Lossless Audio Definition??

[thizzle42]

I am looking at upgrading to where I could have HDMI into my receiver from my PS3, in turn giving me lossless audio. Could someone give me a definition of lossless sound. What is the difference between lossless and the normal Dolby Digital 5.1/DTS I get through my optical cable now?

Thanks.

[BStecke]

Lossless is either uncompressed PCM, which is basically the master, or TrueHD/DTS-HDMA, which is basically the PCM file in a .zip folder. They're all the same thing, where no data is lost from the master.

Older DD and DTS compresses the audio so that you lose things such as range and detail.

[savage1984]

Originally Posted by thizzle42

I am looking at upgrading to where I could have HDMI into my receiver from my PS3, in turn giving me lossless audio. Could someone give me a definition of lossless sound. What is the difference between lossless and the normal Dolby Digital 5.1/DTS I get through my optical cable now?

Thanks.

Lossless = uncompressed sound, like how you hear in the theaters (how it is meant to be heard) DTS HD MA, PCM, TrueHD

Lossy = compressed sound DD, DD+

[JasonR]

https://www.blu-ray.com/glossary/

[yagami]

Originally Posted by thizzle42

I am looking at upgrading to where I could have HDMI into my receiver from my PS3, in turn giving me lossless audio. Could someone give me a definition of lossless sound. What is the difference between lossless and the normal Dolby Digital 5.1/DTS I get through my optical cable now?

Thanks.

Dolby Digial 5.1/DTS through optical is compressed and most of the "PUNCH" in the sound track is lost.

DolbyTrueHD, DTS HD-MA, are compressed but are lossless. LPCM is not compressed at all and the "PUNCH" in the sound is not lost.

Basically it is a night and day difference.

[McBain]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_compression_(data))

[CptGreedle]

Think of it like an image.
When you have a high quality photograph, you have an image that can reach sizes of 50 MB or even 100 MB for full quality.
However, you can't fit that many files on a disc, so you have to make them smaller. You end up losing the dimensions (details) to make the size fit on the disc. But now you find out that that is not enough. The disc can only send out the information so fast, so you have to now compress it further to make the size smaller. You now introduce compression errors (distortion, loss of sound, etc). There are all different types of compression error, but people see them everyday without noticing. Look at the internet, most of those images are highly compressed and very small to make it fit a small website and transfer quickly (digital downloads) and yet people don't even notice. Well for those of us (like me) who do notice, it is awful. When pointed out to others, they start to notice too.

So in other words, the compressed (lossy) sound formats have to lower the quality and bandwidth of the sound to make it fit on a disc, and even more for the internet. A lossless format will keep all the quality and details of the original without any compression errors (compression is still possible though). The draw back is it takes more space and more bandwidth, which Blu-ray can handle.