Rolando

S/PDIF ? Quick question about Digital out setting for DTS and PCM on DVD player...

Asked this question on another thread but it seems to have gone cold.

When I got my new amp, I was so excited because my old Elite amp did not have DTS. Well imagine my dissapointment when DTS signals showed up as Dolby Pro-Logic.

Well I figured it was the player not the amp since my daughters cheap Diamond DVD player seemed to play DTS fine.

Since I did not have the manual for my Malata N996 anymore I decided to check the "expert" set up section in the set-up menu. under DTS I noticed I had the options in digital out of:

1 original
2 PCM
3 original S/PDIF only

well I set it to original and what do you know? My 814 all of a sudden showed DTS

Unfortunately I had a lot of audio drop outs on different DVDs until I switched to the 3rd setting: original S/PDIF only. however I must admit I don't know what that means.

I figured original should have worked fine. am I wrong? can anyone explain the difference between them?

Am I in the right setting now or should it be on original and I should have the drop out looked into?

what is S/PDIF?

Rolando Avendano

My Collection

imported_Brian L

Thats an odd one, Rolando. All the DVD players I have ever owned (Sony, Pio, Denon) give you two choices; PCM or Bitstream. I have never had a 3rd choice, thus I would not be able to guess what that is.

S/PDIF stands for (I think) Sony/Philips Digital Interface. Now, I think I read that somewhere, but if someone chimes in and says thats B.S., I will take my lumps!

EDIT: Looks like I was correct:

http://whatis.techtarget.com/definit...213474,00.html

How that equates to the setting in your Malata, I have no idea.

But the key is that you do NOT want PCM turned on for DTS, otherwise it will be sent out as a 2CH digital signal, and decode into PL, PL II, or whatever else your AVR can do with PCM.

How are you connected; Optical or Coax? If you have both, can you try the other?

BGL

JeremyErwin

spdif was revised some time ago. The interface is now called IEC-958, and there are some differences. Perhaps the "original" setting helps with compatibility

Rolando

using coax.

I am curious as to why one setting would give audio drop outs and the other won't.

I am worried the setting it is on now might not be full blown DTS. Only had a chance to see one movie in DTS, Kill Bill and I was not too impressed.

Will test it further...

Rolando Avendano

My Collection

ChristopherDAC

It may have something to do with the frame rate of dts. As originally implemented on CD and LD, dts used the 44 100 samples/second, 16 bits/sample structure of CD digital audio, which is the same as the original S/PDIF spec [Redbook being the recording standard and S/PDIF the signal standard]. DVD supports a rather different sample structure, though, and it may be that [1] the DVDP output is corrupt, or [2] your amp is having trouble with the details of the encoding. Either way, forcing "original S/PDIF", which [given the other two options] may mean "repackage the raw data to conform with the S/PDIF specifications", would improve the situation.

Resources for :
Anime on LaserDisc
Everything on LaserDisc

Rolando

So in other words you think that Original would theoretically be better but my amp may not be able to decode it properly?

Thanks so much for the input. I will leave it as that for now, maybe test it on another amp someday.

Rolando Avendano

My Collection