Dolby TrueHD vs. DTS-HD Master Audio

[Zinn]

Can someone tell me the difference between Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio, not in terms of audio quality. I know that they sound the same (and like PCM) but what features do they offer to the studios?

And is one more efficient then the other (smaller filesize)?

[welwynnick]

Everyone with a enough brain cells to rub together must wondering this. On the face of it both these codecs offer as much performance as BD, HD & HDMI can handle, and more. So that practically means 7.1 channels at 24 bits and 96 kHz sample rate. It's compressed by about 50% in both cases, and decoded bit-for-bit perfect to the original studio master. They are both lossless codecs, so both will achieve LPCM quality, but without taking up so much space.

So what ARE the differences? All I can see is a max bit-rate of 18 Mbps for THD and 24 Mbps for DTS MA (or about the same as the video stream!). I suspect that difference is quite academic, and both are more than sufficient for any soundtrack.

My interpretation: since DTS MA has a higher limit, the hardware requirements to implement such processing are probably somewhat more onerous than for THD. This does seem to be a bit of an obstacle to overcome, and DTS MA support in players and amps seems to be lagging significantly behind THD. That means when it arrives, you'll have to pay that much more for the privilege. And my guess is there will be no benefit, in spite of all the eager anticipation.

This subject is generally discussed in the Home Theater Discussion forum.

regards, Nick

[ClaytonMG]

And lets not forget Dolby supposedly uses DialNorm on their TrueHD tracks (which might be why PCM still sounds better).

[ryoohki]

Originally Posted by ClaytonMG

And lets not forget Dolby supposedly uses DialNorm on their TrueHD tracks (which might be why PCM still sounds better).

Wrong, Warner Use DialNorm and Sony doesn't, but from the fact that DialNorm dial down the track 4DB, once 4DB Boosted it will sound the same

[squire23]

A little off topic, but do you know if a player that internally decodes DTS-HD HR (but not DTS-HD MA) will pull the HR track out of a DTS-HD MA track, or will it just process the DTS 5.1 core?

Thanks

[frenchglen]

Originally Posted by ryoohki

Wrong, Warner Use DialNorm and Sony doesn't, but from the fact that DialNorm dial down the track 4DB, once 4DB Boosted it will sound the same

I've never heard of this technique used by Dolby, it sounds interesting, but from an audiophile's point of view, that *is* tampering the sound.

[krisztoforo]

Originally Posted by squire23

A little off topic, but do you know if a player that internally decodes DTS-HD HR (but not DTS-HD MA) will pull the HR track out of a DTS-HD MA track, or will it just process the DTS 5.1 core?

As far as I know you cannot extract DTS-HD HR from a DTS-HD MA stream. What you can do:
- Extract DTS core (1.5Mbps) from DTS-HD HR
- Extract DTS core (1.5Mbps) from DTS-HD MA

[squire23]

Originally Posted by krisztoforo

As far as I know you cannot extract DTS-HD HR from a DTS-HD MA stream. What you can do:
- Extract DTS core (1.5Mbps) from DTS-HD HR
- Extract DTS core (1.5Mbps) from DTS-HD MA

Thanks. So DTS-HD HR decoding is pretty useless based on the fact that future titles using DTS will most likely use DTS-HD MA

[SNAP]

My BD of Rocky say it's in DTS HD-MA on the back of the box but can my BPS300 decode that??.....I havent seen DTS-MA on any of my HD-DVDs OR MUCH OF ANYTHING BUT DD+. Except for Batman begins which is TRUE-HD. So I'm thinking right now that Blu has the better audio.

[J_UNTITLED]

At least on this board, it seems the majority find DTS-HD to have the upper hand.

[Musashi]

My only gripe with DTS-MA is that is doesn't as of yet work on PS3.

[ClaytonMG]

Originally Posted by frenchglen

I've never heard of this technique used by Dolby, it sounds interesting, but from an audiophile's point of view, that *is* tampering the sound.

Right, and what we're supposed to have here is audio tracks as close to the studio master as possible, but when you tamper with the volumes and stuff, it changes that. I wasn't aware that only WB does it, I think I only have like 2 Sony titles that have Dolby TrueHD on them and never really tested them. Though, now that I think about it, the volumes are pretty close. And they also have a much higher bitrate than the WB ones.