First Multichannel HD DVD Audio Title

[Chris Gerhard]

I have it but I have only a BlueRay Disc player, so I have not been able to play it. Still, considering its lack of any new audio format makes it less interesting to me. OTOH, some Sony BRDs have MCH uncompressed PCM tracks................

Kal

Do you have the John Legend Blu-ray disc?

Chris

 

[Kal Rubinson]

Do you have the John Legend Blu-ray disc?

Chris

Yes. Excellent sound.

Kal

 

[neil wilkes]

The lack of bitrate info from Toshiba's HD-DVD players is annoying. I use PS3 as my Blu-ray player and it displays the audio and video bitrate when you press the "display" button. So far, the only movie I've seen above 5.1 is Crank (interestingly, the packaging claims 6.1 but the display shows 7.1). In addition, quite a few PS3 games support 7.1 audio. Resistance, Calling All Cars, Blast Factor, and NBA 2K7 are all 7.1 (I think flOw and Motor Storm are as well, but I'm not 100% certain).

N

Don't the Toshiba HD DVD players output everything as DTS, regardless of input? I'm sure I remember this being the case at launch, and do not know if it has been fixed.

 

[Chris Gerhard]

Don't the Toshiba HD DVD players output everything as DTS, regardless of input? I'm sure I remember this being the case at launch, and do not know if it has been fixed.

My Toshiba HD-A1 outputs a signal over optical digital cable that my Yamaha RX-V2300 receiver indicates is DTS, even though the discs don't include DTS. If I select the Dolby Digital Plus audio soundtrack, the Yamaha has always thought it was receiving a DTS stream. The audio quality is exellent, but I have never known why it is indicated to be DTS. I haven't checked to see if firmware version 2.2 which was recently loaded changed that. I had assumed the receiver was just wrong, and maybe the higher than DVD Dolby Digital bitrate tricks the stupid receiver. I have never seen this discussed online and since I have been delighted with the audio, I haven't tried to figure out what is going on. I haven't watched many HD DVD's with my player, the selection is the most pathetic imaginable for my tastes, but it is going to get a little better soon based on announced titles. My Samsung BD-P1000 is connected through the same switcher into the same optical digital audio input, and the Yamaha recognizes Dolby Digital as Dolby Digital when that player is used. The DTS-HD MA core audio is recognized by the Yamaha as DTS and sounds even better than Dolby Digital Plus. I should probably figure out what is going on there.

Chris

 

[El Guapo]

Hi Neil,

Don't the Toshiba HD DVD players output everything as DTS, regardless of input? I'm sure I remember this being the case at launch, and do not know if it has been fixed.

That depends... I have the Toshiba HD-XE1 (which is the top of the line European model), and there are several output options: SPDIF, HDMI, 5.1 channel ananlogue, and 2 channel analogue.

Depending on the settings of the unit, you will get different signals at the various outputs. You can look up the conversion table for this in the Owners Manual, take a look at page 63.

It seems that via SPDIF you get a dts signal only for dts sources and PCM sources from HD DVDs (because they could be multichannel). Ot says that for Dolby sources you get a Dolby output.

I'm using the HDMI output with a conversion to Multichannel PCM which my Denon 4306 can handle. The drawback is that this only works for 5.1 channels and not 7.1, but since I only have a 5.1 speaker setup anyway that's ok for me. The PCM signal always registers as 96/24 on my 4306, so I guess the Toshiba does an upsampling of any source.

The other (and for me more severe) drawback is that the built-in dts decoder only handles the dts Core, so I can not take advantage of any dts-HD content on the discs.

The player has a built-in DD+ and TrueHD decoder, though, so I get at least that!

The third drawback is (now that the first AV Receivers with dts-HD and DD+/TrueHD decoders are appearing on the market) that I cannot set the player to output the bitstream for the new formats. But I still have hope that this will be added in a future firmware upgrade. My player has an HDMI 1.3 output and from what I read the chipset used would support this in principle...

Best regards,
Oliver

 

[alexander J]

Very Appreciated that my project was discussed on this forum and would like to use this opportunity to hear your thought and suggestions for my past and future projects in HD surround sound. This month I am going to deliver 2 New Surround Music projects on HD DVD "The Way to Paradise" Electronic music in 7.1 DTS-HD MA and "Jazz Standards" in 5.1 DTS-HD MA sound.

 

[El Guapo]

Hi Alexander,

Very Appreciated that my project was discussed on this forum and would like to use this opportunity to hear your thought and suggestions for my past and future projects in HD surround sound. This month I am going to deliver 2 New Surround Music projects on HD DVD "The Way to Paradise" Electronic music in 7.1 DTS-HD MA and "Jazz Standards" in 5.1 DTS-HD MA sound.

I'm curious on why you chose DTS-HD MA over Dolby TrueHD.
I'm not sure if there is any equipment on the market yet which allows you to actually output the HiRes audio on this! At least the HD DVD players you can buy in Europe cannot output the digital bitstream over HDMI and do not have a decoder that can process the HiRes signal. So all we get for the moment is the DTS core which you could just as easily put on a normal DVD...

Best regards,
Oliver

 

[alexander J]

Hi Alexander,



I'm curious on why you chose DTS-HD MA over Dolby TrueHD.
I'm not sure if there is any equipment on the market yet which allows you to actually output the HiRes audio on this! At least the HD DVD players you can buy in Europe cannot output the digital bitstream over HDMI and do not have a decoder that can process the HiRes signal. So all we get for the moment is the DTS core which you could just as easily put on a normal DVD...

Best regards,
Oliver

Dear Oliver,

I am working with DTS technology since it came out, and produce my titles to be on the market for a really long time. New Onkyo HD DVD player is coming out this fall that will support DTS-HD MA as well as second generation of HD DVD players are on it`s way.
I believe that creative approach is match more important then technical, that why I consider to put my new Bach transcriptions for surround sound on HD media to attract new listeners to experience Surround Music.