U-571 HD DVD Audio Question (1 Viewer)

Hi Folks,

I see that on the Universal U-571 HD DVD it lists Dolby Digital Plus and DTS as the two soundtrack selections.

Now, I know that the Dolby Digital Plus, while not lossless, is a higher bitrate than the standard DD that is on regular SD DVD's. My question is about the DTS soundtrack that is included here. It is labeled as just DTS, not DTS+ or anything like that. Is this DTS track a higher bitrate than a standard DTS track on a SD DVD? Does it compare to the DD+ in terms of quality, or is it a standard SD DVD DTS soundtrack?

I did notice that when playing the DTS track my reciever showed 'Multi Ch In' rather than 'DTS', so that would tend to make me believe that this is a higher quality encode than SD DTS. (I'm passing the signal from an HD-A2 to a Denon AVR 2807 via HDMI, with HDMI audio output set to 'Auto' on the player).

One final note is that to my ears, the DTS sounded a little fuller and better, but that could just be psychological.

Check the bitrate. With Sleepy Hollow, the original was a 754K DTS track and on the BD it has a 1509K track that does sound better.

I believe previous Universal releases have had Dolby Digital+ tracks at 3.0 Mbit, but I don't know if all of them have. The DTS track would most likely be 1.5 Mbit.

Doug

How would I check the bitrate of the soundtrack?

Someone who has an A2 will have to answer that...or check your manual. It should be one button away.

What I would love for a track on U-571 is not possible with current HT equipment. U-571 was released to theatres with an SDDS 8 channel track, which would be a beautiful thing.

Doesn't Dolby TrueHD or PCM do 7.1? It should be possible, theoretically speaking at least, to take an 8-channel mix and preserve the information in a home theater mix.

Whether this is practical or worth the cost, I don't know. I am aware of the fact that theatrical SDDS does not offer a home theater equivalent, which may complicate things.

The mix could still be used and encoded to either True HD or DTS master audio. True HD supports up to 8 channels. DTS master audio supports 7.1 channels.

Doug