Warner's DD = Warners DD+ : Both are 640 Mb/s 5.1

[JadedRaverLA]

Originally Posted by jkcheng122

1.5DD+ is still superior than 640, saying they can be the same after processing would be like saying the 1080i/720p players are fine since your tv can do the de-interlace. inferior specs is often just that, inferior.

On disc, yes, 1.5M DD+ is superior to 640k DD. Played back... that's not nealy that simple. Your analogy is faulty, though. If your receiver (like most) can properly handle and apply appropriate DSP to 640k DD but not to 1.5M DD+, then on many systems you will have superior audio quality on the 640k stream. I would much rather have my receiver processing lossy sound than a cheap HD DVD player. Now, for those who can send DD+ natively to a compatible receiver, I agree... it should sound better. But that is definitely NOT most people. Most people are having the audio processing for DD+ done in the player.

Originally Posted by jkcheng122

as for DD+ not being necessary, you're right, and it also isn't as compatible as DTS. from what i've gathered it requires hdmi and on some players is downsampled to DTS 1.5mbps b4 being sent to the receiver. it's actually less compatible than DTS.

On Gen 1 Toshiba's, it's resampled to DTS, on the newer models... if you don't use HDMI (or analog outputs) then it remixed to 640k DD. Personally, I think the 640k DD that's been profesionally mixed will sound better than the mix created on the fly by the player. Again, DTS has pretty much every advantage of DD+ with none of the (MAJOR) drawbacks. If you want a 1.5M track (why you'd want that over a real lossless track is beyond me), DTS makes far more sense.

Originally Posted by sonicbox

Dolby's current stance is that there is little gain going beyond 640 Kbps for 5.1 content: law of diminishing returns

Indeed my point. DD+ is nothing more than Dolby's attempt to dominate the marketplace completely, by creating a codec nearly identical (in both bitrate and sonic quality) to DTS.