It not so much that they won't, it is just that they currently do not. I don't bank alot on promises from Sony, or for that matter, any of the hardware companies.
Cees if DN will be TURNED ON (by accident) the REVIEWER will notice it !! because those new releases will have DolbyTrueHD and PCM track, and PCM track is without DN, and we don't know when Sony will start to put new titles only with DolbyTrueHD track... and by all talks around it seems like you will be able to tell very clearly if there is DN ON or OFF if you compare track to PCM, so it's not HARDLY noticable....
Well, don't cringe too much. Recently, Paramount has begun doing what Universal has been doing which is encode DD+ at 1.5 mb/s. It should be noted that most recent opinions by audio professionals is that a 24-bit DD+ track at 1.5 mb/s is generally of higher resolution than a 16-bit lossless or PCM track. The same cannot be said of DTS at 1.5 mb/s.
They would only notice it if DN REALLY makes a difference. Also do we know if the Dolby track and the PCM track are actually the same mix. I know when when I was working on features the Dolby track and the DTS track were two completely different mixs. With out being able to turn off DN you have no idea if it really changes anything.
I don't know if thats the case or not. How do we know it's not the DTS mix? It could also be a special mix done just for home video which happens from time to time.
(1) There's nothing wrong with wanting the most space- and bandwidth-efficient lossless codec. And DTS HD-MA isn't a real choice at the moment: you can't play it. (2) No two lossless codecs in my valued disc space, please. Especially not an extra that's a big one. Use the space for PQ, extras, etc. Don't make us pay for two codec licenses if we will only use 1 of them in practice (whichever).
A choice is fine: if it's a different disc version (even that one is tricky, because probably they will author the film content such to reserve space for the big DTS HD-MA track on the other version of the release).
But first we would need DTS HD-MA decoding! (BTW, this will drive up the price of receivers, etc.). The question thuis remains: do we really need a second lossless codec at all? What are the benefits?
In fact, personally I wonder why some people express a preference for DTS HD-MA while they haven't even been able to hear it ever. (Nor have I.)
I would understand if someone said: "Well, apart from the disadvantages of using DTS HD-MA, I heard a few tracks and it's so awesome, I still prefer it". But none of us can say that, so I'm very hesitant to let myself be convinced by those proponents.
And the bottom line is still: lossless is lossless.
That is of course assumming Fox ever gets around to releasing titles again . The money I had allocated for Fox titles is being diverted to other studios releases.
The way I look at it is that DTS did a better job and had a better lossy 5.1 and 6.1 product. And even if the players and receivers can not currently decode DTS-HD MA. I would rather stick with that and give it alittle time to be corrected. Than to run straight back to Dolby as the main solution all over again. The Toshiba player was not able to decode Dolby True HD for a number of months until they offered the update that allowed the player to decode DTHD. I see no reason why DTS should just go away just because Dolby has been around for so long. Dolby has done alot for the industry and has created alot of great products for movies. But companies come and go and this may be Dolbys time? Faroudja was considered to be the greatest for years but now they say other companies have passed them up. Fisher was considered to be great in the 70's but now they are beyond horible.
The truth is that both Blu-ray and HD-DVD went to market way before they where ready. None of the players decoded DTS-HD MA or Dolby True HD in the begining. They also did not include HDMI 1.3 in any of the first generation players. The firt generation HD-DVD players where not even 1080p. And many of the first Blu-ray discs where said to be of poor video quality because of MPEG2.
While DTS was not ready for prime time nether was the platforms it was created for. Fox must have had the oprotunity to hear both Dolby and DTS at some point. But yet they choose to go with DTS-HD even with the lack of decoding avalibility. While Dolby True HD is a great improvement over to older 640 Dolby Digital. DTS has obviously given a better demo and won over Fox. I have no problem if PCM is dropped in exchange of only DTHD and DTS-HD MA being used. Isn't PCM a major space hog and wouldn't we be better of with the choice of DTHD and DTS-HD? DTS IMHO has every right to offer an option for audio and I for one am not ready for a Dolby only format again, at least not right now.
Even if one would agree with that (not everyone would!) then this time they didn't. Lossless = lossless, and the only difference that remains is: how efficient is the compression. Efficient in terms of necessary disc space and efficient in the way it can be decoded (how "busy" is the processor). On both accounts, DTS lost this time.
(Note that this has nothing to do with the DialNorm matter: that is nothing more than an option in TrueHD and can be set to different values or even set off.)