Does PCM Sound Better Than Dolby THD On Your Setup?

[Blu-heaven]

Is this the right way to do it... from PS3 to receiver and from receiver to TV ?? having 2 HDMI cable

[Marcusarilius]

Originally Posted by BStecke

If there's nothing connecting the receiver to the TV, my sources tell me no

In response to your previous post, you don't need to pay an arm and a leg for HDMI cables. Get one from Blujeanscable.com or monoprice.com. Same or better quality than Monster for a quarter of the price.

I just wanted to again thank BStecke for showing me how to get hooked up to PCM properly just last week. The PCM is mind blowing sound. Just rocks the house now. I'm glad the blu camp is so helpfull. There are no bad questions.

[krinkle]

Originally Posted by Blu-heaven

Is this the right way to do it... from PS3 to receiver and from receiver to TV ?? having 2 HDMI cable

Yes.

PS3 ---> HDMI ---> Reciever -----> HDMI ------> TV

Make sure you have a reciever that can accept audio over HDMI, and pass 1080p to your TV.


Also you need to make sure that your PS3 is set-up to output PCM for Blu-ray playback, not bitstream!

The only way you would want it to output bitstream is if u have a really brand new high end reciever and want it to do the decoding.

[ClaytonMG]

Alright so I'd like to hear from the people that say Dolby TrueHD sounds better. I can see people not noticing the difference between PCM and Dolby TrueHD, it's small but it's there. But TrueHD sounding better than PCM doesn't seem true (unless the TrueHD is at a higher bitrate than the PCM, which I don't think has happened... or will happen as that would probably take up even more space).

[Brain Sturgeon]

I posted about this particular issue in another thread:

Bit for bit, PCM and TrueHD, assuming both are from the same master, theoretically should be the same. But, unless the audio encoder set the audio attenuation on the encoder to -31dB (instead of its default: -27dB), then Dialogue Normalization (set at -4dB at default) will have been applied to the soundtrack during the TrueHD encoding process and the soundtrack is no longer identical to the studio PCM master. Now, whether DialNorm is a bad thing or not is a controversial subject, but assuming that the original studio master is the best representation of the desired audio for the movie, then any modification of that, even if it is as simple as a -4dB attenuation of the center dialogue channel, would seem to be a detriment. And it does not appear to be as simple as a volume issue.

A quote by DaViD Boulet from an AVS thread:

"the problem with DN isn't that it lowers the dynamic range (volume) by 4 (or more) db... the problem is HOW it does it.

It does it by digitally recalculating the audio data to digitally down-scale the waveform.

That means that you will NEVER get bit-for-bit accuracy from a TrueHD stream that's been flagged with dialog-normalization.

And it can't be bypassed because Dolby won't allow any in-spec consumer gear to let the user avoid it! It doesn't matter that it's just a meta-data instruction flag: if Dolby REQUIRED that it's processing instructions be followed by your decoder, then the fact that the original PCM lossless data was represented prior to DN processing is moot."

So unless DialNorm is defeated during the TrueHD encoding, then it is not the same as the studio master.

I'd take the PCM over TrueHD unless the dialnorm flag has been defeated. If it has, then the two tracks should be theoretically identical. I have not, as of yet, had a chance to compare a PCM track to a TrueHD track where DN was defeated, so I can't give my opinion as to whether this bears out on "real world" listening.

If this does bear out and both sound identically good, then it makes sense to use TrueHD without DN over PCM, as TrueHD would allow anywhere from a 2:1 to 4:1 compression of data without loss of quality, leaving us more room for higher bitrate video (assuming bandwidth is available), extras, etc...

[Uxi]

Have a citation on that one? That one needs to go in my archive because it captures my feelings perfectly.

[MatrixS2000]

Originally Posted by Brain Sturgeon

I'd take the PCM over TrueHD unless the dialnorm flag has been defeated. If it has, then the two tracks should be theoretically identical. I have not, as of yet, had a chance to compare a PCM track to a TrueHD track where DN was defeated, so I can't give my opinion as to whether this bears out on "real world" listening.

Same here...I believe Sony is going to be turning off dialnorm it will be great if we can get a title with PCM and DDTD with dialnorm defeated to confirm how close to 2 are.

[Ascended_Saiyan]

Originally Posted by GasCat

Amazing the added support for PCM compared to when I ran my thread of "Is Dolby TruHD overated?" I think that one got locked and some bannings took place. Now I can't find it...

This was addressed in that thread. It was a normal thing and you were instructed to just turn up the volume. someone said he tested it with his sound equipment and he was called a liar/didn't know what he was doing/etc... He thought PCM was better.

I created a thread about this in the Off-Topic section on this site (about 4 months ago). I'm glad to see this come to light once again.

[dialog_gvf]

Originally Posted by Algernon

Unless you got expensive speakers, decent amp, good cable AND a good room for listening, you won't notice anything beyond "normal" compressed DD 5.1 ...

I don't agree. It isn't all about resolution and fidelity, it's also about sufficient bits to represent ALL the surround ambiance. Lossy gets it's high compression by throwing away stuff, and a lot of the time it clearly is the subtle stuff on the surround.

I suspect even a modest setup would allow you to experience the stunning immersion that lossless allows. Lossless IS the way people should hear the audio.

It's one of those TRY IT before you knock it things. Pop in Apocalypto. Close your eyes. And tell me you're not in the jungle.

Gary