Now that WB is Blu-ray exclusive... when will we see LOSSLESS audio on EVERY BD??? (1 Viewer)

[DaViD Boulet]

The boys at Sony, Fox, Disney, and MGM don't seem to have any difficulty providing lossless audio on virtually EVERY blu-ray disc they release.

When will we finally get the same from Warner?

maybe we'll have to wait until they've stopped releasing companion HD DVDs with their DVD/BD releases in May. But this is serious folks: lossy audio doesn't belong on any 'high definition' format... it's compromised, and it's LESS than we got with laserdisc in 1990.

I don't want to buy Blu-ray Discs from WB with 640 kbps Dolby Digital. Do right by Blu-ray Disc and your fans WB: Lossless audio on EVERY title.

 

[Cees Alons]

True!

And they should be able to set aside some of the >$620,000,000 they received from Sony for the switch (according to some rumours over here in Europe) to assure that!


Cees

 

[HDnuts100]

Amen brother! I was so pissed off when I saw that The Assassination of Jesse James will come with only regular DD. I hope now that they'll only release films on BD, all of their upcoming titles will have either TrueHD or PCM track.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

The pay-off from Microsoft would have made it possible too, though HD DVD's limited bandwidth might have been a problem...



In any case, I don't think it's a secret, or an irony, that the studios releasing exlusively on BD all provide lossless audio on every release, yet those releasing on HD DVD (or both) do not. Whether it's due to format limitations or just studio "mindsets" that don't value audio transparency as a goal, it's irrelevent.

Warner, let's see lossless!!!

 

[Shane Martin]

The lossless encode might not be worth the money for Warner to put it on every title. They have to balance the costs with how much profit they will make.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

The only real "cost" is one of bandwidth, which isn't a problem with BD.

Lossless costs no more money. BD has the bandwidth for PCM, at the very least, on virtually any title that's authored... and it costs nothing since there are no royalties.

Yep... it costs *less* to provide PCM lossless than it does to provide Dolby Digital lossy (DTS-HD MA and TrueHD do have royalites associated).

WB has been mastering with a tight bandwidth-pipe in mind with their HD DVD encodes, which is one reason why they might have been going lossy more often, given that they have had a policy of not providing audio on the BD that was better than what was also provided on the companion HD DVD title.

 

[Marc Colella]

I don't think we'll see Lossless audio on every BD... in fact there may be even less.

It may not cost more to include it, but I think one of the reasons there were as many titles with it to begin with is to differentiate it from HD-DVD.
Now that the format war is (for the most part) over, the studios can hold back lossless audio for the inevitable double-dip. I can see it now, a Special Edition of titles that will also include lossless audio. Hell, Sony will probably take it a step further with their titles like they did with DVD... a Superbit Blu-Ray edition.

 

[Adam Barratt]

Which Disney titles use lossless audio? I was only aware of titles with PCM tracks from them up to this point.

Adam

 

[Romier S]

You're right but you're being terribly pedantic with that comment. Lossless is a term technically correct for TrueHD and DTS HD MA, i.e. algorithms that are compressed but compressed without loss. Hence lossless. PCM has no compression. You're splitting hairs and you know it.

 

[Adam Barratt]

Pedantic? It was in fact a legitimate question. It could only be seen as pedantic if you deliberately try to manipulate the question's intent.

As you seem to have an answer (presumably that no Disney titles use lossless) why is it that you are happy to knowingly see others improperly use a very specific technical term? Even if I were being pedantic then you were consciously and willingly allowing others' ignorance and/or laziness to flourish. Which is worse? Do you have no desire to educate others who are less informed than you, or contribute to this hobby?

Adam

 

[Romier S]

None at all.:rolleyes

Regardless since I'm not contributing to the thread and you've obviously taken things personally I'll happily depart.

 

[Nick Graham]

I just wish so many great titles had not already been release with just 640k tracks on BOTH formats. The Aviator release was darn near criminal for having only a 640k track, and that was even the HD-DVD version as well. For some really great movies, it will be years (if ever) before we see releases with lossless tracks, and that sucks.

On the flipside, I'm kinda worried that Universal will go all lossless on Blu, which means about 15 double-dips for me if I really want the lossless. They should do it, though - that's the price I pay for being a movie-greedy purple nurple.

 

[Michael Osadciw]

Bring on lossless or uncompressed PCM at the highest resolution possible, based on the source material.

Actually, I'd really like to see what studio starts providing lossless mono first. Why is it that all mono films get the short end of the stick with lossy? Yes, it's mono and many people don't put a lot of weight on it, and many recordings sound limited. But seriously, even more resolution can be resolved in a mono recording to make it worthwhile.

Mike

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Hey Adam and Romier,

the qualifier of "Lossless" refers to any delivery mechanism that provides bit for bit accuracy. This includes:

* PCM
* Dolby TrueHD
* DTS-HD MA

The terms "Lossless compression" would specifically refer to only the latter two. But "Lossless" refers to all three. This is the accepted industry terminology. It is correct to say that Disney delivers "lossless sound" on its BD titles that use PCM as the delivery mechanism.

 

[GregK]

DaVid, this is probably the more likely scenario. WB has always prepped their audio/video encodes to work with both formats. For example, DolbyTrueHD is implemented differently on Blu than it is on HD-DVD, which would have required two separate encodes. Once WB is Blu only, they can optimize for video and audio for one HD release format.

 

[Romier S]

You should be WANTING that to happen. I know the double dip scenario sucks but I'll GLADLY rebuy a slew of Universal releases if they include high definition audio (see what I did there?). The first two Bourne films, Transformers, King Kong. The list is quite long.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

"Lossless" is synonamous with "bit for bit accurate".

That qualifier applies to PCM, and fully decoded Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA. Of course, if Dialog Normalization is applied to the Dolby track, you don't get bit-for-bit accuracy since the decoded PCM track gets level-attenuated in the digital domain... so most Warner TrueHD titles aren't truly "lossless" ... but that is also splitting hairs...

 

[Romier S]

Like I said, call it what you want. I'm not the one splitting the hairs...LOL.