Is Anybody Ever Going To Ask About Dts-hd Ma For The Ps3???

[ckenisell]

Originally Posted by CHA1N5

Please, ckenisell and everyone, take note: the PS3 CAN and DOES currently pass 7.1. There simply isn't a great deal of source material today. Resistance, for instance, is in 7.1 LPCM.

Same with Uncharted. However, I own some Blu-Ray movies with 7.1 PCM tracks, but I don't have a 7.1 system.

[jkwest]

I am seriously surprised on how so many people are so clueless about this...

PCM is the best and the PS3 already supports it.

You can't get better than the lossless master!! It may not be as loud as the other options, but, turn up the volume a little bit...the quality is there.

[T-Town Oil]

Originally Posted by jkwest

I am seriously surprised on how so many people are so clueless about this...

PCM is the best and the PS3 already supports it.

You can't get better than the lossless master!! It may not be as loud as the other options, but, turn up the volume a little bit...the quality is there.

the only bad thing is that a lot of the fox blus have already and continue to be released in dts-ma. so we are only getting a fraction of the sound with the dts core from our ps3

[T-Town Oil]

oh well, itll all work out in the end

[XSilentCobraX]

Hmm i actually remember reading on this forum, someone posted a link that the PS3 will have DTS HD MA decoing in march 08, and Sony was working hard with DTS to make this happen..

[JohnGalt]

Originally Posted by T-Town Oil

the only bad thing is that a lot of the fox blus have already and continue to be released in dts-ma. so we are only getting a fraction of the sound with the dts core from our ps3

Yep. Also relevant is the fact that said Fox discs do NOT include uncompressed PCM tracks.

[ckenisell]

Originally Posted by JohnGalt

Yep. Also relevant is the fact that said Fox discs do NOT include uncompressed PCM tracks.

I don't have a problem with FOX doing that. They are giving us a lossless audio track at least. Being compressed in DTS-HD MA is okay with me as it saves room for better picture quality.

The problem lies in the playback device or the receiver. Since my receiver can do it, my problem lies in the playback device: The PS3.

Let's hope the March rumor is true. Maybe we'll get BD-Live by the 22nd of this month and DTS-HD MA in March.

The only thing that's bugging me, and the entire reason for starting this thread, is that Sony is keeping quite about it and it seemed as though nobody was giving it any attention at CES. I wanted a more firm answer from the lips of Sony.

[frenchglen]

Originally Posted by T-Town Oil

the only bad thing is that a lot of the fox blus have already and continue to be released in dts-ma. so we are only getting a fraction of the sound with the dts core from our ps3

I'm REALLY glad Fox have embraced DTS's hi-def format. I have always been a DTS fan, was always excited when a DVD had it and balking if it only had Dolby. I suppose the lag in industry support is because DTS is only est. 1993 and Dolby est. the 60's.

And despite the annoyance when you're an early adopter, in the grand scheme of things, when mass adoption truly starts (surely this year), all these problems will be solved. 2008 will see the PS3 having it, 2009 will be even better for availability for players, and by 2010 I think every average Sony/Oppo/Panasonic cheap player will have decoding for both DTS MA and TrueHD.

The long scheme of things means a lot, and I REALLY hope DTS sill have their big break with their hi-def codec. I've been one to always prefer DTS over Dolby for many reasons, including that it always has better specs and is just that bit more advanced than Dolby.

[DrasticPlastic]

Originally Posted by ckenisell

I don't have a problem with FOX doing that. They are giving us a lossless audio track at least. Being compressed in DTS-HD MA is okay with me as it saves room for better picture quality.

The problem lies in the playback device or the receiver. Since my receiver can do it, my problem lies in the playback device: The PS3.

Let's hope the March rumor is true. Maybe we'll get BD-Live by the 22nd of this month and DTS-HD MA in March.

The only thing that's bugging me, and the entire reason for starting this thread, is that Sony is keeping quite about it and it seemed as though nobody was giving it any attention at CES. I wanted a more firm answer from the lips of Sony.

I couldn't have said it better.

[WickyWoo]

Besides, Home is not a deficiency. BD-Live, given the lack of available titles is similarly not a deficiency. Fox, an unwavering Blu-ray supporter from day one, has chosen DTS HD-MA as the sole lossless audio format for 100% of their releases; hence a lack of DTS HD-MA decoding capability in upwards of 75% of all in-home Blu-ray playback devices (in other words "all PS3s") *IS* a glaring deficiency.

Well, I'm going to say this flat-out

Fox and New Line didn't choose DTS HDMA because they love DTS. Do you realy think Fox is also totally enthused by D-Box?

DTS knows that they're in big trouble in regards to relevancy with lossless audio, because THD is just as good when done properly. Therefore certain steps have been taken to try to ensure their survival in the home arena

Myself, and a lot of people in the industry don't expect it'll ever pay off for them though, and DTS will concentrate on Lowry and their other post type services

[frenchglen]

Originally Posted by WickyWoo

Well, I'm going to say this flat-out

Fox and New Line didn't choose DTS HDMA because they love DTS. Do you realy think Fox is also totally enthused by D-Box?

DTS knows that they're in big trouble in regards to relevancy with lossless audio, because THD is just as good when done properly. Therefore certain steps have been taken to try to ensure their survival in the home arena

Myself, and a lot of people in the industry don't expect it'll ever pay off for them though, and DTS will concentrate on Lowry and their other post type services

Yeah, well since I am one person who loves DTS, I'm glad that they're trying to save face in the Home Video business. I read somewhere that DTS MA has good prospoects in Cinema Theater market because of its flexibility with so many channels.

[ClaytonMG]

I think the only place where DTS-HD outdoes TrueHD is in the core, but that's about it. Otherwise, from the same exact source without any dialnorm or anything enabled... DTS-HDMA, Dolby TrueHD and PCM should all sound identical. As for the person who says PCM is the best, here's my problem with it. So far the only studio I've seen that uses Dolby TrueHD correctly is Sony. WB uses a DialNorm function that actually ends up altering the track even after level matching for some reason. Now, the problem is Sony uses 16-Bit PCM tracks and 24-Bit TrueHD tracks on certain films. Which actually ends up making me prefer the TrueHD track. I don't think I am alone on this one. As for DTS-HDMA, I don't have the decoding capabilities but what I do have is a reciever that accepts PCM so the sooner Sony gets DTS-HD decoding to the PS3 the better. The reason why I want it is specifically for Fox and New Line titles AND, the most important reason... SPIELBERG TITLES! You know for a fact (and Close Encounters proves this) that ALL Spielberg directed movies will have DTS-HDMA on them without a doubt. So it's better to get this codec decoding as soon as possible for if/when we start getting movies like Indiana Jones, War of the Worlds, Saving Private Ryan, Minority Report... JURASSIC PARK!

[delavoie]

I just picked up a Yamaha RX-V1800 today.. to enjoy the world of uncompressed audio ect..
So please Sony give us a PS3 update so we can enjoy these movies the way they we meant to be!!

[JohnGalt]

Originally Posted by WickyWoo

Well, I'm going to say this flat-out

Fox and New Line didn't choose DTS HDMA because they love DTS. Do you realy think Fox is also totally enthused by D-Box?

DTS knows that they're in big trouble in regards to relevancy with lossless audio, because THD is just as good when done properly. Therefore certain steps have been taken to try to ensure their survival in the home arena

Myself, and a lot of people in the industry don't expect it'll ever pay off for them though, and DTS will concentrate on Lowry and their other post type services

Speaking solely as a consumer the inside baseball really isn't of much interest to me but the result is. I'm not overly concerned with the machinations that led Fox to go with DTS HD-MA, the attempts to save DTS from the Dolby onslaught, or the politics of Sony witholding from their consumers the ability to decode the lossless DTS format; none of that matters to me as a consumer. What does matter is that I own an apparently artificially deficient player and I own Blu-ray discs with features I wish to utilize but which remain unavailable to me.

[DrasticPlastic]

Originally Posted by delavoie

I just picked up a Yamaha RX-V1800 today.. to enjoy the world of uncompressed audio ect..
So please Sony give us a PS3 update so we can enjoy these movies the way they we meant to be!!

That's what I have, and it's an awesome machine, you will love it... once you figure it all out.

[kitkat99]

PCM is waste of space. You like wasting space - then support PCM.

Remember video is still highly compressed ... personally I'd rather have lesser compression of video or more extras.

In addition to the "waste of space" that PCM creates that could be better used for extras, interactivity, etc, the PCM tracks that have been featured on Blu-Ray have been almost all 16bit/48khz. Using less space, TrueHD can do 24bit/48khz! So you can get higher bit-resolution with TrueHD using less space!


All modern films are mastered with 24/48 audio. Employees at these mastering facilities, as well as the individuals doing the theatrical mixes, have said as much on this forum. others have said Older movies, without a recent audio remaster, are 16/48.]

Due to the high bandwidth and space requirements of uncompressed audio (LPCM), most studios downconvert 24/48 master audio to lower 16/48 fidelity for use on Blu-ray disk. Only a small number of Blu-ray disks with LPCM feature master quality audio; more than 85% of all releases with LPCM feature inferior 16-bit audio. Paidgeek -- the representative from Sony Home Video -- has said several times over in the HDTV Software Media forum that Sony intends to stick with 24-bit -> 16-bit downconversion on LPCM releases for the forseeable future, due to bandwidth constraints.

Note Sony Home Video recently decided to make more use of TrueHD on future titles to deliver the full 20-bit / 24-bit fidelity of the master.

Rather than downgrade the 24/48 master audio to lower 16/48 fidelity, some studios (FOX) have chosen to losslessly pack or "zip" these audio masters with DTS-HD MA or Dolby TrueHD. Once unpacked or "unzipped" by a player or future HDMI 1.3 receiver, the resulting output is a 24/48 LPCM track that is bit-for-bit identical to the original studio master.

LPCM
2 hours @ 5.1 16/48 LPCM = 4.14 Gbytes @ 4.6 Mbps (used on most Blu-ray titles with LPCM)
2 hours @ 7.1 16/48 LPCM = 5.52 Gbytes @ 6.13 Mbps
2 hours @ 5.1 24/48 LPCM = 6.21 Gbytes @ 6.9 Mbps (used on Disney Blu-ray titles with BD50 + AVC)
3 hours @ 5.1 24/48 LPCM = 9.32 Gbytes @ 6.9 Mbps
2 hours @ 7.1 24/48 LPCM = 8.28 Gbytes @ 9.2 Mbps
3 hours @ 7.1 24/48 LPCM = 12.42 Gbytes @ 9.2 Mbps
2 hours @ 7.1 24/96 LPCM = 16.56 Gbytes @ 18.4 Mbps
3 hours @ 7.1 24/96 LPCM = 24.84 Gbytes @ 18.4 Mbps

Dolby TrueHD (comparable to DTS-HD MA)
2 hours @ 5.1 16/48 TrueHD = 1.26 Gbytes @ 1.4 Mbps ABR (used on Warner HD-DVD releases)
2 hours @ 5.1 24/48 TrueHD = 3.06 Gbytes @ 3.4 Mbps ABR (used on recent HD-DVD releases from Universal)
3 hours @ 5.1 24/48 TrueHD = 4.59 Gbytes @ 3.4 Mbps ABR
2 hours @ 7.1 24/48 TrueHD = 4.23 Gbytes @ 4.7 Mbps ABR
3 hours @ 7.1 24/48 TrueHD = 6.35 Gbytes @ 4.7 Mbps ABR

if we look at a 3 hour movie:

video @ 20 Mbits = 27 Gbytes
audio @ 5.1 24/48 LPCM = 9.3 Gbytes
PiP @ 4Mbits = 5.4 Gbytes
foreign languages @ 4Mbits = 5.4 Gbytes
---
total = 47.1 Gbytes

leaving 2.9 Gbytes for few small extras (some hd trailers + 1hour sd footage), but again you're more likely to have a second disc in this situation. and the 20 Mbits for video is being generous, as is 4Mbits for PiP


for bluray the biggest reason to use truehd or dts-hdma is for advertising factor

Both TrueHD and DTS-HD MA use variable bit rates, so the bit rate varies by the "complexity" of the soundtrack during the film. The ABR notation above refers to average bit rate.



The BD50 format alone does not eliminate the need for TrueHD and DTS-HD MA. If studios were to use BD50 with AVC (or VC-1) encoding, with few extras, then there would be no need for TrueHD and DTS-HD MA on most movies -- and 24/48 LPCM would be fine.

Unfortunately, as of last month, 80% of announced, upcoming Blu-ray titles use BD25, and more than two-thirds of the remainder slated for BD50 use MPEG-2. Moreover, studios are expected to add more and more extras to their disks. Later this year, we're expected to see the first Blu-ray releases with BD-Java and true PIP commentary, which will subtract additional bits from the available mux rate.

With BD25, you can forget 24/48 LPCM on all but the shortest movies. Even with BD50, LPCM at master quality 24/48 significantly eats into available peak video bandwidth -- and hence picture quality -- when MPEG-2 is used. Assuming no extras with BD50, the A/V mux rate of 48Mbps is available for the full length of all films shorter than 2.3 hours (139 minutes); on longer films, the available mux rate is less. Subtract 7.1 24/48 LPCM from the 48Mbps A/V mux rate and you're left with with a bit over 38Mbps. Subtract the three foreign language tracks in 640Kbps Dolby Digital and you are left with 36Mbps and change. Subtract the picture-in-picture video commentary featured on upcoming BD-Java disks and you are left with 30-32Mbps. Subtract overhead and interactivity and you're left with 29-31Mbps. If all studios were to abandon MPEG-2 in favor of AVC, that would be fine for movies of typical length, but that's not going to happen.

When less than 10% of announced Blu-ray titles feature the combination of BD50 and AVC -- as of last month -- we need the advanced audio codecs to get master quality, 24-bit / 48kHz audio.


Do TrueHD and DTS-HD MA sound better than LPCM?

Assuming no dialog normalization is used, 24/48 TrueHD and DTS-HD MA will output sound that is bit-for-bit identical to 24/48 LPCM. Such 24/48 TrueHD and 24/48 DTS-HD MA tracks are higher quality than the downconverted 16/48 LPCM tracks found on most Blue-ray titles.

Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA are just lossless packing methods for LPCM. Said a different way, they are basically zip files containing LPCM. This lossless packing may be unnecessary on most BD50 disks with AVC video, but again, only a small minority of announced titles actually use the combination of BD50 and AVC. Examples of Blu-ray releases with 24/48 LPCM tracks include Chicago, Ladder 49, Pearl Harbor, The Prestige, and The Wild. Except for The Wild, all of these are BD50 releases, and four of them use AVC.



Even if all studios were to use the combination of BD50 and AVC, that might still prove inadequate for high-fidelity 24/48 LPCM audio on the longest films, particularly as studios add more interactive disk features. Recall that the full 48Mbps disk A/V mux rate is only available for the full duration on titles with a runtime of less than 139 minutes, assuming no extras. Consider the film Dances with Wolves. This has a run time of 226 minutes, which means that the average bit rate available for that title on BD50, assuming no extras is approximately 29 Mbps.

Subtract 7.1 24/48 LPCM from that and you're left with with a bit under 20Mbps. Subtract the three foreign language tracks in 640Kbps Dolby Digital and you are left with 18Mbps and change. Throw in a picture-in-picture video commentary featured on upcoming BD-Java disks and you're left with 12-14Mbps ABR for video. Does that sound good to you?

[ckenisell]

Originally Posted by kitkat99

Does that sound good to you?

Um...no. No it does not.

[frenchglen]

Originally Posted by kitkat99

PCM is waste of space. You like wasting space - then support PCM.

Remember video is still highly compressed ... personally I'd rather have lesser compression of video or more extras.

In addition to the "waste of space" that PCM creates that could be better used for extras, interactivity, etc, the PCM tracks that have been featured on Blu-Ray have been almost all 16bit/48khz. Using less space, TrueHD can do 24bit/48khz! So you can get higher bit-resolution with TrueHD using less space!


All modern films are mastered with 24/48 audio. Employees at these mastering facilities, as well as the individuals doing the theatrical mixes, have said as much on this forum. others have said Older movies, without a recent audio remaster, are 16/48.]

Due to the high bandwidth and space requirements of uncompressed audio (LPCM), most studios downconvert 24/48 master audio to lower 16/48 fidelity for use on Blu-ray disk. Only a small number of Blu-ray disks with LPCM feature master quality audio; more than 85% of all releases with LPCM feature inferior 16-bit audio. Paidgeek -- the representative from Sony Home Video -- has said several times over in the HDTV Software Media forum that Sony intends to stick with 24-bit -> 16-bit downconversion on LPCM releases for the forseeable future, due to bandwidth constraints.

Note Sony Home Video recently decided to make more use of TrueHD on future titles to deliver the full 20-bit / 24-bit fidelity of the master.

Rather than downgrade the 24/48 master audio to lower 16/48 fidelity, some studios (FOX) have chosen to losslessly pack or "zip" these audio masters with DTS-HD MA or Dolby TrueHD. Once unpacked or "unzipped" by a player or future HDMI 1.3 receiver, the resulting output is a 24/48 LPCM track that is bit-for-bit identical to the original studio master.

LPCM
2 hours @ 5.1 16/48 LPCM = 4.14 Gbytes @ 4.6 Mbps (used on most Blu-ray titles with LPCM)
2 hours @ 7.1 16/48 LPCM = 5.52 Gbytes @ 6.13 Mbps
2 hours @ 5.1 24/48 LPCM = 6.21 Gbytes @ 6.9 Mbps (used on Disney Blu-ray titles with BD50 + AVC)
3 hours @ 5.1 24/48 LPCM = 9.32 Gbytes @ 6.9 Mbps
2 hours @ 7.1 24/48 LPCM = 8.28 Gbytes @ 9.2 Mbps
3 hours @ 7.1 24/48 LPCM = 12.42 Gbytes @ 9.2 Mbps
2 hours @ 7.1 24/96 LPCM = 16.56 Gbytes @ 18.4 Mbps
3 hours @ 7.1 24/96 LPCM = 24.84 Gbytes @ 18.4 Mbps

Dolby TrueHD (comparable to DTS-HD MA)
2 hours @ 5.1 16/48 TrueHD = 1.26 Gbytes @ 1.4 Mbps ABR (used on Warner HD-DVD releases)
2 hours @ 5.1 24/48 TrueHD = 3.06 Gbytes @ 3.4 Mbps ABR (used on recent HD-DVD releases from Universal)
3 hours @ 5.1 24/48 TrueHD = 4.59 Gbytes @ 3.4 Mbps ABR
2 hours @ 7.1 24/48 TrueHD = 4.23 Gbytes @ 4.7 Mbps ABR
3 hours @ 7.1 24/48 TrueHD = 6.35 Gbytes @ 4.7 Mbps ABR

if we look at a 3 hour movie:

video @ 20 Mbits = 27 Gbytes
audio @ 5.1 24/48 LPCM = 9.3 Gbytes
PiP @ 4Mbits = 5.4 Gbytes
foreign languages @ 4Mbits = 5.4 Gbytes
---
total = 47.1 Gbytes

leaving 2.9 Gbytes for few small extras (some hd trailers + 1hour sd footage), but again you're more likely to have a second disc in this situation. and the 20 Mbits for video is being generous, as is 4Mbits for PiP


for bluray the biggest reason to use truehd or dts-hdma is for advertising factor

Both TrueHD and DTS-HD MA use variable bit rates, so the bit rate varies by the "complexity" of the soundtrack during the film. The ABR notation above refers to average bit rate.



The BD50 format alone does not eliminate the need for TrueHD and DTS-HD MA. If studios were to use BD50 with AVC (or VC-1) encoding, with few extras, then there would be no need for TrueHD and DTS-HD MA on most movies -- and 24/48 LPCM would be fine.

Unfortunately, as of last month, 80% of announced, upcoming Blu-ray titles use BD25, and more than two-thirds of the remainder slated for BD50 use MPEG-2. Moreover, studios are expected to add more and more extras to their disks. Later this year, we're expected to see the first Blu-ray releases with BD-Java and true PIP commentary, which will subtract additional bits from the available mux rate.

With BD25, you can forget 24/48 LPCM on all but the shortest movies. Even with BD50, LPCM at master quality 24/48 significantly eats into available peak video bandwidth -- and hence picture quality -- when MPEG-2 is used. Assuming no extras with BD50, the A/V mux rate of 48Mbps is available for the full length of all films shorter than 2.3 hours (139 minutes); on longer films, the available mux rate is less. Subtract 7.1 24/48 LPCM from the 48Mbps A/V mux rate and you're left with with a bit over 38Mbps. Subtract the three foreign language tracks in 640Kbps Dolby Digital and you are left with 36Mbps and change. Subtract the picture-in-picture video commentary featured on upcoming BD-Java disks and you are left with 30-32Mbps. Subtract overhead and interactivity and you're left with 29-31Mbps. If all studios were to abandon MPEG-2 in favor of AVC, that would be fine for movies of typical length, but that's not going to happen.

When less than 10% of announced Blu-ray titles feature the combination of BD50 and AVC -- as of last month -- we need the advanced audio codecs to get master quality, 24-bit / 48kHz audio.


Do TrueHD and DTS-HD MA sound better than LPCM?

Assuming no dialog normalization is used, 24/48 TrueHD and DTS-HD MA will output sound that is bit-for-bit identical to 24/48 LPCM. Such 24/48 TrueHD and 24/48 DTS-HD MA tracks are higher quality than the downconverted 16/48 LPCM tracks found on most Blue-ray titles.

Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA are just lossless packing methods for LPCM. Said a different way, they are basically zip files containing LPCM. This lossless packing may be unnecessary on most BD50 disks with AVC video, but again, only a small minority of announced titles actually use the combination of BD50 and AVC. Examples of Blu-ray releases with 24/48 LPCM tracks include Chicago, Ladder 49, Pearl Harbor, The Prestige, and The Wild. Except for The Wild, all of these are BD50 releases, and four of them use AVC.



Even if all studios were to use the combination of BD50 and AVC, that might still prove inadequate for high-fidelity 24/48 LPCM audio on the longest films, particularly as studios add more interactive disk features. Recall that the full 48Mbps disk A/V mux rate is only available for the full duration on titles with a runtime of less than 139 minutes, assuming no extras. Consider the film Dances with Wolves. This has a run time of 226 minutes, which means that the average bit rate available for that title on BD50, assuming no extras is approximately 29 Mbps.

Subtract 7.1 24/48 LPCM from that and you're left with with a bit under 20Mbps. Subtract the three foreign language tracks in 640Kbps Dolby Digital and you are left with 18Mbps and change. Throw in a picture-in-picture video commentary featured on upcoming BD-Java disks and you're left with 12-14Mbps ABR for video. Does that sound good to you?

Woah, thanks for all your calculations.

I absolutely agree. With the exception of Dolby TrueHD (due to dialog normalistion which shouldn't be there to tempt studios who don't care about the original quality as much as people like me do), I do prefer lossless codecs compared to uncompressed PCM, because it's always good to save space (especially with physical media formats), so you can fit more on. It's a no-brainer.

While PCM will have no probems, I do prefer DTS-HD MA and Dolby TrueHD. It's just so ruddy annoying that PS3 doesn't have DTS-HD MA decoding yet.

[crackinhedz]

theres already a "Uncompressed PCM is a waste of space" thread floating out there in these forums...

but as far as Linear PCM vs. Bitstream (Dolby TrueHD & Dts-HD MA)...its all PCM in the end game.

Matters not, if the decoding is done in the Player or the Receiver.

[vsmpowered]

dts hd-ma +1