Better than Lossless?

[TheBlackshirt]

Well guys, I was just wondering about something as I read some threads on here...Theoretically, could there be an audio codec in the future that could sound even better than the TrueHD, DTS-MA, Uncompressed PCM we have right now?

Like on the video side, yes, there is room for improvement. We have 1080p, and that might eventually become 1440p or 500000000p, so the growth is infinite. Does the same exist for audio, or have we reached the peak?

[CasualKiller]

Not sure if it's going to be better but I heard DTS is working on a "Surround Sensation" codec or some nonsense.

EDIT> Just looked it up it's supposed to give you surround in 2 channels somehow.

But still, I dont think we've seen the end just yet.

[dpomp]

i think they were talking about that ultra hd that they "expect" to be out in 2025 and it's supposed to have something like 22.1 channels not sure about the codec side of things

[JadedRaverLA]

Originally Posted by TheBlackshirt

Well guys, I was just wondering about something as I read some threads on here...Theoretically, could there be an audio codec in the future that could sound even better than the TrueHD, DTS-MA, Uncompressed PCM we have right now?

Like on the video side, yes, there is room for improvement. We have 1080p, and that might eventually become 1440p or 500000000p, so the growth is infinite. Does the same exist for audio, or have we reached the peak?

Well, you can theoretically keep raising the sampling rate and bit depth of PCM audio indefinitely... though once you go above 24/96 (or 24/192 depending on who you believe), human hearing just can't pick up any more info, so there's really no point. You could also keep increasing the number of speakers, but at some point it just becomes silly.

There's a lot of other ways to improve audio and video. Video could stay at 1080p24 but be improved by moving from 4:2:0 component video to 4:4:4 video, or moving to lossless (or at least visually lossless video codecs. Audio is a more difficult animal. You could switch from PCM to DSD128 which some people would prefer... though you would need to completely change the way movies are recorded and mixed in order to really do it right. Also, some people still very much prefer analog audio, so we could always go back to that.

[TheBlackshirt]

Thats a good point about the bit depth and rate, i suppose that is just a numerical figure just like the screen resolution is. So basically what i can understand here, is that yes it can improve, but we can't notice the difference? That's what i figured...Thanks!

[Chevypower]

It would eventually get to the point where either cables, the speakers or your ears will bottleneck any quality advantage, and make it not worth it. As far as sound quality goes, I am happy with what we have now. Please don't bother telling me that's what people said 20 years ago....

[STARSCREAM]

Regardless if we would be able to hear a difference you know they are going to continue to create new codecs and products to market. They have to make money and they need a way to make you want to upgrade all your equipment and movies.

[allstar780]

they'll just keep adding on to surround sound... more and more speakers and higher bitrate audio

[The Guardian]

I think once you get to 24/96 that's around as good as you need to go. It'd be nice if ALL BDs had this going forward, sadly some are still 16/48 (only slightly better than CD quality).

At that point I think you're far better off investing the bandwidth and disc space into video quality, instead of minimal improvements to audio quality.

Note this applies to movies only - if they go ahead with BD-Audio I expect 32/384

[dixonhill]

Originally Posted by TheBlackshirt

Well guys, I was just wondering about something as I read some threads on here...Theoretically, could there be an audio codec in the future that could sound even better than the TrueHD, DTS-MA, Uncompressed PCM we have right now?

Like on the video side, yes, there is room for improvement. We have 1080p, and that might eventually become 1440p or 500000000p, so the growth is infinite. Does the same exist for audio, or have we reached the peak?

Do you remember "MIDI - musical instruments digital interface"?
I think something like that might be the only solution to getting perfect picture and sound!

Well, of course it will not be "musical instruments digital interface", but...

[science fiction mode on]

..."MDBI", which is "multipurpose digital brain interface"!
All you need is a little chip implanted to you cerebral cortex
and your "It's not a trick, it's a PHONY - PINK-RAY-MOLECULAR-IMAGING-Player"
and this will kind of "induce" video and audio directly via neuro-digital streaming into your brain!

Sounds quite simple, doesn't it?
Already ordered mine on EMMA's ZONE...

[science fiction mode off]

[RUR]

Originally Posted by The Guardian

I think once you get to 24/96 that's around as good as you need to go. It'd be nice if ALL BDs had this going forward, sadly some are still 16/48 (only slightly better than CD quality).

At that point I think you're far better off investing the bandwidth and disc space into video quality, instead of minimal improvements to audio quality.

Note this applies to movies only - if they go ahead with BD-Audio I expect 32/384

An interesting discussion of this was had here, posts 46-79 passim, including a link to this rather recondite discussion on a technical forum.

[hoogoosedmoose41]

even if they do raise the bit rates audio quality video quality etc... there still will be studios that will dump dolby digital and dts on us.

[Clark Kent]

As long as the lossless audio on the BD is at the same bit depth and sampling frequency as the studio master, the audio fidelity cannot be improved for a future release. The only thing that could happen that could be improved is if the studio decides to remix the soundtrack from the original audio stems for more channels. That is why lossless audio is so important on all releases.