MA is the best choice for those who can decode lossless audio, and for those who can't as well. The only problem is that some earlier standalone models can't bitstream OR decode the lossless part.

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by Polyh3dron

DTS-MA is the best choice for those who can decode lossless audio, and for those who can't as well. The only problem is that some earlier standalone models can't bitstream OR decode the lossless part.

Because (and ignoring the fact that far more devices are DD compatible)?

Still waiting on an explanation why a DTS-MA encoding will sound "better" than a TrueHD encoding.

[Hep]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

Still waiting on an explanation why a DTS-MA encoding will sound "better" than a TrueHD encoding.

Why are you still baiting people with this? You know as well as anyone that there's no sonic difference between the lossless codecs, and therefore no proof can be forthcoming. Many people here have some very logical reasons for their codec preference on either side of the debate, but it's all situational. You can't fight the poll - for better or worse the people have spoken.

[Anthony P]

I do not believe the Dolby implementation is perfect. Dialnorm should probably go away because it failed in its stated purpose. The Auto setting on DRC creates opportunities for errors, which do seem to happen. But, all of that can be avoided by changing one setting when setting up a player or receiver. And, DRC has a value for people who need it.

DN is needed for DRC and is the primary reason it exists. It gives the "normal"/ average for the movie so that the device knows to amplify what is below and decrease what is above. Without it the DRC would move around a fixed point which might not be the right point for the movie.

DTS-HD decoding has its own set of problems, some of which I find more significant than changing the DRC setting one time and one time only. And, some of these DTS issues cannot be overcome by the user.

I don't get that. IF I understood your link correctly the issue on some players is that the DVD with a DTS ES will not play correctly. So how does Sony (or anyone else) using DTS HD-MA on their BDs help or hurt the ES playback?

[Anthony P]

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

Dobyblue, you must be the only person I know that can turn off DN, what device allows that?

[BIslander]

Srrndhound - Thank you for a clear and informed explanation of dialnorm.

Originally Posted by Anthony P

I don't get that. IF I understood your link correctly the issue on some players is that the DVD with a DTS ES will not play correctly. So how does Sony (or anyone else) using DTS HD-MA on their BDs help or hurt the ES playback?

An Essential DTS decoder in the player means legacy DTS-ES and 96/24 tracks cannot be decoded properly. If all lossless tracks are TrueHD, then the player can have a legacy DTS decoder for DVD playback. This situation argues for staying with TrueHD. However, since players already have Essential decoders, it doesn't have any practical value. These days, if you want both lossless and complete legacy DTS decoding, you need to be quite careful in the selection of a player that can do all DTS decoding or you need to bitstream to an AVR for decoding.

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by Hep

Why are you still baiting people with this? You know as well as anyone that there's no sonic difference between the lossless codecs, and therefore no proof can be forthcoming. Many people here have some very logical reasons for their codec preference on either side of the debate, but it's all situational. You can't fight the poll - for better or worse the people have spoken.

Baiting? Hardly.
We have people right now thinking DialNorm impacts the sound quality.
People still seem to think that the sound is different between the 2 codecs and I'd bet you more than half of the respondents who chose DTS-MA are those people.

[Hep]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

We have people right now thinking DialNorm impacts the sound quality. People still seem to think that the sound is different between the 2 codecs and I'd bet you more than half of the respondents who chose DTS-MA are those people.

I agree with everything you have said here; and I didn't mean to offend you with my terminology. I use the term baiting because you are repeatedly asking a question that you clearly already know the answer to, seemingly in hopes that a less well informed reply from a DTS-HDMA fan comes your way. You may find that limiting your posts to direct replies dispelling these myths using evidence is a more effective tactic. Afterall, you have valuable knowledge on your side. As for the other half of the DTS-HDMA fans, we just disagree that True HD is the best solution, and often for valid reasons.

[BStecke]

Originally Posted by Blu-Dog

I think you mean DRC, not Dialnorm. You can't change the Dialnorm setting.

The issue being discussed is why this should be necessary. The release is issued as "lossless", with no notification to anyone that if you don't adjust your player, you won't get lossless playback.

You still don't get it. A lossless track, even with DRC set to on, is still a lossless track. The same information is present. Turning this setting off (one time, not every time - another point you seem to miss) eliminates any range compression, thus giving you the same result as PCM or DTS HDMA. However, there is nothing about DRC that makes anything un-lossless.

As for DialNorm - yet ANOTHER point you keep bringing up despite many people telling you - isn't even as hard as changing a setting. Adjust the volume to compensate for the difference. Done. Neither one of these are beyond anyone's grasp. If changing a setting is hard for anyone, I wonder what kind of jobs these people are qualified to do in the real world.