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FINALLY! TrueHD, DTS-HD Master AVR Receivers! (1 Viewer)

Jack Gilvey

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They do look neat (looking at the 605 myself), but receiver decoding/HDMI 1.3 isn't anywhere near as relevant as the hype would indicate, and anyone who really wants lossless audio is already getting it via their HDMI 1.1 players/receivers. Most people with a competent HDMI receiver wouldn't get much from an upgrade just from that standpoint. Perhaps this community knows this. ;)
 

JediFonger

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hdmi 1.3 is very relevant because it is still the only spec to pass TrueHD, DTS Master signals directly to the AV Receiver:

http://hdmi.org/press/pr/pr_20060622.asp


hdmi 1.1 and previous revisions only had 1080p and SACD/DVD-Audio MLP as well as the vanilla flavors of Dolby Digital and DTS.

now the question is whether DD+ and DTS-HD are both supported. truehd and master is bettr than DD+, DTS-HD, but i want the whole package =).
 

Harpozep

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Thank you Jack. A lot to take in, but served up in a thoughtful, easily understood manner.
Folks like myself , who have decent , but not HDMI receivers, ( Integra DTR 6.1 ) are waiting on the sidelines for receivers which will have the 1.3 and decode the latest lossless, etc. Perhaps some of this waiting is for naught since you say the optical discs will be encoded in such a way that the actual playback device itself will need to do the decoding and then pass it along through PCM audio.

As I understand what you wrote to mean these newer receivers will be able to decode these newer formats, but may rarely actually see them due to the optical discs being written so their playback device decodes the audio.
Meaning if true, any number of receivers would do if they have HDMI 1.1?

I still need to get something with HDMI switching and have been waiting for full lossless Dolby HD through HDMI 1.3, and all that that may bring. Perhaps I should stop waiting and get a decent 1.1 HDMI preamp or receiver.....

Now we will all likely upgrade our players as time goes on, so we will need to spec them out to see that they do the decoding of Dolby HD, etc. Not that it is all that prevalent, but it will no doubt be on more discs as time goes on.
 

FeisalK

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it was here on the 14th
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htf/...d.php?t=255107

harpozep
any HDMI 1.1 will do fine, but you would want something that can actually accept the audio (some - although rare - just switch and pass thru video) and better yet perform some bass management (a lot of them don't) on the incoming HDMI audio.

if you have a 7.1 system you will want the latter for sure as the receiver can then apply PLIIx processing on the 5.1 signal
 

Kevin C Brown

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A lot of HDMI 1.1 components do not support it's full audio capability though. 5.1 channels? Most do. But 7.1? A lot of them don't.

But receivers with full HDMI 1.3 compatibility guarentee that. And more. :)
 

Jack Gilvey

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With something like the Onkyo 605 on a recent pre-order for $399, there's certainly no reason to avoid HDMI 1.3(a), especially as it seems it handles an LPCM input correctly (my main concern). You just won't likely be using those decoders everyone gets all hot over. You'd also be ready if/when a disc is actually released in 7.1. ;)
As I noted in my first post, most who already have a good HDMI receiver wouldn't get much at all from an upgrade to 1.3...you don't need it to get lossless audio as many believe. But if you're buying your first, no reason not to go 1.3 unless you get a great deal on something like an Onkyo 604 (which I'm not seeing discounted much yet)
 

LanceJ

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I think I mentioned this somewhere here before, but this past January I spent two hours reading through & downloading manuals from the receiver webpages of Denon, Yamaha, Pioneer and Sony (or was it Onkyo?) and none of their receivers priced under $800 actually processed HDMI's audio signal, in any way.

That's a lot of receivers that don't process audio.

But this is the season for new gear to start debuting so I'm sure something has changed.
 

JediFonger

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thx4clarifying. i didn't know that, but the logic behind it is very similar to panasonic's initial SD-DVD player the a300 or somn. remember when Dolby Digital Decoding was done IN player and passed using 5.1 analog cables to AV Receivers that are "5.1" ready? while we are beyond analog passthroughs (though 1st gen BR/HD DVD players still output analog), what HDMI 1.1 is doing is virtually the same.

you still can't adjust the levels or correct subwoofer cutoff from within the AVR, ya gotta do it in the HD player.

i'm looking into the far future when AVR's are able to manage those things internally and will "decode" DD+,TrueHD, DTS-HD, DTS-HD Master while manaing its levels and even throwing the THX blanket on top of that.
 

Jack Gilvey

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As you may have noted above, it's likely most discs won't even allow the option of passing the undecoded bitstream to the receiver for decoding.
The future, it seems, involves the player sending a MC LPCM signal to the receiver, which then processes and converts it to analog. The receiver doesn't even need to know that the LPCM started out as...DD,DTS,DD+,TrueHD,DTS MA, CD...it all looks the same once decoded to the PCM format that's been used on CD's forever..

I'll reference this thread again, lots of good info:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=789994
 

Jack Gilvey

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I also think there's a conception that having the player decode to LPCM for HDMI transmission is somehow adding an extra step, but it's not. The signal has to become LPCM somewhere before it hits the DACs...sending the bitstream to the receiver is no more "direct" a route.
 

JediFonger

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so what's the purpose of all of these DD+, DTS-HD, truehd, etc.? why not do EVERYTHING in LPCM to BEGIN with?
 

Jack Gilvey

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Good question, and it's the same reason that DD/DTS were used on DVD's, and why .mp3's are used on iPods...to save space. They're all compression schemes, meant to squeeze data down for storage then uncompress it for use . The "lossy" ones, DTS, DD, DD+, DTS Core, etc., throw out some data in order to take up less space. The "lossless" ones, TrueHD and DTS master, both "unzip" to identical copies of the original, much the same as a zipped computer file. They take up much more space, though, so only with the new media are discs big enough to hold them.
As far as raw PCM, some BD discs do contain "non-zipped" PCM tracks. They can do so since they have more capacity.
 

LanceJ

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I bet some people are confusing this with a digital signal......being converted to analog & sent via the 5.1 RCA output jacks......then being converted back into digital (in *most* receivers) for bass management, EQ, etc.......then back into analog for the power amp/loudspeakers portion of the audio chain. Technically-speaking this can introduce a tiny bit of signal degradation but unless the equipment is really old or really crummy quality, most people will never hear those effects.

And if they do hear something different, many times it's because the circuitry in one component was intentionally designed to sound a certain way (warmer, brighter, etc) and this is in contrast to the other component's own sonic signature. For example music heard through my CD player's analog outputs clearly has "thicker" sounding bass vs. using its digital output and having my receiver do the digital-to-analog conversion.
 

Jack Gilvey

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I think that's exactly what many are thinking. I've even seen people refer to an analog PCM signal. Yikes.
 

BrettGallman

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Okay, this may have been answered, but humor me. If one were to buy one of these new 1.3 receivers, they'd be compatible with HDMI 1.1 devices, correct? That way, you wouldn't necessarily have to have two 1.3 devices? For example, the Toshiba A1 is HDMI 1.1 I believe: would it be capable of sending a TrueHD signal to a 1.3 receiver, which would in turn decode that signal? I'm aware that the A1 can decode TrueHD signal already--this is just a matter of curiosity for me.
 

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