Home Theater Forum - View Single Post - Okay, Let's Start Over: Please Explain How These New HD Soundtracks Work...

Jeff Gatie · 09-14-2007, 10:00 AM

Nick, regardless if the receiver is doing the decoding or the player is doing the decoding, you will get the EXACT SAME AUDIO. These are (mostly) lossless formats, so aside from any dialog normalization or other processing, the sound is exactly the same. Don't get too confused, it really is nothing to worry about. The only difference you will hear/see is the Onkyo will say "Multichannel" instead of "DD" or "DTS". When the players are released that pass the audio as bitstream, then your Onkyo will do the decoding.

Please note though (and this may be the reason for the player doing the decoding in the first place) BD and HD DVD are able to mix interactive content in with the main film, both video and audio, without resorting to another, separate, version of the film/soundtrack. Formerly, if you wanted a commentary, you had to record a separate version of the soundtrack. If you wanted a pip commentary, you had to render another version of the video. Now they can just mix the commentary (and other effects) in with the original soundtrack/film. Needless to say, this is easy with the player decoding the tracks, it just decodes and then mixes them together. With the receiver doing the decoding, these features may have to be disabled. But it really doesn't matter because you can always just keep the decoding in the player and you'll never hear anything different.

09-14-2007, 10:00 AM	#3 of 39
Jeff Gatie Member Location: Mass Join Date: Aug 2002 Local Time: 09:55 PM Local Date: 08-21-2008 Posts: 5,338	Re: Okay, Let's Start Over: Please Explain How These New HD Soundtracks Work... Nick, regardless if the receiver is doing the decoding or the player is doing the decoding, you will get the EXACT SAME AUDIO. These are (mostly) lossless formats, so aside from any dialog normalization or other processing, the sound is exactly the same. Don't get too confused, it really is nothing to worry about. The only difference you will hear/see is the Onkyo will say "Multichannel" instead of "DD" or "DTS". When the players are released that pass the audio as bitstream, then your Onkyo will do the decoding. Please note though (and this may be the reason for the player doing the decoding in the first place) BD and HD DVD are able to mix interactive content in with the main film, both video and audio, without resorting to another, separate, version of the film/soundtrack. Formerly, if you wanted a commentary, you had to record a separate version of the soundtrack. If you wanted a pip commentary, you had to render another version of the video. Now they can just mix the commentary (and other effects) in with the original soundtrack/film. Needless to say, this is easy with the player decoding the tracks, it just decodes and then mixes them together. With the receiver doing the decoding, these features may have to be disabled. But it really doesn't matter because you can always just keep the decoding in the player and you'll never hear anything different.