There's another interesting row brewing as well over so-called "True HD" streams.
Apparently (I am still trying to get to the details of this) there is a substream automatically encoded in Dolby Digital when creating a Dolby True HD stream. This is a different stream to the additional, user-accessible DD stream on some discs, as it is NOT user-accessible by choice.
It is there to ensure compliance when your player cannot actually handle Dolby True HD 5.1 streams (which, BTW, is not mandated in Blu Ray bit optionally supported. Only Dolby True HD Stereo is actually required) - meaning a LOT of players are not decoding the True HD, but instead the DD substream.
It's like the way DTS-HD MAS also includes a legacy stream for decoders that cannot handle the full MAS Lossless one.
Thing is, most players that cannot actually decode the True HD stream and offer up the DD stream instead don't actually TELL you this.
The long & short of it is that there are a lot of folks out there who think they are getting Lossless, when the reality is they are still getting DD.....
What? Dolby TrueHD decoding isn't required in ANY Blu-ray Disc player, you're confused with HD DVD.
You're saying that a "LOT" of players are not decoding the TrueHD, but instead the DD substream? Which players are these?
The following players all decode the TrueHD stream:
Panasonic DMP-BD10
Sharp BD-HP20U
Pioneer BDP-HD1
Pioneer Elite BDP-94HD
Pioneer Elite BDP-95HD
Sony BDP-S1
Sony BDP-S500
Sony BDP-ES2000
Sony Playstation - 20/40/60/80GB models
Samsung BD-P1200
Samsung BD-P1400
Denon DVD-3800BD
All upcoming players will also include decoding of TrueHD. These include:
Sylvania NB500SL9
Samsung BD-P1500
Sony BDP-S350
Sony BDP-S550
Panasonic DMP-BD50
Sharp BD-HP50
Marantz BD8002
Daewoo DBP-1000
Daewoo DBP-2000
A number of players not on this list like the Denon 2500BT and Panasonic DMP-BD30 will bitstream TrueHD through HDMI to a compatible receiver.
I can't think of any instance in which people "think" they're getting TrueHD and are not. If the player has the "TrueHD" logo on it, it decodes TrueHD. If you're bitstreaming then you have an HDMI 1.3 receiver and it will say either "Dolby TrueHD" or "Dolby Digital"
The substream you're speaking of isn't new, it's been known of for over a year. The Nine Inch Nails disc from February 2007 was one such disc - the options are Dolby TrueHD or Dolby Stereo. The 5.1 Dolby 640Kbps is output when your player doesn't support TrueHD.
http://halo22.nin.com/hdfaq.html#q11
For the Blu-ray version there are only two audio menu selections, Dolby Stereo and Dolby TrueHD Surround. Here's why: The Dolby TrueHD contains a Dolby Digital substream. If you are watching on a player that doesn't support Dolby TrueHD (many of the first generation BD players), you will get the default Dolby Digital Surround audio. If you have a player that supports Dolby TrueHD (such as a Playstation 3), you will get Dolby Digital Surround out of the SP/DIF port and Dolby TrueHD out of the HDMI port. To hear Dolby TrueHD, you will need a receiver that supports this format. In the future, there may be Blu-ray players that decode Dolby TrueHD and output the audio through analog ports, so this may be another option.
Sorry to piss on the BD Bonfire, but it is *not* about to become the next big thing for surround music.
What was the first big thing?
It's too expensive, and now that Sony have a monopoly
They don't and you clearly don't have much knowledge of the BDA and BD patent set-up's if you think Sony has any monopoly on anything Blu.
Problems galore too - discs will not play reliably in expensive set top players, never mind anything else.
I've not seen any Denon and Pioneer owners reporting disc compatability issues, only Samsung owners. I don't think those are the expensive players.
Authoring is brutally expensive, requiring either Sony's Blu Print or Sonic Scenarist.
Both these are $50,000 plus mandatory extras - Blu Print has a $7k to $10k "service agreement" that is also mandatory.
No other application can deliver replicable content. It's BD-R and BD-RE straight down the line.
Costs per title are serious. You are looking at over $30,000 per title - before replication costs & authoring costs - just for the mandated licenses
alone.
I'm not sure whether to believe you or Richard Casey from R&B Films who states that currently he only needs to sell 20,000 copies of a title to not lose money on it.
And it will not get any cheaper, as Sony now have the monopoly they have been looking for since the CD patents expired.
You're aware that there are currently 17 companies in the BD-patent pool?
Add all this up, and you will see that only Hollywood can really afford this. Small labels have no chance at all, and this is a disaster.
How curious then that the first surround audio-only Blu-ray releases are coming from "Surround Records" and "Metal God Entertainment" and not SonyBMG, EMI, Warner and UMG. I'm pretty sure they're both small labels.
