Is Warner changing to DTS-HD Master Audio too?

[Stephan.klose]

I just received my copy of "Watchmen" and noticed that it contains a DTS HD MA Soundtrack.
I thought Warner had a contract with Dolby Labs?
This is only the second time, that I know of, that Warner used a DTS HD Track on one of their Discs. The first one being the German BD of "Surveillance" (Great track there too btw..)

Does anyone know? Are they going DTS now?

[ghebert]

I would hope so. Here's hoping Watchmen is a taste of good things to come. No more 16 bit Dolby TrueHD...only 24bit DTS HD MA.

[syncguy]

It is a very good outcome if Warner also considers the results of the DTS/Dolby poll.

[Petra_Kalbrain]

Originally Posted by Stephan.klose

I just received my copy of "Watchmen" and noticed that it contains a DTS HD MA Soundtrack.
I thought Warner had a contract with Dolby Labs?
This is only the second time, that I know of, that Warner used a DTS HD Track on one of their Discs. The first one being the German BD of "Surveillance" (Great track there too btw..)

Does anyone know? Are they going DTS now?

Acutally, New Line titles are Warner titles too. They have all had DTS HD treatment... but, more to the point...

I have a feeling that the industry is moving towards DTS HD as a standard. Sony Entertainment engineers and insiders have been watching our "Should Sony Switch From TrueHD to DTS HD" thread for the poll results. And the numbers have spoken. Likewise, I bet other studio insiders have been tipped off about this poll as well and have discussed it at great length in their board rooms.

Besides, when it comes right down to it (despite the fact that all lossless codecs SHOULD sound the same), there are a number of people who express that they have put titles back on the shelf because it contained a TrueHD track instead of DTS HD or PCM. I am one of those. With volume matching, EVERY TrueHD track aside from The Dark Knight sounds a bit bland to me, whereas EVERY DTS HD track sparks with exubrent life. Many "experts" have told me that it's the mixes I prefer and not the encodes. To that I can only say "whatever" since it happens everytime. And, they also tell me that it is all in my head. To that I can only say, "maybe, but that's the way it is and that's the way I like it, so I will continue to make judgements based on my own personal experience."

So... in conlusion... DTS HD MA FOR THE WIN!!!

[davcole]

What will be interesting to see is if both Warner and Sony increase the bit-depth to 24 for their DTSMA releases. I've stated in the previous thread my belief that it's about bandwidth savings. Since the DTS legacy track is built into the DTSMA bitstream, it doesn't require a separate legacy track, therefore savings on bandwidth.

For a company like Sony that puts multiple lossless tracks, this could be a big savings and for a company like Warner that likely internationally releases multiple lossless tracks, it would also be a savings.

[Stephan.klose]

Originally Posted by davcole

What will be interesting to see is if both Warner and Sony increase the bit-depth to 24 for their DTSMA releases. I've stated in the previous thread my belief that it's about bandwidth savings. Since the DTS legacy track is built into the DTSMA bitstream, it doesn't require a separate legacy track, therefore savings on bandwidth.

For a company like Sony that puts multiple lossless tracks, this could be a big savings and for a company like Warner that likely internationally releases multiple lossless tracks, it would also be a savings.

Actually Sony is currently the only one that puts out Lossless tracks in the 3 or 4 most common languages. All Warner Titles I own (many German and British ones among them ) only contain a True HD Track for English. All the other Tracks are Simple DD 5.1

[demiscy]

Doesnt Battlestar Galactica also have DTS HD MA ?

[davcole]

Thanks Stephan for clearing that up. I was assuming they may have used multiple lossless tracks for their international releases.

[ClaytonMG]

Originally Posted by Petra_Kalbrain

Acutally, New Line titles are Warner titles too. They have all had DTS HD treatment... but, more to the point...

I have a feeling that the industry is moving towards DTS HD as a standard. Sony Entertainment engineers and insiders have been watching our "Should Sony Switch From TrueHD to DTS HD" thread for the poll results. And the numbers have spoken. Likewise, I bet other studio insiders have been tipped off about this poll as well and have discussed it at great length in their board rooms.

Besides, when it comes right down to it (despite the fact that all lossless codecs SHOULD sound the same), there are a number of people who express that they have put titles back on the shelf because it contained a TrueHD track instead of DTS HD or PCM. I am one of those. With volume matching, EVERY TrueHD track aside from The Dark Knight sounds a bit bland to me, whereas EVERY DTS HD track sparks with exubrent life. Many "experts" have told me that it's the mixes I prefer and not the encodes. To that I can only say "whatever" since it happens everytime. And, they also tell me that it is all in my head. To that I can only say, "maybe, but that's the way it is and that's the way I like it, so I will continue to make judgements based on my own personal experience."

So... in conlusion... DTS HD MA FOR THE WIN!!!

Not to get into a debate... Edward Scissorhands sounds better than any TrueHD track? Predator sounds better as well? Man... I have got to quit coming to this site...

[Kryptonic]

Originally Posted by ClaytonMG

Not to get into a debate... Edward Scissorhands sounds better than any TrueHD track? Predator sounds better as well? Man... I have got to quit coming to this site...

Predator sounds freaking awesome. Demo worthy, IMO. Although the funny thing about that one is the original Dolby 4.0 surround track sounds just about as good as the DTS-HD track. Of course you have to kick up the Dolby a tiny bit, but it's one of the best sounding Dolby tracks I've ever heard. It's always been my belief that a good sounding disc has more to do with the mix itself than whether it's Dolby or DTS.

[BozQ]

Originally Posted by ClaytonMG

Man... I have got to quit coming to this site...

Amen to that.
I need to get a new hobby.

[mugupo]

Unlike DVD, Blu-ray has given more edge for DTS then Dolby.

[MOONPHASE]

Originally Posted by Kryptonic

Predator sounds freaking awesome. Demo worthy, IMO. Although the funny thing about that one is the original Dolby 4.0 surround track sounds just about as good as the DTS-HD track. Of course you have to kick up the Dolby a tiny bit, but it's one of the best sounding Dolby tracks I've ever heard. It's always been my belief that a good sounding disc has more to do with the mix itself than whether it's Dolby or DTS.

Some of my DTS dvds sound more cleaner then the 1,000 dvds with Dolby I own

[Rik1138]

Originally Posted by Petra_Kalbrain

Besides, when it comes right down to it (despite the fact that all lossless codecs SHOULD sound the same), there are a number of people who express that they have put titles back on the shelf because it contained a TrueHD track instead of DTS HD or PCM. I am one of those. With volume matching, EVERY TrueHD track aside from The Dark Knight sounds a bit bland to me, whereas EVERY DTS HD track sparks with exubrent life.

The problems with comments like this are:

1- the processing of Dolby and DTS are handled separately in your receiver. You might have your Dolby decoder configured in a way that makes the sound seem 'duller'. After properly calibrating my system, I can't tell the difference between THD and DTSMA when I switch back and forth between them...

2- How many of these 'bland' TrueHD tracks have you compared, _directly_ with DTS-HDMA? You can't say they THD track on one movie doesn't sound as good as the DTS track on a completely different movie, and blame it on the audio encode. That's just stupid. You need to listen to the exact same audio track in both formats, and configure your system so both audio tracks sound the same. Then see if you still think THD sounds worse than DTSMA. There's demo and setup discs that can offer you this.

If you take a .WAV file, encode it to THD and DTSMA, and then decode back to WAV, you get a bit-for-bit perfect copy of the file.

Don't get me wrong, I prefer DTS-HDMA myself, but that's mainly because it's so much easier to work with on the production side (encodes 100s times faster than THD, there's a PC based encoder, only need to encode one stream, can easily make accommodations for seamless branching, etc...) THD really is a pain to work with. I wouldn't be surprised if that's one of the main reasons some studios are switching.

[davcole]

Originally Posted by Rik1138

Don't get me wrong, I prefer DTS-HDMA myself, but that's mainly because it's so much easier to work with on the production side (encodes 100s times faster than THD, there's a PC based encoder, only need to encode one stream, can easily make accommodations for seamless branching, etc...) THD really is a pain to work with. I wouldn't be surprised if that's one of the main reasons some studios are switching.

I'd love it if you could give us a bit more background on it's ease of implementation over TRUEHD.

[BStecke]

Originally Posted by Petra_Kalbrain

Acutally, New Line titles are Warner titles too. They have all had DTS HD treatment... but, more to the point...

New Line titles haven't had DTS-HDMA in almost a year now, since the Warner switch. There may be a stray somewhere since, but the last title released where DTS was standard was Run Fatboy Run, released in September 08.

Originally Posted by mugupo

Unlike DVD, Blu-ray has given more edge for DTS then Dolby.

I wouldn't agree with that at all. Where TrueHD and DTS-HDMA are both lossless and the same, DTS on DVD was almost always encoded with higher bit rates than DD (typically 755kbps vs. 448kbps) with some titles even coming with 1.5 Mbps DTS tracks (ironically, for this thread, Warner's release of Lethal Weapon).

[Blu-Malibu2009]

Originally Posted by BStecke

I wouldn't agree with that at all. Where TrueHD and DTS-HDMA are both lossless and the same, DTS on DVD was almost always encoded with higher bit rates than DD (typically 755kbps vs. 448kbps) with some titles even coming with 1.5 Mbps DTS tracks (ironically, for this thread, Warner's release of Lethal Weapon).

I think he's referring to quantity rather than quality. Dolby was used far more often than DTS with DVD. It has been a lot more of an even distribution on Blu than it was on DVD, perhaps even an advantage in number of DTS titles over Dolby.

[steve_dave]

The reason DTS was used less on DVD was because of licensing and equipment issues:

Prior to Early 2000, any titles that were to be released with DTS audio had to be encoded in-house by Digital Theater Systems. They handled the mixes directly and ensured that many releases included 1.5mbs DTS audio.

Digital Theater Systems then changed to licensing the necessary equipment to do DTS audio tracks to studios. So now distributors could provide DTS audio without having to send elements to Digital Theater Systems.

In the case of the "Warner 5:" Interview With The Vampire, Twister, Lethal Weapon (Director's Cut), Lethal Weapon 2 (Director's Cut), and Lethal Weapon 3 (Director's Cut)...Warner did have to fulfill a contractual obligation to Digital Theater Systems as they licensed five titles to them for DTS audio.

While it is true that Warner is going to continue providing DTS-HD MA audio on many selected future releases, don't expect Dolby TrueHD to be dropped by them completely.

[Freekman]

I really hope Warner is going to bring the DTS to its future titles. TDK would have been so much better if they had used it instead of TrueHD. I feel that with Watchmen, Warner was experimenting with it just to see feedback from consumers. Hopefully, with enough forums like this, Warner might get the hint that its films should be made with DTS instead of Dolby. Screw the contract, give consumers what they want!

[RedIsNotBlue]

I am astounded by some of the people suffering from the placebo effect when it comes to audio. Comments like "The Dark Knight would have sounded better with DTS-HD" make me go I thought the only real benefits of encoding the audio with DTS has more to do with the technical aspects and very little to do with it sounding "better."