HD Advisor July 2, 2010

[Attebery]

Celebrate the 4th of July weekend with the HD Advisor!!

http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/sh...Limit:_65/5001

[Cochise]

I'm originally from the UK, but I'm moving to the U.S. with all my PAL DVDs. I'm going to get a completely new home theater set-up and decided to go for a multi-region/multi-system Blu-ray player and a multi-system TV. I'm guessing the quality will be slightly better without being first converted to NTSC. However, I am unsure about the A/V receiver. I know it deals with the video signal as well as the audio. So would the A/V receiver also have to be multi-system, or would the signal just pass though to the TV?

I have a blu-ray player (LG BH200) and a DVD player that can handle PAL, as does my projector. My Onkyo receiver doesn't do any processing to video via HDMI, so it handles PAL just fine as well.

[gravis778]

http://www.videohelp.com/dvdplayers?...Submit2=Search

I had a cheap walmart player ($27) that I hacked to play PAL. It output at the native 576i or 576p resolution. Worked wonders! I had a concert DVD, recorded in 576p in a high bitrate and with DTS audio, and was shocked at how close this looked to HD without upconverting. Of course, your milage may vary.

Another option is the HTPC option. Get a PC with a video card that has dual monitor output, and has either HDMI or DVI, then get a cheap DVI to HDMI cable off of Amazon. Buy a cheap soundcard off of Amazon that has SPIDIF output. Load AnyDVD and PowerDVD on the PC. Presto, you can play PAL DVDs on your NTSC TV, get digital surround sound, and PowerDVD upconverts!

Then you can focus on buying a regular Blu-Ray player instead of trying to find something that will play Region 2 DVDs. I can pretty much guarentee that anything Sony or Pioneer makes will not play PAL, even if its region free. Sony and Pioneer tend to be NTSC Region 1 and Region A locked, and nothing seems to be able to unlock them.

[AndersT2]

ON TRUE HD:

I believe there is two reasons for DTS MA are taking over the marked.

First, Warner Bros used to only use True HD. With the second release of "300" with all the extra material from the HD DVD edition. They used DTS MA for the first time. The reason was that DTS MA was easier to use together with branching extra material or something like that. With stuff overlaying the movie.

The second reason is that when your receiver volume is set to the a specific volume, lets say "-25 dB" DTS MA sound louder than True HD, which would need to be on -21 to -23 to have the same volume. Many thinks louder is better, even thou there is no difference but the volume set on the disc.

This is also why some though that normal DD sound better to, higher volume.


Personally I have two experiances where I really sat and told myself that "this is a great sound track", Both of them are True HD (Superman Returns (HD DVD) and Cloverfield)

[Josh Z]

The second reason is that when your receiver volume is set to the a specific volume, lets say "-25 dB" DTS MA sound louder than True HD, which would need to be on -21 to -23 to have the same volume. Many thinks louder is better, even thou there is no difference but the volume set on the disc.

This is also why some though that normal DD sound better to, higher volume.

If it were just a question of volume, the studio could choose to disable DialNorm.

[Josh Z]

I've got a column title for 66, but am dead out of ideas for 67. Any suggestions?

[WiWavelength]

I've got a column title for 66...

Are we going to "get our kicks" next week?

...but am dead out of ideas for 67. Any suggestions?

It is a prime number. You could roll w/ that, e.g. "HD Advisor 67: Prime time."

AJ

[Cochise]

I've got a column title for 66, but am dead out of ideas for 67. Any suggestions?

Expo 67, Montreal, Canada?

[krachunis]

When you set up the audio portion for the ps3 and select HDMI, simply select manual instead of automatic. At the last screen, you can uncheck all of the lossless codecs when watching a blu-ray. This worked for me when it wasnt hooked up to a reciever.



Hope this helps,



Marcus

[erack]

"Dolby TrueHD, on the other hand, requires that a separate backwards compatible DD 5.1 soundtrack must be added to the disc along with the lossless TrueHD track. (Sometimes it's "hidden," so you may not see it listed in the disc menus; but the player will fall back to it if your equipment doesn't support TrueHD.)"

The TrueHD encoder suite creates both tracks at the same time, and outputs a single file with them integrated together, to load into the authoring software. It might have more to do with licensing fees or probably just DTS' marketing (DTS 7.1 Day anyone?).

[Vortex3D]

My opinion is it has to do with those only have DD 5.1 and DTS core sound receiver. When playing DTS HD/MA on core DTS sound receiver, you still get 1.5Mbit sound quality. But when you play TrueDolby, DD core 5.1 sound receiver gets 640Kbit(?). My understanding is TrueDolby don't have core 1.5Mbit version.

I only have DD 5.1 and DTS sound system and I can say every Blu-ray movies that have DTS HD/MA sound much better quality than TrueDolby. Close Encounters of the Third Kind has TrueDolby and DTS HD. And, on my core sound receiver, DTS HD (core) sounds much better quality than TrueDolby (core).

I do have a question about DD 5.1 sound receiver. Can it process up to 640Kbit DD 5.1 from TrueDolby? DVD usually has 384Kbit or lower DD 5.1. I have HD DVD movies with DD Plus encoded at 1.5Mbit but it sounds like DD 5.1 640Kbit(?). I assume DD 5.1 core sound receiver is only getting 640Kbit or lower.

[AndersT2]

I do have a question about DD 5.1 sound receiver. Can it process up to 640Kbit DD 5.1 from TrueDolby? DVD usually has 384Kbit or lower DD 5.1. I have HD DVD movies with DD Plus encoded at 1.5Mbit but it sounds like DD 5.1 640Kbit(?). I assume DD 5.1 core sound receiver is only getting 640Kbit or lower.

Yes they can. 640 Kb has always been the maximum for the DD specs, but haven't been used on DVD.

Just to clarify something for you, True HD does NOT have a Core sound. When selecting a True HD soundtrack, and you can't use the True HD, the player automatickly chooses another standalone DD track.

Only DTS has the Core structure.

[Vortex3D]

Thanks for TrueDolby clarification.

But I have Blu-ray movies with separate TrueDolby and DD 5.1 tracks in the menu. If I manually choose DD 5.1 track, the sound quality sounded more flat compared to playing TrueDolby track on the Dolby Digital 5.1 sound system. Is that because Dolby Digital track in the menu was encoded only at 384Kbit or mixed with lower quality while there's another "hidden" 640Kbit Dolby Digital track that will only get played when choosing TrueDolby track? When I watch movies that provide both TrueDolby and DD tracks in the menu, I always choose TrueDolby track because it always sounds richer on my DD/DTS core sound system.

That could be what the author of the article was saying about "hidden" DD track.

[Josh Z]

But I have Blu-ray movies with separate TrueDolby and DD 5.1 tracks in the menu. If I manually choose DD 5.1 track, the sound quality sounded more flat compared to playing TrueDolby track on the Dolby Digital 5.1 sound system. Is that because Dolby Digital track in the menu was encoded only at 384Kbit or mixed with lower quality while there's another "hidden" 640Kbit Dolby Digital track that will only get played when choosing TrueDolby track? When I watch movies that provide both TrueDolby and DD tracks in the menu, I always choose TrueDolby track because it always sounds richer on my DD/DTS core sound system.

Most likely, this is placebo effect. You expect the TrueHD version to sound better, so your mind interprets it that way.

It's very unlikey that the studio would author a separate, lower bit rate DD 5.1 track on the disc when there's already a 640 kb/s version available embedded with the TrueHD signal.

The difference between a "hidden" and non-hidden DD 5.1 track really just comes down to whether the studio programs the menu to allow you to manually select the DD 5.1, rather than the player doing it for you automatically.

[WiWavelength]

It's very unlikey that the studio would author a separate, lower bit rate DD 5.1 track on the disc when there's already a 640 kb/s version available embedded with the TrueHD signal.

BDs that have menu selectable Dolby TrueHD & Dolby Digital tracks contain two (separate but possibly identical) Dolby Digital tracks: one Dolby Digital track that is interleaved w/in the Dolby TrueHD data stream and one Dolby Digital track that is entirely distinct from the Dolby TrueHD data stream.

Both Dolby Digital tracks may be identical encodes. Warner, for example, has authored many of its BDs this way. Or the interleaved & distinct Dolby Digital tracks may have different bit rates, may even be from different masters.

I wish I could recall the specific title, but at least one BD contains an interleaved Dolby Digital track at 640 kbps and a distinct Dolby Digital track at 448 kbps (or vice versa).

The difference between a "hidden" and non-hidden DD 5.1 track really just comes down to whether the studio programs the menu to allow you to manually select the DD 5.1, rather than the player doing it for you automatically.

When the user selects a Dolby TrueHD track, the BD player always extracts the interleaved Dolby Digital lossy track and simultaneously outputs the Dolby TrueHD lossless track via HDMI, the Dolby Digital lossy track via S/PDIF.

AJ