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

[BozQ]

Originally Posted by dobyblue

So...what is the audio codec on the highest selling Blu-ray Disc of all time to date?

And which titles would they be?
Then again, that wasn't my point I'm trying to tell Sony.
What I'm telling them is, they can take their lousy movies that earned nothing in the box office, slap the BD audio with DTS-HD Master Audio, and they will still gain a little bit from that move.

And what better way to earn it than to cash in on this mentality? Take the crappiest movie of all time, encode the audio in DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 96KHz/24bit, or even 192KHz/24-bit, and it will sell! Really now, I believe this arguement has been going on for too long now. It's just as disappointing as people asking "WHY IS THERE STILL BLACK BARS ON BLU-RAY?!"

By the way, just for the record, I'm indifferent to both formats. Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio works the exact same way as long as they both come from the same unmodified master.

But I like many people's view that DTS-HD MA will provide a much higher quality 1535kbps DTS Core for older receivers. That's a very valid arguement to shift to DTS.

[dobyblue]

Originally Posted by AikonEnt

Not even just the top spot I'd guess. Probably a good proportion of the top 10. Dark Knight, Transformers and Iron Man are all TrueHD aren't they?

Yes that's right.

Originally Posted by BozQ

And which titles would they be?

See above post.

Then again, that wasn't my point I'm trying to tell Sony.
What I'm telling them is, they can take their lousy movies that earned nothing in the box office, slap the BD audio with DTS-HD Master Audio, and they will still gain a little bit from that move.

And what better way to earn it than to cash in on this mentality? Take the crappiest movie of all time, encode the audio in DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 96KHz/24bit, or even 192KHz/24-bit, and it will sell! Really now, I believe this arguement has been going on for too long now. It's just as disappointing as people asking "WHY IS THERE STILL BLACK BARS ON BLU-RAY?!"

By the way, just for the record, I'm indifferent to both formats. Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio works the exact same way as long as they both come from the same unmodified master.

But I like many people's view that DTS-HD MA will provide a much higher quality 1535kbps DTS Core for older receivers. That's a very valid arguement to shift to DTS.

Agree on the core, but disagree on everything else. I think the difference between lossless and lossy might be noticeable in sales but in terms of one lossless codec versus another the number of people that sadly think one is better than the other will be far too insignificant a number to make a difference.

I mean, how many copies of "The Fly" or "Robocop" do you think sold because it had such an [sarcasm]awesome[/sarcasm]dts-ma track on it?

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by BozQ

And which titles would they be?
Then again, that wasn't my point I'm trying to tell Sony.
What I'm telling them is, they can take their lousy movies that earned nothing in the box office, slap the BD audio with DTS-HD Master Audio, and they will still gain a little bit from that move.

Do you really think things like The Hottie and the Nottie would sell more in DTS, even @96kHz?

But I like many people's view that DTS-HD MA will provide a much higher quality 1535kbps DTS Core for older receivers. That's a very valid arguement to shift to DTS.

The core performance of 640kbps DD is pretty much the same as DTS @1536kbps and *better* than 754 DTS.

[davcole]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

The core performance of 640kbps DD is pretty much the same as DTS @1536kbps and *better* than 754 DTS.

Definitely agree with that 754dts statement!

[BozQ]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

Do you really think things like The Hottie and the Nottie would sell more in DTS, even @96kHz?

Thank you for bringing that up.
And I hope this say this to clear things up.

A crappy movie like that. Release in Dolby Digital, and nobody will blink an eye.
Release it in DTS-HD 96/24, advertise it, and you will get yourself a few sales here and there.

Sure, it won't break and records, it won't topple The Dark Knight, it won't be any kind of competition for Transformers. BUT it may just sell that few hundred odd copies because of the specifications. So why miss out on *that* extra cash?

[cembros]

Originally Posted by BozQ

Thank you for bringing that up.
And I hope this say this to clear things up.

A crappy movie like that. Release in Dolby Digital, and nobody will blink an eye.
Release it in DTS-HD 96/24, advertise it, and you will get yourself a few sales here and there.

Sure, it won't break and records, it won't topple The Dark Knight, it won't be any kind of competition for Transformers. BUT it may just sell that few hundred odd copies because of the specifications. So why miss out on *that* extra cash?

but would the extra cost of doing so justify the couple hundred extra sales

[dobyblue]

Originally Posted by BozQ

A crappy movie like that. Release in Dolby Digital, and nobody will blink an eye.
Release it in DTS-HD 96/24, advertise it, and you will get yourself a few sales here and there.

Sure, it won't break and records, it won't topple The Dark Knight, it won't be any kind of competition for Transformers. BUT it may just sell that few hundred odd copies because of the specifications. So why miss out on *that* extra cash?

There is no evidence to support this though, that one lossless codec will help a title sell more than PCM or TrueHD...and again the highest selling Blu-ray had TrueHD, I'm pretty sure the top 3 might all be TrueHD if Iron Man and Transformers are #2 and #3.

I wish Home Media would post some Since Inception #'s on titles like they used to.

[LembasBread]

Originally Posted by BozQ

A crappy movie like that. Release in Dolby Digital, and nobody will blink an eye.
Release it in DTS-HD 96/24, advertise it, and you will get yourself a few sales here and there.

If it were a battle of specs and they really wanted to sell to the audiophile geeks (which I would consider myself as one) they would leave the audio uncompressed.

If they felt they could sell a few hundred extra copies of a title because it boasted superior audio specs, they would slap a 24/96 Linear PCM track on there. Then you'd get the audiophiles and suckers drooling. Screw the video, we want as much space as we can get for the audio FTW!

[ClaytonMG]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

The core performance of 640kbps DD is pretty much the same as DTS @1536kbps and *better* than 754 DTS.

I am obviously not disagreeing with you, but could you explain why that is? When I first got into Blu-ray, I could only take advantage of Dolby Digital (well, and DTS but hardly any movies used DTS-HD MA compared to PCM back then) but I was actually pretty impressed with the 640kbps tracks.

[davcole]

640 DD I think sounds pretty sweet! I think it's a quantum set up from 448 DD and honestly competitive to 1.5 dts.

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by ClaytonMG

I am obviously not disagreeing with you, but could you explain why that is? When I first got into Blu-ray, I could only take advantage of Dolby Digital (well, and DTS but hardly any movies used DTS-HD MA compared to PCM back then) but I was actually pretty impressed with the 640kbps tracks.

Dolby found that at that bitrate anything higher was diminishing returns, (DD+ at 1536 was more a marketing consideration than actual need).

DD @640 also doesn't use channel coupling which can make certain soundtracks not seem as enveloping or "airy".

[dobyblue]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

Dolby found that at that bitrate anything higher was diminishing returns, (DD+ at 1536 was more a marketing consideration than actual need).

DD @640 also doesn't use channel coupling which can make certain soundtracks not seem as enveloping or "airy".

Perhaps for movies, but even then there are still plenty of people in the sound industry that have stated 1.5 Mbps DD+ is transparent to the master, not something you'll find being stated universally about DD 640 Kbps and especially not for live music performances.

[ClaytonMG]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

Dolby found that at that bitrate anything higher was diminishing returns, (DD+ at 1536 was more a marketing consideration than actual need).

DD @640 also doesn't use channel coupling which can make certain soundtracks not seem as enveloping or "airy".

So why does DTS use 1.5mbps and 754? Many people have said that the 1.5mbps tracks are better than the 754kbps tracks...

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by ClaytonMG

So why does DTS use 1.5mbps and 754? Many people have said that the 1.5mbps tracks are better than the 754kbps tracks...

It is, but in order to get them on DVD, they came up with that rate. 1.5Mbps of bandwidth on DVD is a LOT (you also need a DD or PCM track to be in spec), plus it takes away from overall storage space on the disc.

DTS originally promised VBR on DVD (in 1996-97) but couldn't make it work. Wonder what ever happened to that one.

Keep in mind it also rolls off frequencies above 16kHz, something 1.5Mbps DTS doesn't do. It's just not as efficient as DD. If it was truly "better" then DTS should go below 448 and sound better, much like AAC is better than MP3 at lower bitrates. Truth is, they can't.

[ClaytonMG]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

It is, but in order to get them on DVD, they came up with that rate. 1.5Mbps of bandwidth on DVD is a LOT (you also need a DD or PCM track to be in spec), plus it takes away from overall storage space on the disc.

DTS originally promised VBR on DVD (in 1996-97) but couldn't make it work. Wonder what ever happened to that one.

Keep in mind it also rolls off frequencies above 16kHz, something 1.5Mbps DTS doesn't do. It's just not as efficient as DD. If it was truly "better" then DTS should go below 448 and sound better, much like AAC is better than MP3 at lower bitrates. Truth is, they can't.

Ahhh, I see now. Thanx!

[BozQ]

Originally Posted by LembasBread

If it were a battle of specs and they really wanted to sell to the audiophile geeks (which I would consider myself as one) they would leave the audio uncompressed.

If they felt they could sell a few hundred extra copies of a title because it boasted superior audio specs, they would slap a 24/96 Linear PCM track on there. Then you'd get the audiophiles and suckers drooling. Screw the video, we want as much space as we can get for the audio FTW!

Aha! Finally someone got what I meant.
Ok you're the second.

[syncguy]

Originally Posted by ClaytonMG

So why does DTS use 1.5mbps and 754? Many people have said that the 1.5mbps tracks are better than the 754kbps tracks...

DTS core that runs at about 1.5Mbit/s is definitely sounds better than DD core.

[ClaytonMG]

Originally Posted by syncguy

DTS core that runs at about 1.5Mbit/s is definitely sounds better than DD core.

Dolby TrueHD doesn't have a "core." There's a seperate Dolby Digital track that doesn't get incorporated into the Dolby TrueHD track. And as been stated here in this thread: Dolby Digital @640kbps is pretty much the same as the DTS core. But one of the problems is, studios don't do a 640kbps track on each release.

[BozQ]

Originally Posted by ClaytonMG

Dolby TrueHD doesn't have a "core." There's a seperate Dolby Digital track that doesn't get incorporated into the Dolby TrueHD track. And as been stated here in this thread: Dolby Digital @640kbps is pretty much the same as the DTS core. But one of the problems is, studios don't do a 640kbps track on each release.

They don't? What do they do with the seperate DD track? 448kbps?

[syncguy]

Originally Posted by ClaytonMG

Dolby TrueHD doesn't have a "core." There's a seperate Dolby Digital track that doesn't get incorporated into the Dolby TrueHD track. And as been stated here in this thread: Dolby Digital @640kbps is pretty much the same as the DTS core. But one of the problems is, studios don't do a 640kbps track on each release.

Okay. Anyhow, DTS core sounds better than DD. This may be the reason that people having older amplifiers prefer DTS over DD. Dolby labs could have forced or requested studios to use the highest possible rate.