Can anyone explain why we get skimped on audio?

[KingDeezie]

Actually, the reasons behind this at one point were logical...

The major difference when Bluray came out from HD-DVD was standardization. When the first Bluray players came out, they were not mandated to be able to decode Dolby TrueHD, even though the format supported it. Also, at first, the only discs that were readily available where 25GB discs.

So, for Warner, who was lazy and wanted the most for the littlest amount of work, it became mastering the HD-DVD copy and then just transferring it over to Bluray. The problem with that was that not all of the players out at the time had support for TrueHD. So, Warner decided to play it safe and only put standard DD tracks on there because all of the players supported that format. Also, since Warner only had access to 25 GB discs, putting a PCM audio track on the disc might have taken more work then Warner wanted to put out. Thus a lot of warner releases are still weak in the audio department. However major releases where they are getting the 50 GB discs such as The Departed, 300, Letters, Flags, and Blood Diamond are seeing loseless audio tracks on them...

Paramount I don't think is favoring one side or the other, although I could be wrong. I think up to this point, we haven't seen a loseless audio codec on any Paramount release. What they have been releasing on their movies is DD+. The problem with DD+ for Bluray is that is an optional audio codec, and the players that do support it only output a bit rate of about 1.7 MBS. HD-DVD players, which HD-DVD mandates DD+ as a supported codec, can output DD+ at 3 MBS. Thus, as a compressed lossy format, Bluray chose not to include DD+ as a mandatory format. So until paramount starts releasing loseless audio on either format, we will see slightly better audio on HD-DVD from them because of what format they are choosing to support.