First Blu-Ray titles not encoded with new audio codecs (1 Viewer)

[Dave Moritz]

I am willing to wait for Blu-ray but not forever! I feel that it will be worth the wait and hopefully there are no more delays. Sony makes me nervous though as they seem to be cursed in the marketing department. As long as Blu-ray does not end up being another Betamax I have no problem backing it. If it starts looking like Sony is going to tank the format and or it looks like its doomed to failure in the marketplace. Then it will be HD-DVD and by that time I hope there will be other players out on the market besides Toshiba.

Blu-ray's movies are about an average of $1 more than HD-DVD and that will most likely change if Blu-ray starts getting market share over HD-DVD.

As far as Dolby Digital Plus goes, it is not a selling point for me. But as long as it really does end up out performing the old Dolby Digital thats allways a good thing. And at least the movies will sound better until DTS-HD is available on HD discs. If DTS drops the ball and Dolby retakes the lead in surround formats I will back them and make them my format of choice and hang a Plaque that says "This Theater Features Dolby Digital Plus".

 

[JediFonger]

i thought TrueHD IS uncompressed PCM 5.1. am i wrong?

 

[Craig W]

TrueHD is basically a new branded MLP, Meridan Lossless Packeting, from the DVD-A specification with the Dolby name. It is still compressed at ratios ranging from 4:1 to 2:1.

Dolby Digital Plus is just an extension to the original DD core, but with higher bitrate DD+ and TrueHD is there any need anymore for dts?

 

[PeterTHX]

Nope

 

[JediFonger]

yeah, 24-bit/192khz for 2 channel and 24-bit/96kHz for 5.1. isn't approximately where PCM is? AFAIK, isn't PCM around 44.1kHz, 16-bit or somn?

 

[Dave Moritz]

actually I would say there is no need for Dolby Digital

 

[JediFonger]

one thing that DTS hasn't been as successful (and this probably has less to do with technology than volume of install-base in terms of users) is scale.

what scale? scaling up and down the # of audio channels.

1. DD can do so with ease. go from DD1.x, 2.x, 3.x, 4.x, 5.x, 6.x. (x=subwoofer optional) at different bit-rates. i realize that DTS can also do so, but that would require changing DTS decoders =). can't be sure about older DD decoders, but recent DD decoders can handle a wide variety of channels and bit-rates. the most popular DTS are DTS2.0, 5.0, 5.1, 6.1matrixed&discrete. thus, the first type of scale is availability. this one's a bit weak, i know but i've seen all those DD configs in various movies (old ones), but have only seen limited types of DTS w/bit-rates stuck@754 or 1509 and that's it.

2. the other type of scale is demux. if the DVD comes with ONLY DDEX, it can still be played back (with ease) on most DVD players outputting to even your grandpa's black and white TV provided there are coaxial cable connections. but you can't make a 100% garauntee for a DTS DVD to playback on the same exact config cause you have to make sure the DVD player decodes DTS and demuxes into analog signals.

thus, we really NEED DD for its high scalability and widespread availability.

 

[ChristopherDAC]

As far as decoders go : I have one of the very first consumer Dolby Digital AC-3 decoders, the Yamaha DDP-1. As best I can tell — I have not tested extensively, but what tests I have done, and the manual, seem to agree — it will handle everything from 1.0 at some low rate such as 56 kbps, up to 5.1 at 640 kbps, although its default profile is 5.1/384 from a LaserDisc player's RF output. AC-3, the current "Dolby Digital" [DD+ is technically "extended AC-3"], is a development of AC-2, a 192kbps fixed-configuration 2.0 stereo encoder for satellite TV applications, as modified to provide minimum acceptable quality 5.1 audio at a bitrate of 320 kbps, which is the maximum Dolby's engineers could get by printing between the sprocket holes on 35mm film. It is specifically designed for flexibility and scalability. The dts Zeta audio compression system for home use, which is not the same as the theatrical dts audio compression system, is very much a fixed-profile deal. It was originally designed to deliver the maximum possible audio quality in a 5.1 channel configuration, with a bitrate of 1440 kbps, so as to provide surround audio from a standard CD. It succeeds superbly at this (I'm listening to one right now), but is not very flexible. Various modifications have been made over time, but at least originally, encoding fewer than the maximum number of channels simply "wasted" them : the per-channel bitrate being fixed at 280 kbps [unlike AC-3 which can shift bits from one channel to another, and share bits between channels], encoding only 3.0 channels meant that the remaining 2.1 were effectively present but encoded with silence. Also, it lacks the sophisticated tricks which allow AC-3 to produce acceptable audio at low bitrates, and things such as channel mixdown have been implemented in a kind of after-the-fact manner. Where hardware compatability is concerned, such as feeding the output from your DVD player into an old CTC-100, the plain fact is that this is just a matter of dts not being mandatory in the DVD specification. If it were, the hardware would be in there, just as it is for AC-3.

 

[Lee-c]

This is unacceptable. If they want to put uncompressed audio in a movie, fine, but you must include a
DD+ soundtrack, also. So it can be output via a standard coax cable to the receiver for standard DD 5.1
audio decoding. There's no excuse for not providing a standard 5.1 soundtrack output (coax or optical) that
anyone can use with their current equipment. So they better release updated versions of these movies
soon with the proper soundtrack formats supported that everyone expects. I like BD for the higher specs it
has, but I have to admit that HD-DVD is handling it's first movies vastly more intelligently than the
BD people are (even if the current HD-DVD movies' DD+ gets converted to DTS, at least anyone with
a DTS capable receiver can get that over a standard coax audio connection from the HD-DVD player).

 

[JediFonger]

that's why i'm curious to find out the diff. between TrueHD vs. the "uncompressed 5.1 PCM" stuff they're referring to.

if they were, indeed, referring to TrueHD, then doesn't TrueHD (like DD+) demux and fold into DD+ or DDEX as easy as DD+ folds into DD x.x? i'm curious to find out.

i've always wanted that since i discovered pre-recorded content on digital mediums. the "that" i'm referring to is to take an original master and literally make a 1:1 copy of it for all consumers on a medium and then scale it DOWN for people, but as technology actually catches UP to the quality of the masters, THEN start exploiting the quality aspects of the copy.

here's an example: let's say Lucas digitized Star Wars Ep1 in the 1999 in 8k resolution on a holographic optical disc (i know, i know, it wasn't available then as TDK will have this year, but work with me here). it literally is a master 1:1 copy with uncompressed 7.1 surround sound. so someone like Panasonic (for example) comes out with a HDV player but downres 8k-> SD, demuxes uncompressed 7.1 into DD5.1 or DTS5.1 for avg. joe playback. fast forward to 2006 and the availability of HDMI that can pass uncompressed 7.1 and 8k resolution easily. swap out the panasonic player, the AV receiver, and the TV but you still use the same exact medium.

what happened to forward thinking?

PS yesh, i know that if such a thing actually happened, people would have made an attempt output 7.1 uncompressed soundtrack from the HDV player. but think of the video aspect. 1080p wasn't a market reality then, they HAVE to downres from 4,320p. heck 4,320p TVs aren't available today. so imagine buying a HD-DVD/BluRay that is encoded with 4,320p, 10.1 uncompressed soundtrack. that toshiba or sony player is only downressing from 4320p -> 1080p and folding the 10.1 uncompressed soundtrack into 7.1 TrueHD, DD+, DTS-HD. but 2-3 years down the road when 4320p UDTVs and 10.1 AV Receivers become a reality, we just swap those things out and never have to replace the library ever again! . i swear i thought of this in the 90s, but it was a pipe dream back then!

 

[Craig W]

Lee-c,

You are right that titles should at minimum have a DD track.

The thing I don't understand currently is why the Toshiba player is converting DD+ to dts when DD+ according to Dolby has a standard DD core. I thought the idea behind it was when the track is being decoded it by a standard DD decoder the extension data is ignored.

I wonder if legacy decoders are going to have problems when receiving a DD+ track.

 

[JediFonger]

yeah, i wonder if Toshiba will get hit w/lawsuit from Dolby =).

 

[Lee-c]

Craig, I have no idea why the HD-DVD players are converting DD to DTS, it doesn't make any sense.
Any DD+ or Dolby TrueHD soundtrack is supposed to effortlessly output a high resolution 640k (better than
we get on any current DVD) DD 5.1 soundtrack. All the player has to do is just down-sample the bit-rate
to 640k and ignore the center rear surround channels, no big deal. The DD+ and Dolby TrueHD soundtracks
are built from the ground up to do just that. So why aren't the HD-DVD players doing so? They have
had how long to make these players, and they can't even build one to handle such a basic audio function?
But at least they are putting out regular DTS, which is far better than Sony's absurd situation.

And this whole uncompressed audio thing from Sony is dumb. Dolby TrueHD is a *lossless* compression
method, so no audio quality is being sacrificed. So why do something as stupid as not just going
with a TrueHD soundtrack, which will sound just as good and also automatically handle DD 5.1 over
a coax cable?

 

[PeterTHX]

"Sony's absurd situation"

What's with everyone getting their panties in a bunch? All I've heard is that the initial Columbia/Tri-Star titles will feature multichannel PCM. I'm willing to bet that there will be a Dolby Digital 5.1 (probably at 640kbps) track as well.

Oh yeah, Sony's initial Blu-ray player specs list Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD "core component pass thru" support. Not the half-assed Toshiba's HD DVD audio output. Talk about rushed!

 

[Lee-c]

Peter: Well, if these movies we're discussing that are coming out first on BRD also have DD 5.1 or
DD+ (and which will auto-convert to 640k DD 5.1 over a coax output from the BRD player to any
standard DD 5.1 receiver), then obviously there's no problem. But the indications from this
thread seemed to suggest only multi-channel PCM, which would not be good at all. Hopefully that
won't be the case, we'll know for sure in just a few weeks when the first players and movies hit.

Has anyone seen any official final specs on the soundtracks that will be on the movie disks first
released on BRD?

 

[PeterTHX]

All the spec (as Bill Hunt said) said was that Dolby Plus, TrueHD and DTS-HD wouldn't be used! This thread is somewhat misleading. It does NOT say they won't have Dolby Digital or even DTS tracks. Just the "hi-res" audio versions will be multichannel PCM! Even if they were Dolby Plus or DTS-HD the same situation would apply for the people complaining!

 

[Lee-c]

Yeah, it's possible that they will just put a 640k DD 5.1 soundtrack right on the disk, that has already
been encoded ahead of time from the source sound streams before it was ever put on the disk. That
would be fine, too. Hopefully that will be the case.

I don't think anyone would complain if we knew they were including Dolby TrueHD or at least a
very high bit-rate DD+ soundtrack, since that would cover both a high resolution soundtrack option
and a needed high quality 640k DD 5.1 soundtrack over coax all in one fell swoop.

 

[Lee-c]

I'm pleased to note that Robocop lists a DD 5.1 soundtrack, so that's at least one movie among the
first to be released on BD that will work with any standard DD 5.1 receiver.

 

[Craig W]

No the thread is not misleading. The fact is that the newer audio codecs, DD+ and DD-TrueHD, currently available on HD-DVD discs are not going to be used on the initial Blu-Ray titles.

Again, I really don't care if Toshiba's player is half baked, but that still does excuse the fact the BRD is not going to be all it could be at launch.

 

[PeterTHX]

How is it not?
Uncompressed multichannel 5.1 PCM is better than mere 2 channel playback of Dolby TrueHD (which is what the Toshiba supports), which is what people want: exactly what the master is.
Dolby Digital Plus is still a lossy (albeit excellent) representation of the original, which is then decoded and then RECOMPRESSED into DTS!
At least Sony's Blu-ray player will allow the Dolby Digital versions of the Plus and TrueHD (as well as the DTS-HD) tracks output unmolested.