Sony BDP-S1 Audio Formats

[KC-Technerd]

From the Sony Style website description for the BDP-S1...

"Dolby® Digital Plus(Dolby® Digital audio stream only), Dolby® TrueHD (Dolby® Digital audio stream only) dts®-HD --- (dts audio stream only) Digital Out and decoding capability"

What exactly does this mean? Does this mean that the HDMI output will only support standard Dolby Digital, and DTS streams, and will not carry the additional info for the Plus, and HD formats?

[KC-Technerd]

Looks like I may have some info to answer my own question here.

I hope that others may be able to expand on this, and/or correct my misunderstandings.

After reading some info on the new audio formats for the high definition video disc formats at Dolby.com, I'm finding that the intent is for the player to internally decode and mix audio. So say for example the movie has the main movie soundtrack, but you also wish to listen to the directors commentary. The player should read the movie sountrack in Dolby Digital Plus, or Dolby Digital TrueHD, and convert it to high resolution (192kHz/24-bit) PCM. The same thing is done with the directors commentary track. The Blu-ray disc has info for how the tracks are to be mixed, and the internal processors digitally mix the tracks in high res PCM. Button sounds, etc, will also be handled in this manner.

Now the question is how to get this mixed PCM audio out of the Blu-ray player to the audio receiver. First option is that the Blu-ray player will have a digital to analog converter and a multi-channel analog output. Second option is that the Blu-Ray player has a Dolby Digital 5.1 encoder built in, and encodes the high resolution PCM mix to Dolby Digital 5.1 bitstream at a 640 kbps data rate (higher than the max available on DVD which should result in better sound). The third option is to output the high res multi-channel PCM via the HDMI connection to an audio receiver that will decode high resolution PCM.

For the future..... Dolby says that future audio receivers will have the capability of decoding Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby Digital TrueHD bitstreams. However the disc itself must support bypassing the PCM conversion and mixing process (as noted above). Dolby expects only some discs will be authored to allow this. They also say that in the end that audio quality will be essentially the same as the high resolution PCM over HDMI method. Dolby suggests that processor power in audio receivers will be better spent on things other than DD+ and DD TrueHD decoding.

From Sony's specs on the BDP-S1, it sounds as if the player will not support direct output of the Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby Digital TrueHD bitstreams over HDMI. However it does appear that it will be capable of outputting the multi-channel high resolution PCM datastream through HDMI ("Uncompressed Multi Channel Linear PCM Output"). Does anyone have any data to confirm or deny this?

[JTK]

Good thread and information!

I'm just curious to see what it means for people like me who have 5.1 setups and an AVR receiver that doesn't have HDMI. I don't intend to upgrade any of this for the forseeable future.

[KC-Technerd]

Looks like you'll be able to either use multi-channel analog outputs to your AVR receiver, or use an optical digital connection (TOSLink) to your receiver. The Blu-ray player will take the original audio from the disc (DD-True HD, DD+, or DTS-HD) convert it to LPCM (I've heard some discs will be LPCM to start with), mix it, then convert it to standard DD or DTS at their maximum bitrate capability for output on the TOSLink.

Either way the audio quality should surpass what you're currently getting from DVDs (DD or DTS at less than max bitrate).

[JTK]

Originally Posted by KC-Technerd

Looks like you'll be able to either use multi-channel analog outputs to your AVR receiver, or use an optical digital connection (TOSLink) to your receiver. The Blu-ray player will take the original audio from the disc (DD-True HD, DD+, or DTS-HD) convert it to LPCM (I've heard some discs will be LPCM to start with), mix it, then convert it to standard DD or DTS at their maximum bitrate capability for output on the TOSLink.

Either way the audio quality should surpass what you're currently getting from DVDs (DD or DTS at less than max bitrate).

Great news!

If I do anything at all, or even just stick with nothing but the PS3, I just don't want to have reinvent the wheel.