No blue light?

[Streetspirit]

I was watching "house of flying daggers" and had the audio set to Dolby 5.1 which lights up the blue light on my receiver. However; the pop up menu has no SFX, that is until I turn on the (uncompressed) audio. Which is better? Uncompressed seems louder, but it doesn't light up the blue light- does that even matter anymore?

[ClaytonMG]

It all depends, I assume you have you player hooked up to your reciever via coax or optical so the only way to get 5.1 sound is if you use Dolby or DTS 5.1/6.1. But if you're using HDMI (or analog connections) then choose PCM uncomressed audio.

[Streetspirit]

Yeah I have it connected with Optical, the receivers around 5 years old so it doesn't have HDMI. is Uncompressed better? I have been thinking it's time to get a new receiver anyway.

[ClaytonMG]

Uncompressed is ussually much better. Basically, it goes like this:

PCM
DTS-HD (master audio)
Dolby TrueHD
DTS-HD (High Res)
Dolby Digital-Plus
DTS
Dolby Digital

PCM, DTS-HDMA and Dolby TrueHD should all sound the same (in theory). They're the ones identical to the studio master, or so they claim. DTS-HDHR should sound better than Dolby Digital-Plus because Dolby Digital-Plus is normally just at a 1.5mb rate (which is the same as DTS). Dolby Digital is the lowest bit rate right now, ussually at 640kbps but sometimes only at 480kbps (which is DVD quality). Just remember, the higher the bit rate the better. But the only way to take advantage of anything higher than DTS is with an HDMI reciever, or through the analog connections. But I recommend HDMI because you can enable 6.1/7.1 sound that way. With the analog connections you're stuck with 5.1 and also, it sounds better having the reciever adjusted to the right levels and everything than trying to get the player adjusted. But that's just my thoughts.

[blindedcoon]

So i should set my reciever to "pcm" also?

[WriteSimply]

THOFD contains the Mandarin soundtrack in both uncompressed 5.1 PCM and DD 5.1. Choose DD from the menu.


fuad

[ClaytonMG]

Originally Posted by blindedcoon

So i should set my reciever to "pcm" also?

I've never owned a reciever with a PCM setting. Ussually the only thing to set is which DSP mode to use (or not use in some cases).

[frenchglen]

Originally Posted by ClaytonMG

Uncompressed is ussually much better. Basically, it goes like this:

PCM
DTS-HD (master audio)
Dolby TrueHD
DTS-HD (High Res)
Dolby Digital-Plus
DTS
Dolby Digital

PCM, DTS-HDMA and Dolby TrueHD should all sound the same (in theory). They're the ones identical to the studio master, or so they claim. DTS-HDHR should sound better than Dolby Digital-Plus because Dolby Digital-Plus is normally just at a 1.5mb rate (which is the same as DTS). Dolby Digital is the lowest bit rate right now, ussually at 640kbps but sometimes only at 480kbps (which is DVD quality). Just remember, the higher the bit rate the better. But the only way to take advantage of anything higher than DTS is with an HDMI reciever, or through the analog connections. But I recommend HDMI because you can enable 6.1/7.1 sound that way. With the analog connections you're stuck with 5.1 and also, it sounds better having the reciever adjusted to the right levels and everything than trying to get the player adjusted. But that's just my thoughts.

Theoretically I agree with everything you've said, though practically in real-world situations, in what is actually given to us, I would tend to put DTS-HD MA on the same level as PCM, if not higher, for the simple fact that with PCM you're not guaranteed that you will have the absolute highest resolution they have in the studio, whereas DTS-HD *Master Audio* is called *Master Audio* to denote that it will be the highest possible resolution from the studio master. On some blu-ray releases, the PCM is only 48kHz/16-Bit, but I think nearly all movies are mastered in at least 24-bit.

I may be wrong though, but it does seem silly that they would release DTS-HD Master Audio at a lower resolution than the master. That's why in the future I would prefer a DTS-HD MA track to a PCM one, I'm guaranteed that it will be the highest quality the studio will ever release.

I hope I'm right, might ask paidgeek to confirm