Dolby vs. DTS mastering on same disc

[JohnN]

Please allow me to stray a little from the immediate topic here if you will, as it concerns Dolby.

I've been trying to figure something out here. Dolby has trademarked "MLP Lossless". So they state. But I've never read anywhere that Meridian ever sold or gave up the rights to MLP, or "Meridian Lossless Packing" that they invented. Dolby has made TrueHD synonymous with MLP and have stated so.

So, uh, "wot's the deal"?

Since Meridian Audio is primarily a manufacturer of high-end home theater hardware, they licensed MLP to Dolby Laboratories for management. Dolby handles further licensing of MLP to DVD player manufacturers and software publishers who incorporate it into their DVD encoding programs.
https://www.sweetwater.com/insync/meridian-lossless-packing-mlp/
https://professional.dolby.com/tv/dolby-truehd/

 

[mandrix]

Ah. Of course I knew Dolby licensed the tech, but I did not know Meridian had turned over further licensing chores to Dolby.

Thanks for the clarification!

 

[marcb]

There's no particular technical reason why one should sound better than another. They are different codecs and they allocate bits differently to achieve much the same effect. But of course it's possible to screw anything up. Certainly I own surround mixes in either that sound great.

It is also somewhat difficult to compare them fairly at home. This document remains the best I know of to explain why.

The whole 'Dullby' thing is a stupid myth

Disagree. Neither sounds great, but all other things equal, DTS sounds better than DD.

 

[ssully]

Yes there is. They are both lossy codecs, and DD on DVD runs at a third the bit rate of full rate DTS on DVD.

Same old same old simplification.

Please read the link I posted.

"Common sense" isn't always all it's cracked up to be, when it comes to digital audio and perceptual codecs.

'Disagree' all you want, folks, but good luck trying to set up a fair test to prove your belief is true..

 

[marcb]

Same old same old simplification.

Please read the link I posted.

"Common sense" isn't always all it's cracked up to be, when it comes to digital audio and perceptual codecs.

'Disagree' all you want, folks, but good luck trying to set up a fair test to prove your belief is true..

But common sense often beats a rationalized, amusingly dated narrative pretending to be some sort of definitive statement.

I especially loved this bit of equivocating nonsense: "DTS's supporters claim that it is superior to Dolby's system because it uses a higher bitrate and less aggressive compression scheme. These two facts are essentially irrelevant in determining whether DTS is 'better' than Dolby Digital: neither automatically equates to higher sound quality. The quality of both systems stands or falls on the effectiveness of their respective compression and perceptual coding systems. Both systems use extremely effective coding systems. As both systems are based on completely different technologies, and rely on human perception, there is no technical or scientific means to determine which is 'better'.

 

[JohnN]

But common sense often beats a rationalized, amusingly dated narrative pretending to be some sort of definitive statement.

I especially loved this bit of equivocating nonsense: "DTS's supporters claim that it is superior to Dolby's system because it uses a higher bitrate and less aggressive compression scheme. These two facts are essentially irrelevant in determining whether DTS is 'better' than Dolby Digital: neither automatically equates to higher sound quality. The quality of both systems stands or falls on the effectiveness of their respective compression and perceptual coding systems. Both systems use extremely effective coding systems. As both systems are based on completely different technologies, and rely on human perception, there is no technical or scientific means to determine which is 'better'.

DTS mostly preferred. Regarding Tull, @Plan9 told me/us DTS was good.

 

[ssully]

But common sense often beats a rationalized, amusingly dated narrative pretending to be some sort of definitive statement.

I especially loved this bit of equivocating nonsense: "DTS's supporters claim that it is superior to Dolby's system because it uses a higher bitrate and less aggressive compression scheme. These two facts are essentially irrelevant in determining whether DTS is 'better' than Dolby Digital: neither automatically equates to higher sound quality. The quality of both systems stands or falls on the effectiveness of their respective compression and perceptual coding systems. Both systems use extremely effective coding systems. As both systems are based on completely different technologies, and rely on human perception, there is no technical or scientific means to determine which is 'better'.

I'm glad you love it, since it happens to be true.

 

[Owen Smith]

I'm glad you love it, since it happens to be true.

We're talking about a factor of 3 on the bit rate with lossy codecs. That's huge. If we were discussing 192kbps with one codec vs 256kbps with another you'd have a point. It takes a decade or two to improve codecs so that things look or sound as good at half the bit rate, yet DD and DTS are codecs from the same era so are likely to be similarly efficient. That's the way technology advances, you wait 15 years and 2 or 3 video codecs come out at once with similar performance. None of this stuff is developed in a vacuum, the state of the art at the time is know to a number of people.

 

[ssully]

You seem to believe that bitrates 'behave' linearly, in psychoacoustic terms. You also may think bits are used the same way by the two technologies. And you may believe that if an artifact is audible in a single channel it must be audible in multichannel playback. None of that is necessarily true.

I suggest again that you carefully read the article I linked to.

It will also help to appreciate the factors that would have to be addressed in order to isolate audible difference arising only from their different lossy compression schemes. In a blind test, of course.