Ok, so I have a Sony BDP-301 Blu-ray player....HELP!

shockt327 · 01-01-2008, 04:12 PM

I have two major questions....one about HDMI receivers and the other about audio codecs (True HD/DTS HD/PCM)

The long version: The Sony BDP-301 was purchased as a Christmas gift for my family. Since I'm the one who is most knowledgeable about HT (read as: barely above-average knowledge) I'm responsible for hooking it up/making sure everything is compatible/ect. I was looking into a Blu-ray player for awhile so I know a little bit about what I wanted. But I held off cause my receiver isn't HDMI compatible (nor was I sure about the format war).

Anyway, my reciever is currently a Onkyo TX-SR603. Great receiver, bought it last year but no HDMI hookups. What a bonehead move right? Well, not really. I got it with full knowledge that it would be somewhat-obsolete, so I bought the Circuit City protection plan and I can simply take it back and get this years model....the TX-SR605 (or pay the difference for a better model!)

So question #1: What receiver should I get?
I'm pretty brand loyal to Onkyo. And I want something that can support HDMI, and and can encode Dolby True HD/DTS-DH (more below). What else should I look for that I don't even know about? I'm sure there is quite a bit. But as I said, I'm leaning toward the Onkyo TX-SR605

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The Sony BDP-301 is great. I have an older Samsung 42" DLP 1080i that I've had since 2003, and the picture it outputs is better than almost anything I've seen on that TV (The only disks I have are The Terminator & T2: Judgment Day...as if you need anything else

) I gotta say I was pretty happy with the player considering it was sort of a blind-buy, considering the fact that no one in the house really knows too much about HT.

However, the lack of Dolby True HD/DTS-HD is a severe disappointment. It isn't a big deal right now cause my receiver can't decode it....but when I upgrade it will be a problem. Why? Not totally sure. I really can't say I know a whole lot. Just that the HD audio is uncompressed, which means better bitrate, right? More bitrate=better sound, right? And who doesn't want better sound? Well, I do know that the BDP-301 does decode LPCM and output it via HDMI....but I just don't know how that works. I know my current reciever can handle PCM, but it decodes it as Pro-logic or NEO:6....which just isn't as good, right? For example, when I played T2, it would decode the PCM as Pro-logic, so I switched to the DTS track. I sounds great, but it's still compressed audio, and I'm dying to hear what uncompressed audio is like.

So my next questions are:
#2: What exactly is (L?)PCM and how should a receiver decode it?

#3: Should I take my The Sony BDP-301 back and get a player than can output TrueHD? (cause I'm dedicated to hearing uncompressed audio)

#4: Is question #3 even relevant if I get a new receiver that can decode TrueHD? I'm not sure if this is right, but if I have a receiver than can decode the raw PCM audio track, then I can set the receiver to decode it as Dolby True HD/DTS-HD, right? And that is just as good as having a player than can decode it, right? Not sure how that works....cause my current receiver couldn't decode the PCM track into 5.1 (it played as ProLogic)....so I had to manually switch the output on the BDP-301 player to DTS. Or is this just because my old receiver really can't decode PCM? I'm sensing that this is the difference between LPCM and PCM....which is still don't know the difference between (see question #2, lol

).

#5: I heard that there will be a firmware update for the Sony BDP-301 that will allow it to encode True HD
That sounds wonderful....I just wish I knew what Firmware was, and how to use it.

Thanks for the help, and sorry for the long winded nature of my post!

JeremyErwin · 01-01-2008, 05:18 PM

Quote:

The Blu-ray Disc® player has Dolby Digital Plus decoding functionality.

You can also enjoy conventional Dolby Digital sound from Dolby TrueHD streams. However, the player does not have Dolby TrueHD decoding functionality and does not support Dolby TrueHD or HDMI™ bitstream output.

So says Sony

LPCM can be output from the 5.1 analogue jacks, but, the lack of TrueHD, if true seems like it would be a bit of a bummer.

shockt327 · 01-01-2008, 06:30 PM

Ok, I thought it was possible to output the LPCM audio via HDMI, and then have the receiver decode it into TrueHD. But I guess that can only be done by bitstream output via HDMI.....which it can't do. I'm getting bitstream/PCM/and LPCM confused....mostly cause I don't know what they are.

BTW - Any word on a firmware update?

JeremyErwin · 01-01-2008, 07:26 PM

Linear PCM and PCM are the same-uncompressed digital audio, in however many channels you want. Takes a lot of space on disk, and you can only squeeze two channels down a SPDIF connection.

If you want to transmit more than two channels digitally, you'll need a HDMi connection. However, you can also have the player convert it into analogue, and connect the player to the receiver using the multichannel analogue outputs.

DTS-HDMA and Dolby TrueHD are both means of losslessly compressing the Linear PCM on disc, so more space can be devoted to video or extras. Some players will decompress the TrueHD/DTS-HDMA into LPCM, some will not. Some players will pass on the TrueHD/DTS-HDMA onto a receiver (over HDMI 1.3), where it is then decoded, processed and amplified, others will not.

Unfortunately, your player appears not to decode TrueHD. It also seems that it will not pass the stream onto a receiver capable of decoding it. (pending a firmware update which might never come)

So getting a 605 will not solve your issues.

Stephen Tu · 01-01-2008, 07:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shockt327

So question #1: What receiver should I get?

Onkyo 605/705 are fine IMO.

Quote:

Just that the HD audio is uncompressed, which means better bitrate, right? More bitrate=better sound, right? And who doesn't want better sound?

Well, maybe slightly better sound. It's analogous to listening to CD vs. MP3 at various bitrates. At some point throwing more bits at it doesn't really make a noticeable difference to you. The "TrueHD" and DTS-HD/MA is using lossless compression (like using FLAC), vs. the lossy compression of DD/DTS (like AAC/MP3). But you have to remember that in developing those lossy compression schemes, a lot of research was poured into trying to make sure the "lost" parts be sound that the vast majority of people can't hear anyway. And DD/DTS sounds pretty damn good IMO. I think most people, if they really claim to hear a "night & day" difference between DD / TrueHD, it's more likely because the media makers went back and remixed the soundtrack with totally different volume levels for various elements, rather than inherent differences between lossless & lossy (which should be quite subtle and mostly inaudible). It does satisfy the audio fanatics though & maybe has good placebo effects for some.

Quote:

#2: What exactly is (L?)PCM and how should a receiver decode it?

LPCM is "linear pulse code modulation", basically the same scheme as CDs, except that for HDMI it handles multi-channel (5.1-7.1) instead of just stereo, and higher sampling frequencies/ bits per sample than on CD. A receiver doesn't decode LPCM, there's nothing to decode, you just shove it into D->A converter then out comes your sound. PCM is the result of decoding the compressed audio. If the player is spitting that out either it was using an uncompressed track (many Blu-ray have 5.1 LPCM tracks), or it decoded the audio from DD/DTS/DD+/TrueHD etc.

Quote:

#3: Should I take my The Sony BDP-301 back and get a player than can output TrueHD? (cause I'm dedicated to hearing uncompressed audio)

Yes if you want to hear TrueHD.

Quote:

#4: Is question #3 even relevant if I get a new receiver that can decode TrueHD?

Yes. To hear TrueHD, you have to either have a player that decodes TrueHD, + a receiver that accepts the decoded multi-ch PCM over HDMI (or over analog multi-ch connections if player has them), OR a receiver that decodes TrueHD + a player that will output the TrueHD over the HDMI (aka "can bitstream output TrueHD"), which needs HDMI 1.3 compatibility. The S300/301 does neither, unfortunately.

**HTF Ads**

shockt327 · 01-01-2008, 08:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JeremyErwin

Linear PCM and PCM are the same-uncompressed digital audio, in however many channels you want. Takes a lot of space on disk, and you can only squeeze two channels down a SPDIF connection.

If you want to transmit more than two channels digitally, you'll need a HDMi connection. However, you can also have the player convert it into analogue, and connect the player to the receiver using the multichannel analogue outputs.

DTS-HDMA and Dolby TrueHD are both means of losslessly compressing the Linear PCM on disc, so more space can be devoted to video or extras. Some players will decompress the TrueHD/DTS-HDMA into LPCM, some will not. Some players will pass on the TrueHD/DTS-HDMA onto a receiver (over HDMI 1.3), where it is then decoded, processed and amplified, others will not.

Unfortunately, your player appears not to decode TrueHD. It also seems that it will not pass the stream onto a receiver capable of decoding it. (pending a firmware update which might never come)

So getting a 605 will not solve your issues.

OK, thanks for the explanation.

The only thing I'm still confused about is the fact that it says in the manual: "In combination with a compatible AV amplifier, the player can output up to 8ch Linear PCM surround sound." They specify "compatible" to mean HDMI.

I know I'm not getting this, but why can't a HDMI receiver (like TX-SR605) decode that 8ch PCM into True HD, or DTS-HD? I'm guessing there is a difference between 8-channel Linear PCM and uncompressed LPCM?

I'm also guessing the 8 channel PCM that is being passed can only be decoded into Dolby Digital Plus?

EDIT: There is no way to get True HD if the player doesn't recognize the format? Even if it can send uncompressed LPCM, it still won't work even if the receiver can decode trueHD? Or am I still getting this stuff totally wrong?

Stephen Tu · 01-01-2008, 09:11 PM

You are somewhat confused. PCM is uncompressed, unencoded digital sound, it's basically the end product. It is what you get after decoding any of the encoded formats. Once you have it in the form of PCM you are basically done, except for digital->analog conversion, amplify, send to speakers.

The player can output LPCM for discs that have LPCM tracks, and also for the formats it knows how to decode (e.g. DD+). But it doesn't know how to decode TrueHD, so it can't spit out the LPCM result of decoding it. It also doesn't know how to spit out the undecoded TrueHD as a bitstream for the receiver to decode.

Quote:

I know I'm not getting this, but why can't a HDMI receiver (like TX-SR605) decode that 8ch PCM into True HD, or DTS-HD?

This is backwards. You decode TrueHD/DTS-HD to get PCM. If it's already PCM you are already done. The issue is that your player can't decode TrueHD or pass it to the receiver to decode. So you have to use a different track on your equipment.

Quote:

I'm also guessing the 8 channel PCM that is being passed can only be decoded into Dolby Digital Plus

Also backwards. DD+ tracks can be decoded into 8 ch PCM and sent to the receiver. Or if the disc has raw PCM multich track that can also be sent to receiver. Just with a TrueHD track, the player can't really do anything with it. (If you select it for use, it will basically play the std DD track that's "hidden" on the BD disc for players that can't decode TrueHD, this works differently than on HD-DVD).

shockt327 · 01-01-2008, 10:12 PM

Thank you!

So the order would be:

Disk must have an encoded Dolby True HD track -> Player reads the track/decodes it -> player outputs the True HD LPCM track through HDMI -> Reciever amplifies track and it is send to the speakers.

Question: (I know it doesn't apply for my current player) But If the player cannot decode TrueHD, then it what way can it output the audio to the receiver so the reciever can decode....or is that impossible?

Stephen Tu · 01-01-2008, 10:30 PM

A player like the Panasonic BD-30 outputs the undecoded TrueHD over HDMI for a receiver like the Onkyo x05 series to decode. Decoding can take place either in the player or in the receiver. But to do it in the receiver it takes a player that can output the undecoded bitstream over the HDMI, only a couple (Panasonic BD-30, Samsung 1400) do it at this time.

Blu-ray also complicates things with the different profiles, e.g. profile 1.1 to support new picture-in-picture commentary features, now only working on the BD-30 + PS3; this and the audio situation is why I'm currently just sticking with my HD-DVD $99 Wal-mart special & waiting for cheaper, more finalized BD players (or dual-format) to come out before I go neutral.

shockt327 · 01-02-2008, 12:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stephen Tu

A player like the Panasonic BD-30 outputs the undecoded TrueHD over HDMI for a receiver like the Onkyo x05 series to decode. Decoding can take place either in the player or in the receiver. But to do it in the receiver it takes a player that can output the undecoded bitstream over the HDMI, only a couple (Panasonic BD-30, Samsung 1400) do it at this time.

Ok.

Question: If you have a player that can decode TrueHD, then why is the ability to output raw uncompressed bitrate even necessary? From what I understand, audio is better off being encoded within the player (mostly because of advanced authoring, which allows multiple content streams to be live-mixed - which can't be done in the receiver). What does uncompressed bitrate output offer?

Quote:

Blu-ray also complicates things with the different profiles, e.g. profile 1.1 to support new picture-in-picture commentary features, now only working on the BD-30 + PS3;

From what little I've read 1.1 is now the standard....I've heard there is 2.0 but it is unclear as to how it will be implemented.

Quote:

this and the audio situation is why I'm currently just sticking with my HD-DVD $99 Wal-mart special & waiting for cheaper, more finalized BD players (or dual-format) to come out before I go neutral.

I don't blame you. I will go neutral myself, so I'd have no prob exchanging it for a HD-DVD player. But it seems like Blu-ray has more films out on the market....but that's just my impression. I could be wrong.