Ask questions to The Digital Bits team (Bill Hunt, Jeff Kleist et.al.)

[Jeff Kleist]

lus there is one more reason but this is on the DVD side. DD was in the specs from the beginning and was the primary track and every DVD player needed to decoded, in essence it is possible if a player was old enough (since I think all of them had DTS decoding in the end) that a person would not be able to decode DTS if that was the only audio. So to a studio they needed DD on the DVD and that is why on most tiles with DTS there is also DD. So the question became would adding DTS add something to the experience and would it be worth the extra cost (both in BW and $). So DD won on DVD, on the other hand the min specs on BD players is DD and DTS, so there is no need for DD on a BD disk. Also a bit more of what you said but DTS is simpler on the disk because DTHD would require DD and then just have the extra info needed for DTHD, and because of that DTHD is a bit gimped on BD.

Actually, almost no DVD players had internal DTS decoding, they had the ability to bitstream it, and starting about 2-3 years ago, the cheaper players started stripping out all DTS support.

Also a bit more of what you said but DTS is simpler on the disk because DTHD would require DD and then just have the extra info needed for DTHD, and because of that DTHD is a bit gimped on BD.

It's not "simpler on the disc. The whole process is transparent to the end user. and I've never heard of anyone chosing DTS over THD because of the companion DD track. In fact if anything, DTS is far more complicated because it requires the precise timing and real-time muxing of 3 different audio streams together to form a cohesive whole, so I'd say THD is actually simpler because it's plug and play.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

and starting about 2-3 years ago, the cheaper players started stripping out all DTS support.

admittedly I have not looked at DVD players in more then 5 years and never looked at the cheaper ones except when seeing them at stores and thinking "wow there are 20$ DVD players, that must be a POS", but doesn't it help make the point DD was an absolute necessity on DVD. Which is why DTS did not have a chance. The BW for DD was taken up, the cost of DD was taken up, most people would not care that much so why go to t6he trouble to have both. That was why DD was so predominant on DVD.

It's not "simpler on the disc. The whole process is transparent to the end user. and I've never heard of anyone chosing DTS over THD because of the companion DD track. In fact if anything, DTS is far more complicated because it requires the precise timing and real-time muxing of 3 different audio streams together to form a cohesive whole, so I'd say THD is actually simpler because it's plug and play.

I did not mean on the consumer side but on the production side, sorry if it was not clear. Now you brought it up, but why do you think that DTS HD MA is better then DTHD for branching? also I am no audio guy, so maybe I am missing something and I will have to ask one of my friends if he understands your point, but not sure what you mean by 3 different audio streams being muxed in real time as a difference between DTHD and DTS-HD MA. When I saw my friend use DTS-HD Master Audio Suite it sure looked simple and plug and play.

I am curious to know what you mean, but at the same time I don't want to get into a DTS HD/ DTHD debate, because in the end I don't care what is used PCM, DTS or Dolby as long as there is no loss and I get the perfect original PCM back on play back I am happy, why should I care what is more/less work for the studio and who makes the money? And I am sure you are probably the same way.

[DaViD Boulet]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

because in the end I don't care what is used PCM, DTS or Dolby as long as there is no loss and I get the perfect original PCM back on play back I am happy, why should I care what is more/less work for the studio and who makes the money? And I am sure you are probably the same way.

If we could get Paramount and WB (TV division) to share your esteem for lossless audio I'd be a happy camper... CODEC of their choice.

[Jeff Kleist]

You'll even find today a lot of midrange decks dropping DTS support for DVD BTW, because it saves a few dollars in licensing fees.

I did not mean on the consumer side but on the production side, sorry if it was not clear. Now you brought it up, but why do you think that DTS HD MA is better then DTHD for branching?

The easiest way I can explain it is that there was a quirk in the way the encoder worked, and how it integrated with Scenarist (the most common authoring program) that has since been addressed. The encoder software Dolby made had a bad user experience, was Mac only for some reason (probably thinking ProTools integration) while the entire universe authors on Windows. Since time is money, many complex projects like WB's Maximum Movie Mode were done DTS to streamline production.

DTS Master Audio is made up of 3 streams: DTS (the normal DVD kind), additional information for DTS HD, and then the additional information for DTS Master (let's just say they represent 60%,20% and 20% of the original audio to make it easy). All of this information must be combined by the decoder in real time with near perfect accuracy to form the original PCM signal. Doing this is extremely processor intensive, which is why so many players with TrueHD internal decoding lack DTS MA. TrueHD on the other hand is one file. No reconstruction required, so once it's encoded, it's encoded and much easier to play back from a decoding standpoint.

I don't care what's on my discs, I simply dislike irrational fanboyism.

[Anthony P]

DTS Master Audio is made up of 3 streams: DTS (the normal DVD kind), additional information for DTS HD, and then the additional information for DTS Master (let's just say they represent 60%,20% and 20% of the original audio to make it easy). All of this information must be combined by the decoder in real time with near perfect accuracy to form the original PCM signal. Doing this is extremely processor intensive, which is why so many players with TrueHD internal decoding lack DTS MA. TrueHD on the other hand is one file. No reconstruction required, so once it's encoded, it's encoded and much easier to play back from a decoding standpoint.

now I know what you mean. But you are wrong, When DTS was created it was created with the abilty of metadata for future upgrades. Basically what that means is that, like you said, DTS MA will have a DTS and extra data for MA (not sure about HD HR). One file is created but the DTS decoder (if one does not have MA) will only look at the DTS part of the file and skip the data that is tagged for better decoders. There is only one file that is created. Dolby did not have such a feature with DD. I don't have the links on hand, but I will try and find the info, at least it used to be on line back when it was all new.

I don't care what's on my discs, I simply dislike irrational fanboyism

I hope that was not meant towards me.

[Anthony P]

OK, here is Dolby http://www.dolby.com/professional/te...by-truehd.html

Originally Posted by mid way page 6

the Blu-ray format mandates Dolby Digital, while Dolby Digital Plus is optional. This means that Blu-ray Disc players might only be equipped with a basic Dolby Digital decoder on board.If a Blu-ray disc carries Dolby Digital Plus (or Dolby TrueHD) bitstreams,there will also be a companion Dolby Digital track to ensure playback compatibility with every player configuration.

and I would prefer a spec sheet, but here is a video from DTS http://www.dts.com/video/player.aspx...QuickStart.f4v unfortunately you can't jump or FF, but around 1/2 way through it talks about the DTS part (just pick the bitrate you want for it) and then after the output (and repeated at the end) it talks about how if it is only one DTS file that is created.

[Jeff Kleist]

now I know what you mean. But you are wrong, When DTS was created it was created with the abilty of metadata for future upgrades. Basically what that means is that, like you said, DTS MA will have a DTS and extra data for MA (not sure about HD HR). One file is created but the DTS decoder (if one does not have MA) will only look at the DTS part of the file and skip the data that is tagged for better decoders. There is only one file that is created. Dolby did not have such a feature with DD. I don't have the links on hand, but I will try and find the info, at least it used to be on line back when it was all new.

That's basically what I said. There are 3 layers, DTS, HD and MA. All 3 must be combined on the fly with HDMA.

Think about it this way- I'm mixing a song and I have my vocals, my drums and my guitar OK? Is it more complex and hardware intensive to play those 3 seperate files (or if you prefer, "layers" back at the same time and keeping them in sync than it is to play just one? TrueHD is the "just one". Now you can have hardware that can play just DTS, or DTS HD (this was common in first and second generation players to play the DTS+HD layers only, because after that they ran out of gas)

It is much harder to put 3 sets of data together on the fly than it is just to read the one file. DTS, HD layer and MA layer. That's a big reason why DTS MA hardware lagged a full year behind software.

I don't care what's on my discs, I simply dislike irrational fanboyism

Statement of principals, nothing more

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

That's basically what I said. There are 3 layers, DTS, HD and MA. All 3 must be combined on the fly with HDMA.

Think about it this way- I'm mixing a song and I have my vocals, my drums and my guitar OK? Is it more complex and hardware intensive to play those 3 seperate files (or if you prefer, "layers" back at the same time and keeping them in sync than it is to play just one? TrueHD is the "just one". Now you can have hardware that can play just DTS, or DTS HD (this was common in first and second generation players to play the DTS+HD layers only, because after that they ran out of gas)

It is much harder to put 3 sets of data together on the fly than it is just to read the one file. DTS, HD layer and MA layer. That's a big reason why DTS MA hardware lagged a full year behind software.

I think there is only two DTS and MA or DTS and HR but not all 3 at the same time if you are authoring in MA, the way I understood it if it is authored in MA and your player can only play HR or DTS it will play back as DTS because there is no HR metadata for that encode.

But to get back to the point (especially since I am not 100% sure it is 2 or 3) the discussion was about authoring, now you are talking about the processing of a player. I never said that the player did not need more processing power, I have no idea if it does or not or if it is harder to build a player for DTS or if it was that DTS was just a bit slower at the gate. My guess is that it would be a complex question, since combining might be hard but I can't imagine it being much harder to just pay attention to such metadata and since they are both compressed the real difference will be how difficult it is to uncompress and get back to PCM, which they might have had to make concessions on this part to be compatible with DTS but I would guess if it is really much more complex that will be where the complexity lies and not in “muxing” as you state. Plus let’s face it both DTS and Dolby have other metadata such as DN, DRC, # of speakers and placement

My point (and I thought yours when talking about files) is that when authoring the BD using Dolby it needs DD and DTHD so that people without DTHD can play back some sounds but with DTS all you need is DTS HD MA because MA will play back as DTS if you only have a DTS decoder. You also need to use the right thing which was why early DTHD titles had in the options DD or DTHD but eventually they found ways around it by reading player settings and seeing if DTHD is possible then DTHD else DD.

[Jeff Kleist]

But to get back to the point (especially since I am not 100% sure it is 2 or 3) the discussion was about authoring, now you are talking about the processing of a player. I never said that the player did not need more processing power, I have no idea if it does or not or if it is harder to build a player for DTS or if it was that DTS was just a bit slower at the gate. My guess is that it would be a complex question, since combining might be hard but I can't imagine it being much harder to just pay attention to such metadata and since they are both compressed the real difference will be how difficult it is to uncompress and get back to PCM, which they might have had to make concessions on this part to be compatible with DTS but I would guess if it is really much more complex that will be where the complexity lies and not in “muxing” as you state. Plus let’s face it both DTS and Dolby have other metadata such as DN, DRC, # of speakers and placement

DN, DRC # of speakers etc are just a few bytes of data, also known as "flags". We're not talking about actual content here. You can't materialize extra sound resolution out of it. DTS core is the first 1.5mpbs, but considering that DTS 48/24 is pretty common, there's over twice that running out the door for the rest of the sound information on average (3.5mbps-ish total)

I think there is only two DTS and MA or DTS and HR but not all 3 at the same time if you are authoring in MA, the way I understood it if it is authored in MA and your player can only play HR or DTS it will play back as DTS because there is no HR metadata for that encode.

Lionsgate has a pile of discs that are DTS-HD (no MA). My BD10A will play back the DTS and HD layers, but not the MA.

You also need to use the right thing which was why early DTHD titles had in the options DD or DTHD but eventually they found ways around it by reading player settings and seeing if DTHD is possible then DTHD else DD.

It's always been that way. If anything it's force of habit that they were throwing the DD 5.1 on there and making it default. Even on DVD on my bedroom player that won't do DTS, if I select DTS from the disc menu, it just switches right back to DD automatically. The same thing happens on players that can't do TrueHD. Mostly it was there for PS3 owners that have things set to PCM so they wouldn't be *****ing about how they were getting only getting stereo.

My point is that DTHD and DTS HD MA accomplish the same thing through two different methods, each has a legacy side and a lossless side, and the end result is transparent to the user. As far as technological simplicity on the end product goes, Dolby wins. The end result is essentially the same amount of bandwidth (Dolby typically attains a higher compression ratio and a smaller "core" file), and requires less horsepower to play back.

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

You also need to use the right thing which was why early DTHD titles had in the options DD or DTHD but eventually they found ways around it by reading player settings and seeing if DTHD is possible then DTHD else DD.

It was the way the discs were authored. Nothing prevented them from choosing TrueHD from being the primary track. Once Paramount adopted it, that was their standard from the get go.

Don't forget many PCM titles defaulted to the DD track, even with all BD players supporting PCM. I can't imagine somebody saying PCM was "inferior" because of that.

[Jeff Kleist]

Don't forget many PCM titles defaulted to the DD track, even with all BD players supporting PCM. I can't imagine somebody saying PCM was "inferior" because of that.

For the same reasons, so that people who were hooked up via optical or coax wouldn't get stereo. It's a kind of idiot proofing for those who don't RTFM (a conservative 90% of consumers in my experience )

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

It was the way the discs were authored. Nothing prevented them from choosing TrueHD from being the primary track. Once Paramount adopted it, that was their standard from the get go.

Don't forget many PCM titles defaulted to the DD track, even with all BD players supporting PCM. I can't imagine somebody saying PCM was "inferior" because of that.

sorry if I was not clear, it was not meant as a negative but an example to prove the point. The issue (to use PCM that you brought up) is that PCM will play back on every BD player and every AVR with the only issue if you use optical and pass it as PCM then you will only get stereo. So DD is given as an option but was not needed. On the other hand if on the BD there was only DTHD then only people with DTHD decoding would hear anything. So a DD is necessary (which can be seen in the part I quoted from Dolby's white paper. So you need to send the right stream to the player. With DTS that does not exist because there is one choice, the file that is DTS-HD MA is getting decoded. Now if your player has an MA decoder then you get lossless MA, but if you only have a DTS decoder then it takes the first part of the packets which is the DTS core and ignore the info tagged as MA.

[Jeff Kleist]

Yes, and the same thing happens with Dolby. All the players out of the box default over to DD 5.1 even if THD is selected if they can't handle it, this is part of the standard design. Discs can be coded to remove the TrueHD option if the proper hardware isn't detected, that's true.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

DN, DRC # of speakers etc are just a few bytes of data, also known as "flags". We're not talking about actual content here. You can't materialize extra sound resolution out of it. DTS core is the first 1.5mpbs, but considering that DTS 48/24 is pretty common, there's over twice that running out the door for the rest of the sound information on average (3.5mbps-ish total)

DN is, but DRC and Speakers is a bit more. With DN it is just a value (i.e. -31) but in the advanced options for the others you can decide what to do in those circumstances, (i.e. 7.1 to 5.1 take the left left speaker and add 30% of the sound to give you left back and 10% to give you left front....). So it is a bit more then a flag for bits and processing. Also bits are unimportant to this discussion, PCM will be the most bit intensive, just because it is not compressed but I am sure you agree that it needs 0 decoding processing power because it is not compressed in the first place.

Lionsgate has a pile of discs that are DTS-HD (no MA). My BD10A will play back the DTS and HD layers, but not the MA.

OK, not sure of the point. There is DTS-HD HR (high resolution) and DTS-HD MA (Master audio). HR can be more detailed then DTS the same way DD+ can be more then DD. My point was that I don't think there is DTS-HD HR in DTS-HD MA so if you had an MA title (which is not what you said) and a decoder that can only do DTS and HR (which I am not sure anyone is limited that way) then what you will get back is DTS and not DTS-HD HR. I don't think it makes sense because if you look at HR specs you will see that it is CBR like DTS and DD and can be lossless (if the necessery BW needed is lower then what is entered in the CBR) and if you look at the tutorial video I posted, if you use MA there is a setting for the CBR core but not DTS-HD HR.

My point is that DTHD and DTS HD MA accomplish the same thing through two different methods, each has a legacy side and a lossless side, and the end result is transparent to the user.

agree, and never meant to get into an audio war, I was just adding to the reasons you gave to why DTS appears more popular on the studio side for BD while Dolby had won DVD.

[Jeff Kleist]

DN is, but DRC and Speakers is a bit more. With DN it is just a value (i.e. -31) but in the advanced options for the others you can decide what to do in those circumstances, (i.e. 7.1 to 5.1 take the left left speaker and add 30% of the sound to give you left back and 10% to give you left front....). So it is a bit more then a flag for bits and processing. Also bits are unimportant to this discussion, PCM will be the most bit intensive, just because it is not compressed but I am sure you agree that it needs 0 decoding processing power because it is not compressed in the first place.

That is all post processing and has nothing to do with the codec or the compression. The difference between the two is simply a 0 or a 1 in the DRC block, or the EX block etc.

OK, not sure of the point. There is DTS-HD HR (high resolution) and DTS-HD MA (Master audio). HR can be more detailed then DTS the same way DD+ can be more then DD. My point was that I don't think there is DTS-HD HR in DTS-HD MA

Whether it's 2 or 3, all the rest of it stands true. The actual decoding process of DTS is far more complicated than Dolby.

[mikeraylu]

Any news about The Rocketeer on Blu?

[Jeff Kleist]

No, and I wouldn't expect it any time in the near future. It's a great cult flick, but with the limited output, I doubt it's a priority. Personally I expect to see Dick Tracey before Rocketeer.

There is a possibility when Captain America comes out since it's the same director and the 20th anniversary.

[singhcr]

I hope this hasn't been asked already (search function can't seem to find any mention anyway) but does anyone know if the Extended Editions of the LOTR trilogy will use a new transfer as compared to the theatrical versions?

I remember that the EE DVD's looked significantly better than the theatrical ones. I know that is primarily due to the fact that the movie was split across two DVD-9's but the color timing and contrast looked better too so I was thinking a new telecine job was done for Fellowship EE and possibly new DI's for TTT and ROTK.

I was very disappointed with the BD transfers for the trilogy, especially the first movie and I hope the EE's don't suffer the same fate in terms of an old FOTR master and aggressive DNR application on all 3 films.

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

No, and I wouldn't expect it any time in the near future. It's a great cult flick, but with the limited output, I doubt it's a priority. Personally I expect to see Dick Tracey before Rocketeer.

There is a possibility when Captain America comes out since it's the same director and the 20th anniversary.

It would be nice. They haven't issued a new transfer on home video in 19 years!!! The DVD uses the (noisy & cropped) LD transfer and is non-anamorphic.

[Batman1980]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

It would be nice. They haven't issued a new transfer on home video in 19 years!!! The DVD uses the (noisy & cropped) LD transfer and is non-anamorphic.

Yup, I still remember when my movie library was a blu-ray/DVD mix and I was considering Rocketeer for my 400th movie but I picked Goonies instead. My 400th blu-ray movie was either Toy Story 1 or 2.