Original Dolby Digital track or downmix True HD?

[Odin75]

Originally Posted by srrndhound

The OP got off on the wrong foot by asking about downmixing a TrueHD track to DTS. He meant downconversion.

Downmixing means playing a 5.1 track in stereo. And that is an option if you cannot play 5.1 lossless, but want to hear the lossless track in some form. But to hear it, the connection would need to be 2-ch analog or HDMI, as the S/PDIF PCM output is often derived from the lossy "core" even for 2-ch playback. I guess because it's easier.

Oh gotcha. Yeah, you are totally right. And if that the case, I would say regular DD sounds better than downmixed TrueHD.

And between DD and DTS (from TrueHD), it can vary, as both are really good. However, most pirating people transcode TrueHD into DTS. I'm not sure if it's actually better than extracting the DD track instead, but if they go through the trouble of doing it, it must be for a reason. Those guys are the masters of compression, they know how to squeeze the most of what they got.