DTS-HD MA, Dolby TrueHD samples

[madeinstein]

Hi,

Do you know where I can find a samples with HD, non-HD formats? Is it possible to download a file from the net with HD soundtrack and play this from PS3 hard drive? Or does it have to come from BlueRay?

I would like to see what the difference is without renting dozens of BlueRay disks.

[kingfats]

Moved.

[neeek]

Originally Posted by madeinstein

Hi,

Do you know where I can find a samples with HD, non-HD formats? Is it possible to download a file from the net with HD soundtrack and play this from PS3 hard drive? Or does it have to come from BlueRay?

I would like to see what the difference is without renting dozens of BlueRay disks.

I would have thought there's no point unless you're comparing like with like, as the different sound mixes and volume levels will render a comparsion very difficult. Not sure if there are many blu-rays with both TrueHD and DTS-HD MA, Top Gun may be the first.

[Saltefanden]

Close Encounters of the Third Kind has a DTS HD Master Audio and Dolby TrueHD track.

[madeinstein]

Hi neeek,

No I don't want to compare DTS to Dolby but DTS to DTS-HD and Dolby to Dobly TrueHD.

I want to go to one of the local av stores and see the difference between the DVD (non-HD sound) and BlueRay (HD sound). Ideally if I could get some trailers for the same movies in DVD and BlueRay formats I could hear the difference between this formats.

I'm trying to compare Arcam and Onkyo receivers and that would help a lot.

[chelsea.tone]

Think the only way would be to take identical Blu-ray and SD copies of a film to test

Tony

[stuart1976]

It's very easy to do this with the PS3.

Just play the film with the HD Audio. Whilst the film is playing bring up the on-screen menu by pressing TRIANGLE. Choose the A/V Settings and you can switch between Linear PCM and Bitstream.

The PS3 cannot send out HD Audio over Bitstream so it will just send out the core DD5.1 or DTS audio. Switch to Linear PCM and the PS3 will send out the HD Audio.

I did this with X-Men 3 when the PS3 finally got DTS-HD MA decoding and the difference was huge.

[kobeson]

Originally Posted by stuart1976

It's very easy to do this with the PS3.

Just play the film with the HD Audio. Whilst the film is playing bring up the on-screen menu by pressing TRIANGLE. Choose the A/V Settings and you can switch between Linear PCM and Bitstream.

The PS3 cannot send out HD Audio over Bitstream so it will just send out the core DD5.1 or DTS audio. Switch to Linear PCM and the PS3 will send out the HD Audio.

I did this with X-Men 3 when the PS3 finally got DTS-HD MA decoding and the difference was huge.

how would you describe the difference tho?

I would say if Blu-Ray video quality is 10/10 at best, then in copmparison DVD quality is a 5/10. would this be the same for the audio?

[stuart1976]

Originally Posted by kobeson

how would you describe the difference tho?

I would say if Blu-Ray video quality is 10/10 at best, then in comparison DVD quality is a 5/10. would this be the same for the audio?

The best way I can describe it IMO is that DD5.1 and DTS now sound muted to me in comparison to TrueHD and DTS HD. The HD audio feels more enveloping and with stronger effects.

Of course it's all going to come down to the quality of the audio encoding and there are some great DD5.1 and DTS tracks available on DVD's. I was having a play with my amp last night and switching between the audio on DVD's that have both DD5.1 and DTS, DTS sounded better to me, and always did even with my old 5.1 receiver.

Switching between audio tracks on Blu-Rays - Casino Royale opening crane chase is a good example - the difference between 5.1 and the Uncompressed 5.1 audio was very noticable. Same again with X-Men 3, Opening Credits and the Holoroom battle at the beginning, and Black Hawk Down, the chopper strafing the roof tops at night. The audio was much more encompassing and bass was really well defined, but speech remained clear and dead centre.

Thats just my opinion based on my setup, others may well have a different point of view.

[madeinstein]

Originally Posted by stuart1976

The HD audio feels more enveloping and with stronger effects.

That's interesting on the WHAT HI FI show in London last year they've showed the Transformers on the HD-DVD vs upscaled DVD on the projected picture. The HD-DVD picture was better than upscaled DVD but I would say 10/8, wheres the sound was much much better.. would say 10/5. As stuart1976 said it's just much much sharper and clearer.. The metal crashing was extremly sharp (almost too sharp).

I'm trying to compare Arcam280/350 to Onkyo875. Lots of ppl say that Arcam is much better for music CD/DVD (and I think so too), but I haven't got a chance to listen to both connected to BlueRay. With Arcam the best I can get from PS3 is optical unless I get an expensive BlueRay player with analog outputs. It's really a shame than Arcam still doesn't have decent HD Receiver, but aparently they think that voice over HDMI is poor and that's why they give you only analog inputs.

I need to take my PS3 to the local AV shop and try some blueray action on both Arcam and Onkyo.

[berkeley384]

Originally Posted by madeinstein

That's interesting on the WHAT HI FI show in London last year they've showed the Transformers on the HD-DVD vs upscaled DVD on the projected picture. The HD-DVD picture was better than upscaled DVD but I would say 10/8, wheres the sound was much much better.. would say 10/5. As stuart1976 said it's just much much sharper and clearer.. The metal crashing was extremly sharp (almost too sharp).

I'm trying to compare Arcam280/350 to Onkyo875. Lots of ppl say that Arcam is much better for music CD/DVD (and I think so too), but I haven't got a chance to listen to both connected to BlueRay. With Arcam the best I can get from PS3 is optical unless I get an expensive BlueRay player with analog outputs. It's really a shame than Arcam still doesn't have decent HD Receiver, but aparently they think that voice over HDMI is poor and that's why they give you only analog inputs.

I need to take my PS3 to the local AV shop and try some blueray action on both Arcam and Onkyo.

Hmm - the HD DVD version is only DD Plus (1.5Mbs) as opposed to DD @ 640Kbs - Even Dolby say theres almost nothing in it and that any differences will be minimal

[chic]

Originally Posted by berkeley384

Hmm - the HD DVD version is only DD Plus (1.5Mbs) as opposed to DD @ 640Kbs - Even Dolby say theres almost nothing in it and that any differences will be minimal

no what dolby have said is dd+ @ 1.5mb is transparent to the original master, so in a bind test they say you will find it hard to tlee the difference between a disc encoded with dd+ and one encoded with uncompressed audio. We will see when tranformers comes out on bluray and we can see how differnt the lossless audio is from the dd+ on the hddvd.

[neeek]

Originally Posted by chic

no what dolby have said is dd+ @ 1.5mb is transparent to the original master, so in a bind test they say you will find it hard to tlee the difference between a disc encoded with dd+ and one encoded with uncompressed audio. We will see when tranformers comes out on bluray and we can see how differnt the lossless audio is from the dd+ on the hddvd.

Yes, I've also heard this said about DTS-MA, in that the 1.5mbps core *should* sound identical to the full stream in a blind test. Of course, no-one who has DTS-MA capable equipment is ever going to go back to the core stream, though...

[madeinstein]

Originally Posted by berkeley384

Hmm - the HD DVD version is only DD Plus (1.5Mbs) as opposed to DD @ 640Kbs - Even Dolby say theres almost nothing in it and that any differences will be minimal

I didn't know that.. I thought that Transformers on HD-DVD was a proper HD loseless soundtrack.. but anyway don't know what they did on that demo but the sound difference was huge..

[madeinstein]

Originally Posted by neeek

Yes, I've also heard this said about DTS-MA, in that the 1.5mbps core *should* sound identical to the full stream in a blind test. Of course, no-one who has DTS-MA capable equipment is ever going to go back to the core stream, though...

That would explain why some ppl say that Arcam AVR350 (connected via optical) sounds better than Onkyo875 (HDMI) even though Arcam doesn't support HD sound formats (unless connected via analog). I think the optical input can do 1.5mbps max.