For some reason, it seems that the audio quality of my 5.1 DVDs is noticeably superior compared to OTA, Satellite or Cable. In particular, if I watch a movie on DVD versus something like HBO HD, the sound quality of the DVD is much superior, particularly the surround sound effects. Is this the case for everyone else? Or could it be my system and hook-up?
BTW, I have an ONKYO 650 audio system (5.1). My DVD connection is with a coaxial cable. My satellite box connection is with an optical connector.
1 - it's not necessarily the same 5.1 mix as the DVD. The DVD is 480i so obviously that's not the source of the HD broadcast - they have to create a HD master from the original film. I assume the DD 5.1 mix is also remixed from the original soundtrack so they could actually be 2 different versions - one for the HD and one for the DVD.
2 - even if it was the same mix, the broadcast version might be compressed more than the DVD version.
That's the only 2 things I can think of. I don't think there is much difference between optical and coax (but I could be wrong).
I have observed the exact same thing with a James Bond Movie on Showtime HD and Dragnet on HDnet Movies via Charter Cable. I have not been able to test an OTA HD broadcast and I do not use satellite.
Yup, they are choking the audio via bit starvation. Whether that is part and parcel of the ATSC DTV standards I have no idea. I do know the difference is night and day and suspect that most would have the same observation if they did the test.
I have found the same lack of good DD 5.1 on DirecTV HD channels. See my review of the HBO HD version of the film "Master and Commander" in the Now Playing thread. The DTS sound on this widescreen DVD is simply awesome, but the film on HBO/DirecTV DD 5.1just had some surround that was weak in volume, and without the "ambience" that made me feel I was on the ship while watching the DVD.
I can't remember any DirecTV HD presentations that impressed me much for the surround sound. They tend to have fairly good front stereo and occasionally good explosions etc. Surround is supposed to be "all around" and it is not, suggesting to me it is the rear sound that is being shaved the most.
At first I figured the original films were older or just lacked a good sound mix. Master and Commander proved to me they are messing with the sound mix.
My experience has been mixed. Last week HBO ran "Master and Commander" and I thought my house was going to cave in. I normally keep the volume on my receiver at around 22 which is about a quater under half, but I had to crank the volume back to 37 and it was still blasting. It was the same with "Dare Devil" The sound and separation was amazing. In some instances the dvd smokes the ota, but I think this is disc and channel dependent, perhaps even day of the week dependent! You might want to check with your provider to make sure they are not having problems with any of their feeds and then have them come and check the connections in your home.
In case you were wondering, my provider is Bright House networks in Orlando, Fl.
James Bond was very surprising since the original purpose was not about audio but video. After watching the HD movie I immediately popped in the DVD since I just happen to have it for video comparisons. While there was much to be said about that the real shocker was the audio. Similar to going from CD to one of the HD audio formats. Up until that time I had not given it much consideration especially since I only own that which cannot be rented or was given to me as a gift so there was little to directly compare.
Dragnet was self evident as that is an old favorite of mine seen numerous times on laserdisc and DVD.
It is not so much that it sounds bad which is likely why this has been missed for the most part as we debate video issues. The issue is that it certainly seems the improvement in video is being offset by degrading the audio; only so many bits to work with. The best audio and video experience remains D-Theater and I am very hopeful that these new HD-DVD formats will be able to duplicate that level of performance.
Bottom line, watch it in HD and if possible drop the DVD in your player immediatly afterwards for comparison. I bet you will have the same results...
If I understand the last post correctly, you are saying that the audio on many DVDs sucks! I agree. I watched Pirates of the Caribbean last night in DTS and the audio was mediocre at best. The same applies to "Die Another Day" It seems that a lot of the worst audio is DTS. I do have some discs in DTS that sound incredible, but they are more often than not Superbit discs. Glad to know I'm not the only one who has observed this, or should I say heard this.
If I understand the last post correctly, you are saying that the audio on many DVDs sucks!
What I was trying to say is that the audio from the DVD version is better than the HD broadcast version.
As for DVD movie audio in general... ya, it varies... We just watched two movies in row where I had to turn up the volume past normal and then the next night another where it was normal...
Nice to know others have experienced the same thing. I never thought of the bit rate issue but it makes sense. The thing that is ashamed about it is that if you want to watch a movie in HD, such as the Lord of the Rings which is coming to TNT HD and has been on Starz, then you sacrifice sound quality. Like Donshan, I notice this the most with respect to surround sound effects -- I just don't get the same feeling for OTA broadcasts.
Partly because I have an upconverting DVD player, I actually prefer most action movies on DVD because of the superior sound. I'm even thinking of dropping my subscription to HBO.
This does seem like a somewhat neglected issue of discussion at least to those of us who want to maximize both PQ and sound quality.
Since I have a native 480p display and a screen that's not huge (55") I greatly prefer movies on DVD where I can not only pause them but skip chapters, see how much time is left, get a DTS soundtrack on most and get all the extras, not to mention watch them at my convenience and without commercials.
I'll take sports, special events and series in HD but I'll keep my DVDs for movies.
Maybe DVD sound is better then broadcast 5.1 but what does that mean? The sound on these DVD's is nothing special. In fact, most of them are a mess, with the biggest problem being muddled dialogue (or just too much focus) coming through the center channel. Seems like if they throw some loud explosions through the subwoofer and make a couple of cool pans through the five channels that it's enough. Maybe there's just not enough space on the current format to give the audio side it's due, or maybe they just don't care enough about it, but the bottom line is the same. DVD sound is severely lacking.
Not to worry though, help is on the way. Both new HD DVD formats have announced that they will include high rez SACD like audio to go along with the pristine picture. Nirvana is just around the corner!
I think you're confusing poor sound mixing and audio production with a format limitation. Or you have enormously high standards. What is your home audio setup?
There are numerous well produced DD and DTS soundtracks out there that sound absolutely great to me. There are a lot more that are done quickly and cheaply. Anything can be improved but that doesn't mean the current format is bad.
I think you're confusing poor sound mixing and audio production with a format limitation. Or you have enormously high standards. What is your home audio setup?
There are numerous well produced DD and DTS soundtracks out there that sound absolutely great to me. There are a lot more that are done quickly and cheaply. Anything can be improved but that doesn't mean the current format is bad.
I guess I'm coming off snobby here and I don't want to. The way I look at it is we invest all this money in hardware, multi channel amps or fancy feature laden receivers, speakers (X5 or 6), source components, displays, cables galore..on and on. You get the idea. Then you have the wife factor to deal with after you get everything you want. No easy task there buddy!
Anyone who has a home theater set up has invested thousands or even in the five figure area. I personally have spent a long time and a lot of money buying, selling and trading up. All I'm asking is that the software measure up to the hardware's capabilities. The technology is there. Just listen to a multi channel SACD or DVD Audio disc and you'll notice a huge difference. To me it's like buying a fancy race car and putting in some cheap grade gasoline. Your gear is not being used to it's full potential. Believe me, if your picture were the least bit off you'd notice. Why not the same high standards for sound?
Is the current DVD sound bad? Some are better then most, but no, it's not "bad." But it's not nearly good enough as it should be. I guess I have high standards but I sure paid enough to earn that right. Like I said before, when the new format HD DVD's come out with hi rez audio all this will be moot.
Samsung 60" DLP (forgot the model #)
Samsung HD841 DVD
Sunfire Grand Sig. Power Amp
Sunfire Theater Grand III Pre-amp
Revel M-20 (4) + Revel F30 center
Earthquake Super Nova 18" sub
Directv HD TiVo
I think it's the same reason HD video is just now catching on with the masses. Only recently are people starting to buy high quality multi-channel HT audio setups where the difference can be heard. A lot of people still use their TV speakers and a lot more are using cheap systems.
It's also a matter of cost. Some movie producers probably don't see the need for spending extra on the soundtrack and feel (probably correctly) that the vast majority of viewers don't care.
You're right, but if they build it, won't they come? Maybe not though. I have two friends that I hooked up with some kick ass speakers and receivers from the used market because they love music and were listening through some crappy and antique equipment. They just didn't realize it. So what do they do? They hook up an iPod to it with all that lousy compressed sound instead of a decent CD player and wind up with the same sound they had before! You can lead a horse to water.......
Well, I'm not a sound guru at all and just have a basic Onkyo system. I have found it very satisfying for DVDs and CDs. The surround sound effects for movies like Lord of the Rings is great! But, having watched that movie on T&THD over the weekend again confirmed for me that the sound quality OTA is not nearly as good as dvd (in most cases). There were a number of scenes including the early one with the party at Hobbiton and fireworks in which the sound quality simply was not close to that on dvd.
I think you're confusing poor sound mixing and audio production with a format limitation. Or you have enormously high standards. What is your home audio setup?
There are numerous well produced DD and DTS soundtracks out there that sound absolutely great to me. There are a lot more that are done quickly and cheaply. Anything can be improved but that doesn't mean the current format is bad.
Ok, I've done a little reading up on this subject. Both Dolby Digital and DTS need to compromise the sound in order to fit in with the limitations of the current DVD format. DD encodes 5.1 channels at just 348,000bits per seconds. That's about 1/10 of the data rate of a CD, which is itself compromised in resolution. DTS is better at 1.5 million bits per second, but neither comes close to hi rez audio.
Both new DVD formats, Blu-ray and HD DVD will feature (mandatory) new audio formats. Dolby Digital Plus and DTS+. Both new formats will have plenty of room for the Hi Rez audio. Blu-ray with 200GB and HD DVD with 30GB.
I know we'll need to buy new DVD players, but I'm praying that I don't need to shell out for a new pre/pro! Maybe DD and DTS will be kind and allow the signals to be passed through unprocessed like SACD's and DVDA's.
I lifted it from the winter 2005 issue of The Perfect Vision, on the "From the editor" column.
I was shocked to read that DD5.1 has a tenth of the bit rate of CD's, which can be pretty lousy themselves.
This clears up an issue that was bugging me. I often felt that the shows I was able to watch using Pro logic II sounded better then DD5.1 on some DVD's and especailly on broadcast DD. Now I know why. My processor does a better job "artificialy" routing (and maybe cleaning up?) information to the various speakers. It would be nice if I could do a direct A/B comparison, but my processor locks me into DD when it's available.
For an IN DEPTH look at Blu-ray versus HD DVD check out the readers letters in the 8/04 issue and "Battle of the Formats" 9/04 issue of Widescreen Review. This magazine is, by far and away, the leading edge in what's going on in the surround world. Both audio and video.
I don't know if this is true or not, just read it on another forum by someone who had read the HDMI specs closely. He stated when audio is passed through the HDMI along with video, there is a restriction to limit audio quality to no better than the CD spec to external analog outputs including the speakers. This is another version of plugging the analog hole, so super quality audio cannot be redigitized . Hmmm!. This might come into play when the HD DVD gets here. OR HDMI switching receivers, OR maybe it is just wrong too.
Well, if it is true then all those new DVD players and pricey receivers with HDMI will be DOA real soon. No way the Dolby and DTS folks go through all that trouble only to have their new creations compressed back to the old way. I wonder if they will even allow DVD manufacturers to make the new HD players backward compatible with the audio?
I would imagine that you would need a DVI for the picture and a seperate 8.1 pass through for the sound, like they have now for SACD & DVDA. I could deal with those two connections as long as it isn't the six interconnects I need now for hi- rez sound. Then again, maybe they will come up with some new super connect that has enough juice to carry both the video and audio.
I was unable to find that discussion again about HDMI restricting analog audio outputs to CD audio quality, so this is just a "heads up" to watch for info.
It may pertain to restricting analog audio output connections in any device using HDMI input like on the back of a TV monitor or receiver/amp, AFTER the digital sound has been decoded from the new DD and DTS digital formats carried on the HDMI , but NOT the speaker quality you listen to.
I agree that it would be self defeating to keep people from listening to the High def audio while watching the picture. However since the whole idea of HDMI is copy protection by keeping the HD video in a "closed box", I suspect there may be a "pony in this pile" somewhere to block the user from making a high def recording of high def versions of the sound tracks, by restricting connecting to other non-HDMI devices.
