Sony to start using Dolby True HD on Blu-ray... (1 Viewer)

[Dave_P.]

Looks like themanroom is confirming this as well.

 

[AlexBC]

As David pointed out, sure it's interesting, but it would be even more if both had 20bit depth ; )

 

[DaViD Boulet]

If by some chance the 16 bit PCM track sounds better thant the 20-bit True HD stream on this disc, that would be an indication that Dialogue normalization or some other anti-audiophile "feature" of Dolby had been set by the studio during mastering.

 

[Jeff Adkins]

David, there have reports that the True HD track is only 16-bit. Supposedly all of the Warner True HD tracks are 16-bit.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Jeff,

sony hasn't released their disc with the DTHD track yet. How can there be reports regarding it being only 16-bit? Paidgeek at AVS (the best sony industry insider we have access to) was the one who stated that it would be 20-bit.

Yes, that's true about WB. 20 and 24 bit Lossless packing, even with DTHD, uses a lot more bandwidth than 16-bit. I think that as much as WB deserves points for great quality on may HD releases, their support for HD DVD is possibly what has kept them limited to 16-bit because of bandwidth restrictions on that format (unconfirmed that this is the reason in all cases). I hope this changes soon... it would be great to get better-than-CD-sound out of HD media!

dave

 

[Jeff Adkins]

I hope you are referring to their video quality. Their audio quality is at the bottom of all the major studios.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Jeff, true and true. WB has been down the stack with audio quality. Many of their musicals (and Ben Hur too) were remixed in ways that destroyed the integrity of the original sound mixes. And they refused to use 448 kbps Dolby on DVD suggesting that 384 kbps was good enough. Sheesh.

 

[Tim Glover]

Well guys, have you heard the Dolby TrueHD tracks on the HD DVDs of Batman Begins, Superman Returns, V for Vendetta, & Harry Potter & The Prizoner of Azkaban? They're freaking unreal...and better than anything I've heard on the format to this date.

 

[MarekM]

They are amazing Tim but you have to hear KOH, BHD, Chicago, Pearl Harbor with PCM

 

[DaViD Boulet]

That 24-bit PCM on Chicago... Ahhh....

 

[AlexBC]

***ATTENTION PLEASE***

For those of us concerned with the use of Dialog Normalization, I urge you to please take a minute of your time to post or vote on the following poll over at AVS. It's a valid survey (sort of an official one) since it was suggested by paidgeek himself, a Sony Pictures (SPHE) insider, and he'll be watching it closely.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...8#post10074948

ps: sorry for the shouting, but I believe this is a really important issue and a chance for us to be heard.

 

[Tim Glover]

Hey I'm sure those sound FANTASTIC...I wasn't saying that. When I get a blu-ray player I'll be getting some of those for sure Marek.

I was just reminding that Warner HAS put out some stellar audio HD titles in those True HD tracks. This was not in any way an anti blu-ray pcm post.

Those True HD tracks by Warner have been reviewed rather well across the board from websites. Just pointing that out & defending Warner Bros a bit.

I do look forward to hearing Chicago in BD. If my memory serves me right, it won for Best Sound at the Oscars?

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Hey Tim,

BTW, didnt' meant to suggest that those WB DTHD titles don't sound great. I still would like to see WB avoid Dialog Norm and move to 20-24 bit encoding as it would sound *even better*...

 

[Cees Alons]

You're absolutely right, and given the fact that this thread is about TrueHD, especially Sony starting to use TrueHD, on BD, I don't know why PCM was brought up.

Unless, of course, someone wants to argue that it's OK to continue using space on BD for heavily redundant uncompressed multiple tracks (by lack of any other use) and that Sony is making the wrong decision here....


Cees

 

[DaViD Boulet]

dave

 

[Dave Moritz]

Hey Alex thanks for the AVS link regaurding Dialog Normalization. I am a member of that forum as well and I voted no for the use of Dialog Normalization on Dolby THD tracks.

While the DTHD tracks on HD-DVD have been good I guess I have no big need to see them on Blu-ray. This is only because we allready have DTS-HD Master Audio and PCM on Blu-ray. Do we really need a third lossless option for Blu-ray? This would be like if we did not have PCM audio on Blu-ray and Dolby True HD and DTS-MA was being used. And then along came a studio that decided to use a third lossless format like lossless SDDS for example. Would we need that to happen?

I guess I have been very happy with what DTS brings to the table and after there being no DTHD on Blu-ray. I have been happy with DTS-MA and PCM and so I do not feel I need DTHD on Blu-ray. And there has been such a lack of titles using DTHD on HD-DVD that I have been loosing interest in DTHD all together. I also hate Dolby's use of Dialog Normalization in there audio tracks so thats another reason not to want Dolby. The only reason that Sony is looking at using DTHD IMHO is Dolby basically begged them to use DTHD! Dolby knows that they are in a dangerous position for the first time in there history in the home video market. We have two new HD formats fighting it out to become the replacement for SD-DVD. HD-DVD is currently using Dolby Digital Plus and some Dolby True HD tracks but seems to be falling behind in the HD war. Blu-ray is currently using ether DTS-HD Master Audio or PCM tracks and if Dolby does not able to get DTHD or Dolby + tracks on Blu-ray. The are looking at becoming the minority audio format on the next generation HD format. Dolby has been the uncontested audio formats for years until DTS came along and now they are looking at the posability of DTS being top dog and Dolby ending up as the audio track that is hardly being offered. I did not mention SDDS because IMHO SDDS was never really used enough in enough theaters to be a real threat to Dolby's dominence. And SDDS never ended up as a home video solution so it basically been Dolby vs DTS for the past 10 years or so.

I am however suprised that Sony did not revamp SDDS into SDDS lossless instead of using PCM. Sony is using there Blu-ray platform to get all those royalty $$$ so it's suprising that they did not use SDDS so they could make money on the audio side as well.

If Sony does indeed start using Dolby True HD tracks on Blu-ray then IMHO they should dump PCM. I do not want to see three choices of audio formats when I go to buy a Blu-ray disc.

Do we really want to see this type of senario at the store?

Disc A:
Dolby True HD (English)
PCM 5.1 (English)
Dolby Digital (Spanish)
Dolby Digital (French)

Disc B:
DTS-HD Master Audio (English)
PCM 5.1 (English)
DTS (Spanish)
DTS (French)

Disc C:
Dolby True HD (English)
DTS-HD Master Audio (English)
Dolby Digital 5.1 (Spanish)
Dolby Digital 5.1 (French)

Disc D:
PCM 5.1 (English)
Dolby Digital Plus (English)
Dolby Digital 5.1 (Spanish)
Dolby Digital 5.1 (French)

Disc E:
PCM 5.1 (English)
DTS or DTS-ES (English)
Dolby Digital 5.1 (Spanish)
Dolby Digital 5.1 (French)

With SD-DVD we ether buy a Dolby or DTS title or sometimes we get the option of choosing which format we want to listen to on the same disc. I do not see them placing PCM, Dolby True HD and DTS-HD Master Audio on the same title. Do we need three audio choices for lossless audio, I don't think so. And IMHO its just as bad to not have a choice at all between just two audio tracks. And not having any idea what format you will have on any one HD release. Will it be PCM or maybe Dolby True HD or maybe even DTS-MA? I stoped caring about Dolby years ago so its hard for me to care about them now! Dolby has done alot of great things with audio over the years but Dolby Digital was not all that great IMHO and with a low bit rate core for DTHD that has that same muddy sound and lack of transparency. It is just another reason to stick with DTS and DTS-HD Master Audio or go with PCM lossless.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Dave,

I agree that for several reasons (higher bit-rate core, lack of dialog norm) DTS-HD/MA is the best long-term option for lossless compression on HD media.

However,

let's be clear that the Dolby core from their DTHD stream is 640 kbps which sounds much better than the Dolby Digital on DVD (though still not as good as DTS at 1500 kbps).

Also, the codec-divide between formats is purely at the studios' whim. There's no real reason why Fox couldn't provide Dolby TrueHD on Blu-ray, and no reason why WB should be holding back lossless Dolby TrueHD on their BD titles that have it on the sister HD DVD versions. HD DVD could also easily carry DTS-HD, but since no HD DVD players offer advanced decoding for DTS, so far the studios have been shy to offer it in the US. Though there are HD DVD titles overseas that have INCREDIBLE DTS-HD audio even in cases where the same title on HD DVD in the US omits it. go figure.

 

[David Coleman]

It would be alright to have it if all the equipment allowed it to be disabled for those who don't want.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Agreed. In fact, that's a solution I would competely embrace.

But from what I understand, for any Dolby Decoder to operate "in spec", it has to honor the dialog-flag and can't bypass the dialog-norm processing. There are a few decoders on the market (most of them were produced very early on in the life of consumer-Dolby Digital) that allowed such bypassing. My understanding is that, technically speaking, those products were out-of-spec as a result which is why later generations of those same devices omitted the user-bypass option for dialog norm.

Doesn't that just piss you off?!? Why the hell should Dolby care if I, as a consumer, don't want the processing to take place? If I can bypass compression settings, why not dialog-norm?

 

[MarekM]

thanx for the LINK !!

voted for "OFF"

Marek