Warner go Blu-Ray exclusive

[Rich JR]

Warner have decided who their customer base is.

I guess I will have to fall in line and buy either.

1. lame spec standalone BD player (nice case shame about the boat race)
2. a PS3 and wave GOODBYEEEEE!! to any HD sound from my Denon 3805

customer choice my a***

This will most likely go down in history as the decision that marginalised HD optical media. HD optical will probably never reach mass market, remain niche, expensive and with a limited library.

660 million thankyous for spoiling my weekend.

 

[Deleted member 651465]

..rant..

What's the issue? The Denon 3805 won't decode the HD Audio codecs from a PS3?

 

[JUMPURS]

I thought only BluRay offered 7.1 audio? And i know the PS3 definately does, so i dunno what that is all about.

 

[Rich JR]

I thought only BluRay offered 7.1 audio? And i know the PS3 definately does, so i dunno what that is all about.

The ps3 outputs over hdmi and optical

The Denon 3805 has no hdmi.

optical is bandwidth limited (obviously) and will default output stereo if HD lossless is selected.

Some of the standalone BD players have a set of 5.1 analogue outputs and the decode is done player side (part of HD DVD spec).With this setup you do not need to upgrade your amp to get HD audio.

simple.

hth

 

[Fr0dders]

optical is bandwidth limited (obviously)

please explain. i know that optical SPDIF doesnt have the necessary bandwidth to carry HD losless audio

but i dont understand why

we're constantly being told the way to carry mega bandwidth over the internet is over fibre lines. Heck its big fibre lines that link us to the USA

so if fibre is so amazing compared to copper for phone / data services. why is optical / fibre so bad for HD audio ?

(ps im not challenging you, i know your right, i just understand why)

 

[james.miller]

please explain. i know that optical SPDIF doesnt have the necessary bandwidth to carry HD losless audio

but i dont understand why

we're constantly being told the way to carry mega bandwidth over the internet is over fibre lines. Heck its big fibre lines that link us to the USA

so if fibre is so amazing compared to copper for phone / data services. why is optical / fibre so bad for HD audio ?

(ps im not challenging you, i know your right, i just understand why)

because the optical cable isnt the problem, its the spdif interface which has a maximum thoughput of 1.5mb/sec.

to say optical is bandwidth limited is incorrect.

 

[Rich JR]

because the optical cable isnt the problem, its the spdif interface which has a maximum thoughput of 1.5mb/sec.

to say optical is bandwidth limited is incorrect.

semantics aside, still no way I get HD audio 5.1 from a PS3 over optical to my lurvely 3805.

 

[Rich JR]

please explain. i know that optical SPDIF doesnt have the necessary bandwidth to carry HD losless audio

but i dont understand why

we're constantly being told the way to carry mega bandwidth over the internet is over fibre lines. Heck its big fibre lines that link us to the USA

so if fibre is so amazing compared to copper for phone / data services. why is optical / fibre so bad for HD audio ?

(ps im not challenging you, i know your right, i just understand why)

James is correct, its specifically the spdif that is limited, its an old standard after all

 

[Fr0dders]

because the optical cable isnt the problem, its the spdif interface which has a maximum thoughput of 1.5mb/sec.

to say optical is bandwidth limited is incorrect.

ok that makes sense

but why, if the optical cable was capable of much more, did they put in a 1.5mb/s limit. surely for future expansion it would have been better to set it at whatever the optical lead could have held ?

 

[Demon]

ok that makes sense

but why, if the optical cable was capable of much more, did they put in a 1.5mb/s limit. surely for future expansion it would have been better to set it at whatever the optical lead could have held ?

It could be for various reasons, but I suspect that it's the fact it's a standard is why.. hence why your 10 year old AV AMP with optical in will still work with any BR/HD player that has optical out? At the time, I bet it was limited due to hardware costs etc, and durability.. plus it uses the most basic transmission methods which by their very nature are lower bitrates.


The PS3 should have included 7.1 Analogue channel out.. it's what most good BR/HD players do...

Of course, they could do what PowerDVD can do, convert the LPCM7.1 to a 1.5Mbps DTS stream, that would go someway to improving things for no net cost..

 

[Corasik]

PS3 supports transcoding of the HD Audio stream into 1.5Mbps DTS 5.1, over the SP/DIF which with a bit of luck your denon should support. It can also transcode the audio into 640Kbps DolbyDigital Plus, which is 'compatible' with all existing Dolby Digital decoders, and offers 50% more bandwidth than Dolby that is on normal DVD's.

Standards DVD's normally have either 448Kbps Dolby Digital, or if your lucky 768Kbps DTS 5.1.

Unless you have a seriously expensive amp/speaker setup, you probably will hear very little difference between the transcoded DTS, and an 'Analog' HD audio.

DTS on DVD when available is already very highly rated by most movie fans, and when using a BluRay you get twice the bitrate (IE half the compression) of the audiostream, so it should sound very good.

1.5Mbps DTS was the soundtrack of choice for the best Cinema's, with many cinema's were still using 320Kbps Dolby AC3 soundtracks. It really is very good and even with a sound system costing 10k+ it will still sound great.

 

[Rich JR]

PS3 supports transcoding of the HD Audio stream into 1.5Mbps DTS 5.1, over the SP/DIF which with a bit of luck your denon should support. It can also transcode the audio into 640Kbps DolbyDigital Plus, which is 'compatible' with all existing Dolby Digital decoders, and offers 50% more bandwidth than Dolby that is on normal DVD's.

Standards DVD's normally have either 448Kbps Dolby Digital, or if your lucky 768Kbps DTS 5.1.

Unless you have a seriously expensive amp/speaker setup, you probably will hear very little difference between the transcoded DTS, and an 'Analog' HD audio.

DTS on DVD when available is already very highly rated by most movie fans, and when using a BluRay you get twice the bitrate (IE half the compression) of the audiostream, so it should sound very good.

1.5Mbps DTS was the soundtrack of choice for the best Cinema's, with many cinema's were still using 320Kbps Dolby AC3 soundtracks. It really is very good and even with a sound system costing 10k+ it will still sound great.

Sorry, good suggestions but I am just going to feel short changed. Its just not as good as True HD over analogue from my 18 month old HD DVD player.

I have compared; 2.2 firmware for the HD A1 included transcoding down to 1.5 over optical and in comparison its not damned good enough ..TrueHD is Jesus ..sorry but its awesome!

Quad speakers and sub, excellent interconnects & spkr wire btw

 

[kmufc77]

im gutted about warners decison to back blueray after a heafty rumored £500 million payoff from sony. i personally think HD is the better format for a number of reasons but cannot see how HD can fight back now and paramount have apparently only signed a 18 month contract with HD so when that runs out im sure they will jump the boat to blueray.

The only advantage that i see with blueray is being able to write to disk but at the moment blueray rw are really expensive. Blueray disks have the cappacity to hold more data than HD but are only using 20-30gb the same as a HD disk.HD disks have no region coding have far better interactive menus, I am also very worried that Sony will just do the 'sony' thing with DRM/Region coding (already an issue for me) and pricing will be high.

 

[james.miller]

ok that makes sense

but why, if the optical cable was capable of much more, did they put in a 1.5mb/s limit. surely for future expansion it would have been better to set it at whatever the optical lead could have held ?

it would have been better for us, for sure. not for them though - they earn the readies from everybody upgrading for the newest standards you see. And of course, spdif doesnt support any kind of copy protection methods. in comes hdmi....


hdmi isnt a bad idea. its very good actually - single lead that can support 10.2Gbit/sec - 8.16Gbit/sec for video @ up to 2560x1600/60hz (hdmi1.3), 36.86Mbit for audio ( and includes support for 7.1 lossless PCM, DSD and DVD-A streaming, streaming of all the latest HD audio codecs)

semantics aside, still no way I get HD audio 5.1 from a PS3 over optical to my lurvely 3805.

i know. sucks but thats the way the world turns. upgrade or dont, make your choice. its not as if hdmi hasnt been a long time coming is it?

im gutted about warners decison to back blueray after a heafty rumored £500 million payoff from sony. i personally think HD is the better format for a number of reasons but cannot see how HD can fight back now and paramount have apparently only signed a 18 month contract with HD so when that runs out im sure they will jump the boat to blueray.

what reasons? it isnt as flexable?

The only advantage that i see with blueray is being able to write to disk but at the moment blueray rw are really expensive. Blueray disks have the cappacity to hold more data than HD but are only using 20-30gb the same as a HD disk.

are you aware of the recent transformers hd-dvd nonsense? they, in their own words, could not fit a hd-audio soundtrack on the disc and so stuck with DD+. im not about to get into the HD vs regular audio debate, but if it was released on bluray, that would never of happened. and expect it to happening more often in the future.

HD disks have no region coding have far better interactive menus

things are going to change, though im not saying it will be instant. us ps3 owned already have full support for bluray profile 2.0, so expect all your fancy menus with picture in picture to come your way on bluray soon. if you like that sort of thing.


.....personally its all about the main feature for me.

 

[FrankJH]

im gutted about warners decison to back blueray after a heafty rumored £500 million payoff from sony.

That was a rumour put out by an HD-DVD site which was proven to be false

No reason warner would go Hd-DVD exclusive unless they wanted to sell 1/3 of the amount of discs on a regular basis

things are going to change, though im not saying it will be instant. us ps3 owned already have full support for bluray profile 2.0, so expect all your fancy menus with picture in picture to come your way on bluray soon. if you like that sort of thing.


.....personally its all about the main feature for me.

James - any films out yet that make use of this feature? I suspect it will take a month or so before the discs are authored but you never know........

 

[james.miller]

afaik there is only one title right now that is bd-live (blu-ray profile 2.0) enabled. its german, and its not even a film from what i recall lol


however, disney announced a few months back 4 titles that'll be bd-live'd - Sleeping beauty, nation treasure, finding Nemo and the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrone. all are due early this year. ill have a hunt around for more.


Lionsgater should have released War (no idea what that is) and sawIV is due on the 22nd.

 

[Durzel]

Another nail in the coffin?

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/dc409afa-...uid=e8477cc4-c820-11db-b0dc-000b5df10621.html

 

[HEADRAT]

I think it's "game over" to be honest!

 

[philhoole]

Just out of interest, where is everyone quoting this figure of 1.5MB/s from as some physical limitation?

Standard CD audio is transmitted at 44.1KHz in stereo at 32bits per channel which is 2.82MB/s.

I still have a couple of audio only DVDs (Not the same as DVD-A though) that have 96/24 tracks that would output over SPDIF. One of my disks may even have 192/24. My old Pioneer DVD player would output these fine over SPDIF to my DAC. The SPDIF ouptut might be inhibited for these disks on my newer Denon player though.

I believe the reason why high sample rate tracks are not output from SPDIF connections is more for copyright reasons. Nobody wants their high resolution content to be available on an unencrypted protocol like SPDIF.

 

[james.miller]

Just out of interest, where is everyone quoting this figure of 1.5MB/s from as some physical limitation?

Standard CD audio is transmitted at 44.1KHz in stereo at 32bits per channel which is 2.82MB/s.

its 16bit, not 32. spdif doesnt even (officially) support 32bit audio.work it out - 44.1 x 16 = 705k/sec. times that by two and you get your golden stereo cd bitrate - 1411.2kbps, or 1.4Mb/sec.. try ripping a cd as wav and look at the bitrate.

I still have a couple of audio only DVDs (Not the same as DVD-A though) that have 96/24 tracks that would output over SPDIF. One of my disks may even have 192/24. My old Pioneer DVD player would output these fine over SPDIF to my DAC. The SPDIF ouptut might be inhibited for these disks on my newer Denon player though.

you are quite right. actual maximum transfer isnt 1.5mb/sec, its about 10MB/sec (im getting my MB's and Mb's mixed up here ) -9.6Mb/sec to be exact. 192/24 stereo falls under that limit. the 1.5mb/sec limitation doesnt come from the spdif protocol, its the maximum permissible for DTS and DD (which itself is actually limited to 640k). however even 9.6Mb/sec isnt nearly enough, unless you're happy with 192/24 stereo or 6 channel 96/16. For example, a ps3 will shunt 24.5mb/sec (if its 16bit, im not sure) thru the hdmi lead when playing back 7.1LCPM. that'll never happen over spdif.