DTS lossless option on both HD-DVD and BLU-RAY... (1 Viewer)

[David Coleman]

Well whichever side you are on this has to be a good thing!!! I'm curious what the compression ratio is on this baby??? It's not a mandatory (however regular DTS is) however it'll be compatable with current DTS decoders.

Well read for yourself and chime in with your thoughts!!

DTS Technology Mandatory Audio Format For Blu-ray And HD-DVD Next Generation Disc Standards


Single Audio Track Provides High Performance for New Formats and Backward Compatibility with All Existing DTS Decoder-Based Consumer Electronics Products




DTS (Digital Theater Systems, Inc.) (NASDAQ: DTSI) today announced that its DTS Coherent Acoustics coding system has been selected as mandatory audio technology for both the Blu-ray Disc (BD) and High Definition Digital Versatile Disc (HD-DVD), the two next generation high-definition disc formats for home video. In addition to the Company’s core technology, DTS’ extension technologies have also been selected as options. Encompassing higher data rates, lossless operation and additional channels, DTS’ extension technologies, identified by the DVD Forum (HD-DVD) and Blu-ray Disc Association collectively as DTS++, have been approved as optional features on both HD-DVD and Blu-ray Disc. DTS++ is also the only lossless audio technology selected for both disc formats.

"As a mandatory technology in the next generation standards, a DTS decoder will be built into every next generation player that incorporates either HD-DVD or Blu-ray Disc, therefore allowing content providers the freedom to choose the audio technology best suited for their needs," said Jon Kirchner, President and CEO of DTS. “We are both excited and pleased, and believe that this is a vote of confidence in DTS’ technology and market leadership. Although we do not expect to see revenue until the next generation products become available, we believe the mandatory inclusion sets the stage for a very positive future.”

“Over the past several years, we have seen a marked increase in DVD titles that include DTS soundtracks, and we expect this number to accelerate as DTS becomes an audio standard for next generation formats,” said Patrick Watson, Senior Vice President, Strategy and Business Development at DTS. “The mandatory inclusion of DTS in both the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray standards demonstrates the industry’s support for value-added DTS audio technologies. At the same time, DTS remains committed to artists, consumers and the industry by continuing our tradition of developing new technologies that offer superior performance and backwards compatibility.”

DTS Coherent Acoustics
DTS Coherent Acoustics, first introduced into the market in 1996, was designed to be both extensible and backward-compatible based on its core + extension structure. Subsequent extensions to the original 5.1-channel format were an additional discrete channel for 6.1-channel audio (DTS-ES), and a 96 kHz sampling rate for high-resolution audio (DTS 96/24.) DTS audio tracks using either of these enhancements can be played on any existing DTS decoder, making them compatible with more than 280 million DTS-licensed consumer electronics products today, with advanced decoders able to play the added data.

Now, with the extra space and bandwidth afforded by HD-DVD and Blu-ray Disc, content providers and consumers alike can appreciate DTS audio tracks encoded at data rates greater than 1.5 Mbit/s, all the way to fully lossless operation – meaning that the soundtrack is bit-for-bit identical to the master. Both the mandatory DTS core technology, as well as optional higher sampling rates such as DTS 96/24 and additional channels up to 7.1, enable both Blu-ray Disc and HD-DVD formats to offer DTS’ premium audio quality to consumers while retaining compatibility with all existing DTS decoders. This is the only approved coding system offering this range of performance yet maintaining full backward compatibility, therefore allowing a single audio track to provide advanced features and to support the large population of existing multi-channel preamps and receivers.

HD-DVD and Blu-ray Discs are next generation packaged media formats with large storage capacity capable of high-definition video in addition to other advanced technologies for an enhanced consumer experience.

 

[CraigL]

I'm drooling.

 

[Adam Barratt]

Dolby Digital Plus and MLP have also just been named as mandatory standards for HD-DVD (but only conventional Dolby Digital for Blu-Ray, giving DTS a real edge here). Looks like the studios (and maybe us) will have a wealth of options available, which can only be a good thing. Personally, I'll be happy with any flavour of lossless audio.

Adam

 

[Mike_G]

Wow. It took 10 years but DTS is finally getting some up-front respect it deserves.

Now where are those guys from alt.video.dvd/laserdisc that hated it so much?

Mike

 

[Harold Wazzu]

Wow, so if a dts decoder is built into every player don't you think the price will be pretty high? Or will DTS become what DD is today?

I am one of those people that will probably wait a couple years until the price become reasonable.

 

[Rich Malloy]

Mmmmm.... 24/96 drool.....

Though I don't understand why this would be "DTS" encoded? Isn't so-called hi-res 24/96 simply a higher sampling rate PCM? What does "DTS" bring to the game?

Speculating (and this is where it gets interesting).... is DTS bringing to 24/96 PCM a digital interface to replace the current analog-only "limitation"? And isn't that analog-only thing merely a copy-protection move, not a lack of technological wherewithal?

And what does this mean for Meridian Lossless Packaging encoded DVD-A, the current 24/96 surround standard?

 

[Scott_MacD]

Apparently (based on what is written above), qualitatively lossless compression of said 24/96 audio. When coded, the audio should take up less space on the disc. And when decoded, the audio should be bit-for-bit the same as the original 24/96 PCM track.

 

[Citizen87645]

When the HTF L.A. Meet members visited DTS last Thursday the presenters weren't able to disclose the above information. Some people guessed correctly that the announcement would have to do with a mandatory inclusion while others wondered if DTS had the clout to pull off such a thing. I'm glad to see it was the former. At one point in the evening I got a pretty good (and unintentional) hint about it, but being fairly ignorant of the whole thing at that point I basically missed it.

 

[AaronMK]

This is excellent news!

Does backward compatibility mean that current DTS decoders will be able to play back the lossless at full quality (ie just a higher bitrate DTS), or does it have to be implemented as an extension that will be dropped off just like the rear surround with non-ES decoders?

Finally, the sound format debates will be just a question of who can get the lossless track into the least space.

 

[Rich Malloy]

quote:quote:What does "DTS" bring to the game?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Apparently (based on what is written above), qualitatively lossless compression of said 24/96 audio. When coded, the audio should take up less space on the disc. And when decoded, the audio should be bit-for-bit the same as the original 24/96 PCM track.

So you're saying that DTS's lossless compression scheme will replace Meridian's?*



[Meridian's is "Meridian Lossless Packaging" or "MLP". This is the lossless compression used for DVD-Audio discs currently.]


I guess I'm wondering why do we need a new lossless packaging scheme for 24/96 surround when we already got one that works great? Is DTS's scheme somehow better than Meridian's?

And what does this mean for the future of DVD-A? Given that DTS's score here seems to be enormous, does this spell the end of the line for MLP? And what does that mean for our current MLP decoders, and will future HD/Blu-Ray machines be backwards compatible in this regard?

 

[Eric F]

DTS 96/24 and DTS Lossless are two different things.

 

[Rich Malloy]

Could you provide a bit more detail on how they differ, Eric?



And how do DTS lossless and MLP lossless differ? (And, for that matter, why did HD/Blu-Ray select a new DTS lossless encoding scheme over the one already in use for DVD-A?)

 

[Patrick McCart]

How will mono be handled? Does DTS have to be multi-channel?

 

[Greg Black]

Is anyone else starting to worry that all these damn audio codecs are going to start crowding out the available video bitrate? I mean, you think that 50 GB is a lot now, but when you have 20 GB of HD video, how much room is there going to be left for all of these lossless formats, Dolby Digtal, etc.? This sucks.

 

[Dan Rudolph]

Greg, we don't know bandwidth yet, and I would think there's a limited need for multiple lossless tracks on a DVD.



In fact, there's little reason to support more than one kind of lossless compression. They all decompress the same, so go for whichever strikes the best balance between compression and decoder cost. Plus you'd need PCM for backward compatibility, of course.

 

[AaronMK]

quote:Plus you'd need PCM for backward compatibility, of course.

Why? I know standard DVD had an option for it, but it was never required, and very few discs used it.

 

[Robert Franklin]

I'm so happy, I'm crying! When are these babies coming?



One question though, "Since a couple of years ago, Warner has denied DTS as an option on regular dvds, (with the exception of a few titles), how will this affect movies being released on these formats?"



Truthfully, I don't care right now. I'm just happy that it is MANDATORY!!



Ultimate Picture with Ultimate Sound!! I can't wait.

 

[Dan Rudolph]

quote:Why? I know standard DVD had an option for it, but it was never required, and very few discs used it.

A lot of music DVDs use it. The important thing though is this will need to play CDs as well.

 

[AndreGB]

quote:Could you provide a bit more detail on how they differ, Eric?

Rich, when speaking of lossless compression the only comparison is due to the algorithms, which one compresses more. Since on both lossless codecs the audio quality will be the same (bit-by-bit identical to the master) then the difference is only on how much space a lossless DTS track and a lossless MLP track will take on disc. This is also important to the bandwidth. You see, WinZip and WinRAR are both a lossless compression scheme (when you zip or rar your document you get the exact same document when you decompress - when you zip or rar a program, you get the exact same program when you decompress). But rar manages to compress files a bit better than zip does. So you get smaller packages when using WinRAR. WinRAR and WinZip are analogous to DTS lossless and MLP lossless here. But I honestly don't know which one compresses more.


Now, I believe people are still trying to figure out what that MLP 2-channel mandatory codec means. This is how DVD Forum referred to this codec. Is it a 2-channel support only or is it a full multichannel codec like on DVD-A? For BluRay discs DTS lossless is the only lossless option.


Just one more thing. DTS++ (the new instance) is the one mandatory on HD-DVD. DTS++ is optional on BluRay, where the old DTS and old DD instances are mandatory. And finally DTS++ is NOT DTS lossless. It is an improvement over the old DTS Coherent Acoustics codec. It supports more than 8 channels, 24/96 and more than 1.5MB/s bitrate. All that lossy. However, it also supports a lossless encoding scheme for bit-by-bit identical to the master.


Hope I helped a bit.

 

[Eric F]

DTS 96/24 is a lossy format that DTS came up with that's rarely used. The titls "DTS 96/24" is a misnomer.

As far as I understand it, "DTS 96/24" is actually a full bitrate 16bit DTS track, padded with extra information then decoded to 24bit by receivers that support it. Sort of like HDCD audio CDs that decode to 20bit.

I have one DVD-A with a DTS 96/24 track. Sounds decent enough. I can't tell you how it sounds on a theatrical film because they don't really exist. (1 or 2 international releases)