new xbox 360 add on problems.

[vick vega]

HD-DVD re-encodes audio to AC3 regarless of input (DTS) - BAD for audiophiles

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"Unlike DVD, where typical players pass the audio data from the disc through to your receiver, HD DVD requires that players mix sounds from menus and such in with the audio being played for the movie. The 360 player software decodes all the above codecs in software, mixes anything that needs to go together, re-encodes it into Dolby Digital and then sends that to your receiver. So, don't be alarmed when your receiver still says "Dolby Digital" even if you've selected DTS in the menus. "

This is direct from microsoft. Full excerpt here: http://blogs.msdn.com/xboxteam/archi...gence-day.aspx


The fact that they will convert all Audio to AC3 is seriously bad. It Means those movies with better soundtracks will suffer a loss. A good example of this is DTS audio.. DTS audio is a much larger file format and is less compress than AC3. A good comparison example would be.. DTS = CD Wave and AC3 = MP3.. AC3 is a compressed format. A good DTS audio track found on current dvd's could be for example approximately 1.1 gig, the equivalent AC3 track (dependant on bitrate) would be around 400 MB. While for music many claim MP3 to be the same, for the Low/high frequencies found outside of the music spectrum like what we need to drive our sub and astute sounds in a movie sound track DTS is a much better sound. Basically the Xbox 360 will be compressing the audio mixes to AC3, and from what they are saying because they need to also integrate the sound of the dash/alert popups during the movie, all audio will be recompressed to AC3? I hope this isn't correct, but that means it will take an original AC3 soundtrack and recompress it to another AC3 soundtrack with the addition of the dashboard sounds. Thats like Recompressing an MP3, or a JPG. Lets hope this isn't the case.. But it is bad news for the audiophiles who love their DTS.

Also since the CPU will both be decoding a very CPU intensive H264 video codec while also re-encoding all audio on the fly, the CPU fans will be running loud. if I have no media in my Xbox360, I still find the sound of the fan running demos, or sitting at the dashboard to still be annoying.
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[JTK]

No surprise for a quickie afterthough add-on.

Especially considering it piggybacks off of the 360 itself, which has plenty of its own Q&A issues and limits.


It's not the kind of thing that AV enthuisasts and home theater people are going to gravitate towards. Even some of the MS guys, including Amir, will basically tell you that it's simply a nice stopgap to get your feet wet, but that's all it is.

The PS3 is really light years ahead of this setup, for both gaming and movies. It helps when you build something from the ground up from day one with everything planned for in advance vs. a quickie hodge-podge bandaid situation like this thing is.

[BTBuck1]

Originally Posted by JTK

The PS3 is really light years ahead of this setup, for both gaming and movies. It helps when you build something from the ground up from day one with everything planned for in advance vs. a quickie hodge-podge bandaid situation like this thing is.

i couldn't have said it better myself. While I may still get one of these..it will be as a back up player and to give my 360 something to do other than collect dust. The 360 also converts all wav and mp3 files it streams my computer to receiver in 5.1 and quite frankly it sounds pretty flippin good.
I'm more worried about it's picture quality right now as the DVD playback on 360 turns my blacks all grey and it washes my picture out and looks very unsettling. If this is the case with the 360 add on, this will be great news for blu ray, as this may be many peoples first taste with HDDVD. Hopefully though playback is spot on, it's been said to be on par with the HD-A1, I doubt it...but we'll see. 2 weeks!!

[Monkey]

Can I have the full link.. the one listed is broken.

Why can't they just do HDMI dam it

[hyperdine]

After their disappointing 1080p update, this doesn't surprise me. I was thinking that the drive might be a good backup plan if Blu-Ray tanks (not likely) but it's not even good enough for that.

This was a great opportunity for the HD-DUD (not a typo) camp to expand their user base and they're blowing it. A "Hail Mary" that's just turning into a $200 paperweight pretty quickly.

I just hope that this doesn't sour people's taste for the better PQ/AQ that the HD formats have to offer over DVD.

[JTK]

Originally Posted by hyperdine

After their disappointing 1080p update, this doesn't surprise me. I was thinking that the drive might be a good backup plan if Blu-Ray tanks (not likely) but it's not even good enough for that.

It's a complete afterthought.

I say again: If MS were really super gung-ho about HD-DVD and not just VC-1 as I've said all along...where was this thing 6 months ago? How about at launch a year ago?

This was a great opportunity for the HD-DUD (not a typo) camp to expand their user base and they're blowing it. A "Hail Mary" that's just turning into a $200 paperweight pretty quickly.

Exactly right.

If they had really wanted to try and give HD-DVD the big boost, that sucker should have been out at least 6 months ago when HD-DVD launched.

I just hope that this doesn't sour people's taste for the better PQ/AQ that the HD formats have to offer over DVD.

It won't. It's a pretty small niche market of 360 owners that'll even bother with this thing.

[Deciazulado]

So let me get this straight. The add-on will take a DTS 1.5 Mb/s encode, decode it, re-encode it, and then the receiver will decode it again, so we get a 448kb/s audio stream that has gone 4 times trough the encoding process?

I'd prefer to choose the Dolby track then.

Seems like a way to kill DTS and make it redundant. Don't think companies with ties to DTS, Inc. will be very happy about the add-on..

[Dave]

Hahaha, the link is dead not surprisingly

[Deciazulado]

Here's the correct link: http://blogs.msdn.com/xboxteam/archi...gence-day.aspx

[mainman]

Does the add-on do, Dolby HD and DTS HD tracks?

[Monkey]

Originally Posted by Deciazulado

Here's the correct link: http://blogs.msdn.com/xboxteam/archi...gence-day.aspx

Thanks

[WriteSimply]

Originally Posted by mainman

Does the add-on do, Dolby HD and DTS HD tracks?

Not sure about DTS HD/MA but per HD-DVD spec, it MUST decode TrueHD to deliver at least two-channel TrueHD. However, since there are not HDMI out for the 360 and there's no multi-out either, what happens is from the TrueHD 5.1-7.1 decode, the 360 then encodes the LPCM back into 640kbps Dolby Digital Plus (the same as 640 kpbs Dolby Digital) or perhaps higher.

There's a lot of decode-mix-encode process on HD-DVD.

On BD, while this is allowed I believe there is also the option to NOT mixing in any EFX while you're going through the menu so that the audio you get from the movie stays clean.


fuad

[PeterTHX]

Vick Vega:

DTS = CD Wave and AC3 = MP3

Nope. DTS is still lossy compressed.

DTS = MPEG2
DD = MPEG4

Dolby Digital is MUCH more efficient than DTS. The 640kbps DD tracks blow their DTS counterparts out of the water (at 754kbps and 1.5Mbps).

I am not alarmed the 360 is reencoding into DD. The XBOX 360 DD rate is 640kbps, which on both Blu-ray and HD DVD is only bested by uncompressed multichannel PCM.

[dobyblue]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

Vick Vega:


Nope. DTS is still lossy compressed.

DTS = MPEG2
DD = MPEG4

Dolby Digital is MUCH more efficient than DTS. The 640kbps DD tracks blow their DTS counterparts out of the water (at 754kbps and 1.5Mbps).

I agree with you that DTS is lossy, but no compression at 640 KB/sec is going to blow 1.5 Mbps DTS out of the water. It's just mathematically impossible.

Too often the efficient compression argument is used to suggest DD is better than DTS, but it just isn't; at least not to my sensitive ears.

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

I am not alarmed the 360 is reencoding into DD. The XBOX 360 DD rate is 640kbps, which on both Blu-ray and HD DVD is only bested by uncompressed multichannel PCM.

It's easily bested by DDTrueHD and DTS-MA which are lossless compression schemes.
It's like the difference between comverting .wav into .mp3 vs. flac - with flac (anaolgy = TrueHD/DTS-MA) you can convert from the source back and forth all day and still have the same file.
With .mp3 (analogy = DOlby Digital, DTS) you lose more every time you convert.
How can you suggest 640 kbps is not bested by 24.5 Mbps lossless DTS-MA?

[vick vega]

I was under the assumption that DTS was 6.0 having a seperate channel for each speaker and the sub, where DD is 5.1 where it just sent all the low frequences under a certain ohm/frequency to the sub where DTS actually has a seperate channel for the sub. I'm probably wrong but I do recall Fight Club having the DTS track and when the plane gets ripped apart it sounded awesome on DTS compared to DD. What is the deal with DTS ES compared to DTS? Is it just another channel added?