"A First Look at Blu-Ray"

----- HDTV Magazine Tips List -----

Hugh,

Thanks for the link.

As a fellow writer I feel I should not be picking on his article but I am writing this to help
people understand some subjects, because some errors were made.

First of all using the comparison of DVD and Blu-ray on a 4K FP and a 30 feet screen (I saw that
setup at CES, incredibly perfect) on first row, for rejecting the idea of consumers not seeing the
difference is a bit going to the extremes because consumers usually have much smaller sets between
the 30" and 50" inches (not feet) and on top of that they believe they are viewing all the glory of
HDTV from 20 feet away while they cook.

At that distance on that typical screen range, MANY people would not find large differences. Screen
size and viewing distance are crucial to see differences. Many people, because of decor or room
convenience, do not have their set up to appreciate a large improvement, some will.

Regarding the line "Sony is actually releasing some movies with literally uncompressed audio in
surround....".

The hi-bit formats recently released DTS-HD, Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital Plus, DTS-HD Master Audio,
all use a LOSSLESS compression approach, but they are still compressed, all of them, even the DTS-HD
Master Audio at 24Mbps with 8 channels that claims to be bit-per-bit similar to the original master
is compressed, is compressed LESS of course, but it is.

Regarding "Since HDMI can not handle high resolution audio yet, this 24 bit 192 kHz surround feed
will require users to revert back to their nasty 6 channel analog connections ..."

WOW !! no words on this one.

I have been working with Silicon Image, DTS, and Dolby (the head, Craig Eggers directly) on all the
material you will see on the report on the new section dedicated for "Multi-channel audio for HD".
Even HDMI 1.1 is able to send PCM 8 channels decoded from the player to a receiver that has the
basic HDMI, in other words you do not need to wait for 1.3 spec chips if the connection is shooting
PCM, you do if you want hi-bi streamed audio for external decoding.

There is no need for the 6 analog connections unless your receiver does not have HDMI at all.

When HDMI 1.3 spec be out on 1Q06, then the player would be able to stream out the raw DTS-HD and
Dolby-TrueHD lossless (18Mbps, 8 channels) so a near future HDMI 1.3 suited receiver with internal
decoders for either audio codec would be able to do the decoding job at the receiver point, giving
owners the choice to compare which does a better job.

Depending on the connection you use it could be that the mixed audio extras (Director comments from
internet, etc) sounds would not be added to the soundtrack on some outputs by the player. This gets
more complicated that the above paragraph, please read all the options and restrictions on the
report, you might not need to buy another receiver just to get HDMI 1.3 to replace a HDMI 1.1 for
those reasons. The analog is still an option. The SPDIF output will downmix to the legacy DD and
DTS 5.1 as usual for backward compatibility of course.

If you recall in the era of Dolby Digital and the beginning of DVD, it was better to do the decoding
job within the receiver because it uses that single decoder for all the inputs (DVD, HDTV, LD,
D-VHS, LD, etc), one decoding place, rather than decoding at the source and transport 8 wires (like
the poor soul of DVD Audio) for every piece of equipment duplicating decoders and wiring, not to
mention the sound quality compromises when transporting in analog form.

Again, I am just trying to help people understand how things would work when these players are out
and clarify some errors and misinformation because it could have the potential to make you buy
another receiver for the new audio codecs, that is money a consumer might not need to spend.

Regarding the content protection questions it is covered as well in detail (with the Blu-ray
extensions over AACS).




Best Regards,

Rodolfo

-----Original Message-----
From: HDTV Magazine On Behalf Of
Hugh Campbell
Sent: Friday, March 10, 2006 10:02 AM
To: HDTV Magazine
Subject: "A First Look at Blu-Ray"

----- HDTV Magazine Tips List -----

Here is a link to a very informative article for those of us who are not
technicians of varying degrees. The author talks about the visual
differences between regular DVD and Blu-ray DVD. It was written by Jerry
Del Colliano for "Audio/Video News":

http://www.avrev.com/news/0306/08.blu_ray.shtml

Hugh


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----- HDTV Magazine Tips List -----

Rodolfo, I have 2 comments/questions on this:

1. it's my understanding that there are compression schemes that are truly
lossless. One example in the computer world would be if you have 18 1's in a
row, then it would simply say "18 1's" instead of 11111111111111111. In
other words, if you uncompress, you have bit for bit accuracy to master. Are
these so-called lossless codecs doing it this way, or are they actually
doing a slightly lossy signal?

2. In your discussion about using HDMI for audio, I believe it's the case
that you must have a decoder built into the player in order to use HDMI for
audio, is that correct? That's what you mean by PCM, right? Assuming that's
the case, is there any reason to believe that the decoder built into a
future receiver would be any better than the one in the player? Unless you
are applying special tweaks to it (sound stages, etc) to it, it seems that
as long as the data goes to the correct speaker, it would be the same. Were
there cases with DD/DTS in which the player or receiver had markedly better
than the other?

Thanks!

Jason



To unsubscribe please click: [email protected]

To receive the digest mode (one email a day made from all posted that same day) send an email to:
[email protected]

----- HDTV Magazine Tips List -----

Jason,

There are full explanations all these alternatives of connections on the report that would occupy
too much space on email.

Question 1) has to be asked to both DTS and Dolby, they both have lossless and they both claim
bib-per-bit similar to the original master "sound", not bit quantity, if you know what I mean.

DTS-HD Master Audio at 24Mbps claims bit-per-bit but not at their 18Mbps DTS-HD level, both
lossless.

Dolby claims bit-per-bit on True-HD at 18 Mbps.

After so much work with both Dolby (Craig) asked me to ask directly to DTS my question of why DTS
needs 6Mbps more (than Dolby) to claim bit-per-bit, DTS did not respond with other than their
typical canned response, I could not accept such response, so I thought it was time to drop the
ball.

In other words, one of the concepts is supposed to be something similar to PKZIP, to put is bluntly
(and please, I am oversimplifying, no snipers here), the codec is reducing the number of bits but
recovering them later. So the end result (on the receiving device) is bit-per-bit what was in the
original data. But, but, if it would be that simple they would both claim bit-per-bit at 18Mbps,
and they do not, so some secret poison is added to the soup.

You will never know what poison a witch uses.

Question 2) Wow! too many questions together Jason. I will give it a shot. This stuff the have
created is certainly messy.

a) all the players will have a codec for audio multichannels. Some have mandatory TrueHD and DTS-HD
(HD DVD), some have them optional (Blu-ray). Check the player before you buy, the report is VERY
meticulous about that issue.

b) The codecs are optional for the disc, the content provider chooses want they want for their
movie, remember that these codecs are lossless monsters 18Mbps (not 384-640 kbps of Dolby or 1.5
Mbps of DTS), the bps demand is close to ATSC MPEG-2 19.4 Mbps of the video part.

So how many of these monsters can they put on a single layer 25GB HD DVD MPEG-2 encoded before they
decide to start the butchering?, make the math, not much for MPEG-2, more if VC1 and MPEG-4 video
codecs are used for the movie part (50% average gain due to compression for similar image quality,
no snipers please, just simplifying).

c) The player decoder takes that DTS-HD or Dolby TrueHD stream (stored in the disc), decodes it and
separates the channels as PCM, and send the group out with HDMI (1.1, 1.2, 1.3 later), or analog
cables (6 to 8, DVD-Audio).

d) the receiver takes those PCM (max 8 channels), and applies any DSP you want to play with (and the
receiver is capable of), that processing takes certain juice out of the receiver, if you let the
receiver do (in addition to the DSP, bass management, etc) the decoding of the 18 Mbps stream it
"could" be quite a demand for small receivers, and in such case it might be better to distribute the
job, let the player do the split decoding of channels, send it PCM 8 channel, let the receiver to
the back part.

e) In other words the old demand of power for decoding legacy 385Kbs of Dolby Digital (12 times the
compression) or DTS is compression ratio 3.75:1), both lossy, at either the receiver or the player,
is not the same as demanding 8 channels at 18 Mbps, not to mention handling the monster Master Audio
at 24 Mbps. Imagine the space on the disc for the 24Mbps. These Mbps are max of course, they run
at less and are variable per channel, but the design has to support the max to carry the logo
(everyone wants one more logo), on the player or the receiver.

One word in favor of the writer (the info was not incorrect, just old), Dolby thought at the
beginning that legacy receivers (without HDMI) would have no other choice than to use analog cables
(6-8 as DVD-Audio) but after a while they realized that even using the basic HDMI sending the
decoded stream as PCM would be able to be handled by any receiver out there without 1.3 level of
HDMI. This was made known by Dolby exactly that way a few moths ago, they might even have it on
their web site now.


I hope I covered all the questions.

Best Regards,

Rodolfo La Maestra








-----Original Message-----
From: HDTV Magazine On Behalf Of
Jason Burroughs
Sent: Friday, March 10, 2006 2:47 PM
To: HDTV Magazine
Subject: Re: "A First Look at Blu-Ray"


----- HDTV Magazine Tips List -----

Rodolfo, I have 2 comments/questions on this:

1. it's my understanding that there are compression schemes that are truly
lossless. One example in the computer world would be if you have 18 1's in a
row, then it would simply say "18 1's" instead of 11111111111111111. In
other words, if you uncompress, you have bit for bit accuracy to master. Are
these so-called lossless codecs doing it this way, or are they actually
doing a slightly lossy signal?

2. In your discussion about using HDMI for audio, I believe it's the case
that you must have a decoder built into the player in order to use HDMI for
audio, is that correct? That's what you mean by PCM, right? Assuming that's
the case, is there any reason to believe that the decoder built into a
future receiver would be any better than the one in the player? Unless you
are applying special tweaks to it (sound stages, etc) to it, it seems that
as long as the data goes to the correct speaker, it would be the same. Were
there cases with DD/DTS in which the player or receiver had markedly better
than the other?

Thanks!

Jason



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[email protected]



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[email protected]

----- HDTV Magazine Tips List -----

A semi-related question: since HDMI can handle multi-channel audio, any
chance that there will be players capable of playing the SACD and DVD-A
discs that seem to be dying a rapid death? I have some titles in each
format (and currently use a Denon that requires the 6 audio/RCA cables), and
would love to consolidate and eliminate all those cables. I was so excited
when Dark Side of the Moon came out in rich, multi-channel; now it looks
like I may have to dedicate a player and a fistful of cables just to play a
couple of titles.

-----Original Message-----
From: HDTV Magazine On Behalf Of
Rodolfo La Maestra
Sent: Friday, March 10, 2006 4:21 PM
To: HDTV Magazine
Subject: Re: "A First Look at Blu-Ray"

----- HDTV Magazine Tips List -----

Jason,

There are full explanations all these alternatives of connections on the
report that would occupy
too much space on email.

Question 1) has to be asked to both DTS and Dolby, they both have lossless
and they both claim
bib-per-bit similar to the original master "sound", not bit quantity, if you
know what I mean.

DTS-HD Master Audio at 24Mbps claims bit-per-bit but not at their 18Mbps
DTS-HD level, both
lossless.

Dolby claims bit-per-bit on True-HD at 18 Mbps.

After so much work with both Dolby (Craig) asked me to ask directly to DTS
my question of why DTS
needs 6Mbps more (than Dolby) to claim bit-per-bit, DTS did not respond with
other than their
typical canned response, I could not accept such response, so I thought it
was time to drop the
ball.

In other words, one of the concepts is supposed to be something similar to
PKZIP, to put is bluntly
(and please, I am oversimplifying, no snipers here), the codec is reducing
the number of bits but
recovering them later. So the end result (on the receiving device) is
bit-per-bit what was in the
original data. But, but, if it would be that simple they would both claim
bit-per-bit at 18Mbps,
and they do not, so some secret poison is added to the soup.

You will never know what poison a witch uses.

Question 2) Wow! too many questions together Jason. I will give it a shot.
This stuff the have
created is certainly messy.

a) all the players will have a codec for audio multichannels. Some have
mandatory TrueHD and DTS-HD
(HD DVD), some have them optional (Blu-ray). Check the player before you
buy, the report is VERY
meticulous about that issue.

b) The codecs are optional for the disc, the content provider chooses want
they want for their
movie, remember that these codecs are lossless monsters 18Mbps (not 384-640
kbps of Dolby or 1.5
Mbps of DTS), the bps demand is close to ATSC MPEG-2 19.4 Mbps of the video
part.

So how many of these monsters can they put on a single layer 25GB HD DVD
MPEG-2 encoded before they
decide to start the butchering?, make the math, not much for MPEG-2, more if
VC1 and MPEG-4 video
codecs are used for the movie part (50% average gain due to compression for
similar image quality,
no snipers please, just simplifying).

c) The player decoder takes that DTS-HD or Dolby TrueHD stream (stored in
the disc), decodes it and
separates the channels as PCM, and send the group out with HDMI (1.1, 1.2,
1.3 later), or analog
cables (6 to 8, DVD-Audio).

d) the receiver takes those PCM (max 8 channels), and applies any DSP you
want to play with (and the
receiver is capable of), that processing takes certain juice out of the
receiver, if you let the
receiver do (in addition to the DSP, bass management, etc) the decoding of
the 18 Mbps stream it
"could" be quite a demand for small receivers, and in such case it might be
better to distribute the
job, let the player do the split decoding of channels, send it PCM 8
channel, let the receiver to
the back part.

e) In other words the old demand of power for decoding legacy 385Kbs of
Dolby Digital (12 times the
compression) or DTS is compression ratio 3.75:1), both lossy, at either the
receiver or the player,
is not the same as demanding 8 channels at 18 Mbps, not to mention handling
the monster Master Audio
at 24 Mbps. Imagine the space on the disc for the 24Mbps. These Mbps are
max of course, they run
at less and are variable per channel, but the design has to support the max
to carry the logo
(everyone wants one more logo), on the player or the receiver.

One word in favor of the writer (the info was not incorrect, just old),
Dolby thought at the
beginning that legacy receivers (without HDMI) would have no other choice
than to use analog cables
(6-8 as DVD-Audio) but after a while they realized that even using the basic
HDMI sending the
decoded stream as PCM would be able to be handled by any receiver out there
without 1.3 level of
HDMI. This was made known by Dolby exactly that way a few moths ago, they
might even have it on
their web site now.


I hope I covered all the questions.

Best Regards,

Rodolfo La Maestra








-----Original Message-----
From: HDTV Magazine On Behalf Of
Jason Burroughs
Sent: Friday, March 10, 2006 2:47 PM
To: HDTV Magazine
Subject: Re: "A First Look at Blu-Ray"


----- HDTV Magazine Tips List -----

Rodolfo, I have 2 comments/questions on this:

1. it's my understanding that there are compression schemes that are truly
lossless. One example in the computer world would be if you have 18 1's in a
row, then it would simply say "18 1's" instead of 11111111111111111. In
other words, if you uncompress, you have bit for bit accuracy to master. Are
these so-called lossless codecs doing it this way, or are they actually
doing a slightly lossy signal?

2. In your discussion about using HDMI for audio, I believe it's the case
that you must have a decoder built into the player in order to use HDMI for
audio, is that correct? That's what you mean by PCM, right? Assuming that's
the case, is there any reason to believe that the decoder built into a
future receiver would be any better than the one in the player? Unless you
are applying special tweaks to it (sound stages, etc) to it, it seems that
as long as the data goes to the correct speaker, it would be the same. Were
there cases with DD/DTS in which the player or receiver had markedly better
than the other?

Thanks!

Jason



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To receive the digest mode (one email a day made from all posted that same
day) send an email to:
[email protected]



To unsubscribe please click: [email protected]

To receive the digest mode (one email a day made from all posted that same
day) send an email to:
[email protected]


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[email protected]

----- HDTV Magazine Tips List -----

Daniel,

The current specs of HDMI support even SACD, and of course it did DVD-Audio before.

The implementation of both on the new players is a mixed bag.

I got tired of asking the same question to every rep at GES only to get a "we do not know" in most
cases.

I have written all the capabilities of codecs for each player on the report but without going thru
each of them to find which was declared capable I can not provide an answer that would identify a
player.

I would suggest that when the report is out is a few days (it is finished) go to the Hi-def DVD
section, get a cappuccino, and hang in there looking for each spec, is a long section.

What you have in mind was exactly the plan of Silicon Image with HDMI, reason by which they worked
with Sony to implement SACD on their last version of the spec.

One would expect that manufacturers put that in effect on their equipment but I am not keeping track
of that part of the industry any longer due to lack of time.

Best Regards,

Rodolfo La Maestra



-----Original Message-----
From: HDTV Magazine On Behalf Of
Daniel vom Saal
Sent: Friday, March 10, 2006 5:05 PM
To: HDTV Magazine
Subject: Re: "A First Look at Blu-Ray"


----- HDTV Magazine Tips List -----

A semi-related question: since HDMI can handle multi-channel audio, any
chance that there will be players capable of playing the SACD and DVD-A
discs that seem to be dying a rapid death? I have some titles in each
format (and currently use a Denon that requires the 6 audio/RCA cables), and
would love to consolidate and eliminate all those cables. I was so excited
when Dark Side of the Moon came out in rich, multi-channel; now it looks
like I may have to dedicate a player and a fistful of cables just to play a
couple of titles.

-----Original Message-----
From: HDTV Magazine On Behalf Of
Rodolfo La Maestra
Sent: Friday, March 10, 2006 4:21 PM
To: HDTV Magazine
Subject: Re: "A First Look at Blu-Ray"

----- HDTV Magazine Tips List -----

Jason,

There are full explanations all these alternatives of connections on the
report that would occupy
too much space on email.

Question 1) has to be asked to both DTS and Dolby, they both have lossless
and they both claim
bib-per-bit similar to the original master "sound", not bit quantity, if you
know what I mean.

DTS-HD Master Audio at 24Mbps claims bit-per-bit but not at their 18Mbps
DTS-HD level, both
lossless.

Dolby claims bit-per-bit on True-HD at 18 Mbps.

After so much work with both Dolby (Craig) asked me to ask directly to DTS
my question of why DTS
needs 6Mbps more (than Dolby) to claim bit-per-bit, DTS did not respond with
other than their
typical canned response, I could not accept such response, so I thought it
was time to drop the
ball.

In other words, one of the concepts is supposed to be something similar to
PKZIP, to put is bluntly
(and please, I am oversimplifying, no snipers here), the codec is reducing
the number of bits but
recovering them later. So the end result (on the receiving device) is
bit-per-bit what was in the
original data. But, but, if it would be that simple they would both claim
bit-per-bit at 18Mbps,
and they do not, so some secret poison is added to the soup.

You will never know what poison a witch uses.

Question 2) Wow! too many questions together Jason. I will give it a shot.
This stuff the have
created is certainly messy.

a) all the players will have a codec for audio multichannels. Some have
mandatory TrueHD and DTS-HD
(HD DVD), some have them optional (Blu-ray). Check the player before you
buy, the report is VERY
meticulous about that issue.

b) The codecs are optional for the disc, the content provider chooses want
they want for their
movie, remember that these codecs are lossless monsters 18Mbps (not 384-640
kbps of Dolby or 1.5
Mbps of DTS), the bps demand is close to ATSC MPEG-2 19.4 Mbps of the video
part.

So how many of these monsters can they put on a single layer 25GB HD DVD
MPEG-2 encoded before they
decide to start the butchering?, make the math, not much for MPEG-2, more if
VC1 and MPEG-4 video
codecs are used for the movie part (50% average gain due to compression for
similar image quality,
no snipers please, just simplifying).

c) The player decoder takes that DTS-HD or Dolby TrueHD stream (stored in
the disc), decodes it and
separates the channels as PCM, and send the group out with HDMI (1.1, 1.2,
1.3 later), or analog
cables (6 to 8, DVD-Audio).

d) the receiver takes those PCM (max 8 channels), and applies any DSP you
want to play with (and the
receiver is capable of), that processing takes certain juice out of the
receiver, if you let the
receiver do (in addition to the DSP, bass management, etc) the decoding of
the 18 Mbps stream it
"could" be quite a demand for small receivers, and in such case it might be
better to distribute the
job, let the player do the split decoding of channels, send it PCM 8
channel, let the receiver to
the back part.

e) In other words the old demand of power for decoding legacy 385Kbs of
Dolby Digital (12 times the
compression) or DTS is compression ratio 3.75:1), both lossy, at either the
receiver or the player,
is not the same as demanding 8 channels at 18 Mbps, not to mention handling
the monster Master Audio
at 24 Mbps. Imagine the space on the disc for the 24Mbps. These Mbps are
max of course, they run
at less and are variable per channel, but the design has to support the max
to carry the logo
(everyone wants one more logo), on the player or the receiver.

One word in favor of the writer (the info was not incorrect, just old),
Dolby thought at the
beginning that legacy receivers (without HDMI) would have no other choice
than to use analog cables
(6-8 as DVD-Audio) but after a while they realized that even using the basic
HDMI sending the
decoded stream as PCM would be able to be handled by any receiver out there
without 1.3 level of
HDMI. This was made known by Dolby exactly that way a few moths ago, they
might even have it on
their web site now.


I hope I covered all the questions.

Best Regards,

Rodolfo La Maestra








-----Original Message-----
From: HDTV Magazine On Behalf Of
Jason Burroughs
Sent: Friday, March 10, 2006 2:47 PM
To: HDTV Magazine
Subject: Re: "A First Look at Blu-Ray"


----- HDTV Magazine Tips List -----

Rodolfo, I have 2 comments/questions on this:

1. it's my understanding that there are compression schemes that are truly
lossless. One example in the computer world would be if you have 18 1's in a
row, then it would simply say "18 1's" instead of 11111111111111111. In
other words, if you uncompress, you have bit for bit accuracy to master. Are
these so-called lossless codecs doing it this way, or are they actually
doing a slightly lossy signal?

2. In your discussion about using HDMI for audio, I believe it's the case
that you must have a decoder built into the player in order to use HDMI for
audio, is that correct? That's what you mean by PCM, right? Assuming that's
the case, is there any reason to believe that the decoder built into a
future receiver would be any better than the one in the player? Unless you
are applying special tweaks to it (sound stages, etc) to it, it seems that
as long as the data goes to the correct speaker, it would be the same. Were
there cases with DD/DTS in which the player or receiver had markedly better
than the other?

Thanks!

Jason



To unsubscribe please click: [email protected]

To receive the digest mode (one email a day made from all posted that same
day) send an email to:
[email protected]



To unsubscribe please click: [email protected]

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day) send an email to:
[email protected]


To unsubscribe please click: [email protected]

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[email protected]



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----- HDTV Magazine Tips List -----

Thanks so much Rodolfo - I am headed out the door for 10 days of the SXSW
film festival, but will read this more carefully later. It looks like you
covered it!

-----Original Message-----
From: HDTV Magazine On Behalf Of
Rodolfo La Maestra
Sent: Friday, March 10, 2006 3:21 PM
To: HDTV Magazine
Subject: Re: "A First Look at Blu-Ray"

----- HDTV Magazine Tips List -----

Jason,

There are full explanations all these alternatives of connections on the
report that would occupy
too much space on email.

Question 1) has to be asked to both DTS and Dolby, they both have lossless
and they both claim
bib-per-bit similar to the original master "sound", not bit quantity, if you
know what I mean.

DTS-HD Master Audio at 24Mbps claims bit-per-bit but not at their 18Mbps
DTS-HD level, both
lossless.

Dolby claims bit-per-bit on True-HD at 18 Mbps.

After so much work with both Dolby (Craig) asked me to ask directly to DTS
my question of why DTS
needs 6Mbps more (than Dolby) to claim bit-per-bit, DTS did not respond with
other than their
typical canned response, I could not accept such response, so I thought it
was time to drop the
ball.

In other words, one of the concepts is supposed to be something similar to
PKZIP, to put is bluntly
(and please, I am oversimplifying, no snipers here), the codec is reducing
the number of bits but
recovering them later. So the end result (on the receiving device) is
bit-per-bit what was in the
original data. But, but, if it would be that simple they would both claim
bit-per-bit at 18Mbps,
and they do not, so some secret poison is added to the soup.

You will never know what poison a witch uses.

Question 2) Wow! too many questions together Jason. I will give it a shot.
This stuff the have
created is certainly messy.

a) all the players will have a codec for audio multichannels. Some have
mandatory TrueHD and DTS-HD
(HD DVD), some have them optional (Blu-ray). Check the player before you
buy, the report is VERY
meticulous about that issue.

b) The codecs are optional for the disc, the content provider chooses want
they want for their
movie, remember that these codecs are lossless monsters 18Mbps (not 384-640
kbps of Dolby or 1.5
Mbps of DTS), the bps demand is close to ATSC MPEG-2 19.4 Mbps of the video
part.

So how many of these monsters can they put on a single layer 25GB HD DVD
MPEG-2 encoded before they
decide to start the butchering?, make the math, not much for MPEG-2, more if
VC1 and MPEG-4 video
codecs are used for the movie part (50% average gain due to compression for
similar image quality,
no snipers please, just simplifying).

c) The player decoder takes that DTS-HD or Dolby TrueHD stream (stored in
the disc), decodes it and
separates the channels as PCM, and send the group out with HDMI (1.1, 1.2,
1.3 later), or analog
cables (6 to 8, DVD-Audio).

d) the receiver takes those PCM (max 8 channels), and applies any DSP you
want to play with (and the
receiver is capable of), that processing takes certain juice out of the
receiver, if you let the
receiver do (in addition to the DSP, bass management, etc) the decoding of
the 18 Mbps stream it
"could" be quite a demand for small receivers, and in such case it might be
better to distribute the
job, let the player do the split decoding of channels, send it PCM 8
channel, let the receiver to
the back part.

e) In other words the old demand of power for decoding legacy 385Kbs of
Dolby Digital (12 times the
compression) or DTS is compression ratio 3.75:1), both lossy, at either the
receiver or the player,
is not the same as demanding 8 channels at 18 Mbps, not to mention handling
the monster Master Audio
at 24 Mbps. Imagine the space on the disc for the 24Mbps. These Mbps are
max of course, they run
at less and are variable per channel, but the design has to support the max
to carry the logo
(everyone wants one more logo), on the player or the receiver.

One word in favor of the writer (the info was not incorrect, just old),
Dolby thought at the
beginning that legacy receivers (without HDMI) would have no other choice
than to use analog cables
(6-8 as DVD-Audio) but after a while they realized that even using the basic
HDMI sending the
decoded stream as PCM would be able to be handled by any receiver out there
without 1.3 level of
HDMI. This was made known by Dolby exactly that way a few moths ago, they
might even have it on
their web site now.


I hope I covered all the questions.

Best Regards,

Rodolfo La Maestra








-----Original Message-----
From: HDTV Magazine On Behalf Of
Jason Burroughs
Sent: Friday, March 10, 2006 2:47 PM
To: HDTV Magazine
Subject: Re: "A First Look at Blu-Ray"


----- HDTV Magazine Tips List -----

Rodolfo, I have 2 comments/questions on this:

1. it's my understanding that there are compression schemes that are truly
lossless. One example in the computer world would be if you have 18 1's in a
row, then it would simply say "18 1's" instead of 11111111111111111. In
other words, if you uncompress, you have bit for bit accuracy to master. Are
these so-called lossless codecs doing it this way, or are they actually
doing a slightly lossy signal?

2. In your discussion about using HDMI for audio, I believe it's the case
that you must have a decoder built into the player in order to use HDMI for
audio, is that correct? That's what you mean by PCM, right? Assuming that's
the case, is there any reason to believe that the decoder built into a
future receiver would be any better than the one in the player? Unless you
are applying special tweaks to it (sound stages, etc) to it, it seems that
as long as the data goes to the correct speaker, it would be the same. Were
there cases with DD/DTS in which the player or receiver had markedly better
than the other?

Thanks!

Jason



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----- HDTV Magazine Tips List -----

Thanks Rodolfo; it's too bad it wasn't easier to find a straight-forward
"yes" answer to this question, but (as always) all your work is appreciated.

-----Original Message-----
From: HDTV Magazine On Behalf Of
Rodolfo La Maestra
Sent: Friday, March 10, 2006 5:22 PM
To: HDTV Magazine
Subject: Re: "A First Look at Blu-Ray"

----- HDTV Magazine Tips List -----

Daniel,

The current specs of HDMI support even SACD, and of course it did DVD-Audio
before.

The implementation of both on the new players is a mixed bag.

I got tired of asking the same question to every rep at GES only to get a
"we do not know" in most
cases.

I have written all the capabilities of codecs for each player on the report
but without going thru
each of them to find which was declared capable I can not provide an answer
that would identify a
player.

I would suggest that when the report is out is a few days (it is finished)
go to the Hi-def DVD
section, get a cappuccino, and hang in there looking for each spec, is a
long section.

What you have in mind was exactly the plan of Silicon Image with HDMI,
reason by which they worked
with Sony to implement SACD on their last version of the spec.

One would expect that manufacturers put that in effect on their equipment
but I am not keeping track
of that part of the industry any longer due to lack of time.

Best Regards,

Rodolfo La Maestra



-----Original Message-----
From: HDTV Magazine On Behalf Of
Daniel vom Saal
Sent: Friday, March 10, 2006 5:05 PM
To: HDTV Magazine
Subject: Re: "A First Look at Blu-Ray"


----- HDTV Magazine Tips List -----

A semi-related question: since HDMI can handle multi-channel audio, any
chance that there will be players capable of playing the SACD and DVD-A
discs that seem to be dying a rapid death? I have some titles in each
format (and currently use a Denon that requires the 6 audio/RCA cables), and
would love to consolidate and eliminate all those cables. I was so excited
when Dark Side of the Moon came out in rich, multi-channel; now it looks
like I may have to dedicate a player and a fistful of cables just to play a
couple of titles.

-----Original Message-----
From: HDTV Magazine On Behalf Of
Rodolfo La Maestra
Sent: Friday, March 10, 2006 4:21 PM
To: HDTV Magazine
Subject: Re: "A First Look at Blu-Ray"

----- HDTV Magazine Tips List -----

Jason,

There are full explanations all these alternatives of connections on the
report that would occupy
too much space on email.

Question 1) has to be asked to both DTS and Dolby, they both have lossless
and they both claim
bib-per-bit similar to the original master "sound", not bit quantity, if you
know what I mean.

DTS-HD Master Audio at 24Mbps claims bit-per-bit but not at their 18Mbps
DTS-HD level, both
lossless.

Dolby claims bit-per-bit on True-HD at 18 Mbps.

After so much work with both Dolby (Craig) asked me to ask directly to DTS
my question of why DTS
needs 6Mbps more (than Dolby) to claim bit-per-bit, DTS did not respond with
other than their
typical canned response, I could not accept such response, so I thought it
was time to drop the
ball.

In other words, one of the concepts is supposed to be something similar to
PKZIP, to put is bluntly
(and please, I am oversimplifying, no snipers here), the codec is reducing
the number of bits but
recovering them later. So the end result (on the receiving device) is
bit-per-bit what was in the
original data. But, but, if it would be that simple they would both claim
bit-per-bit at 18Mbps,
and they do not, so some secret poison is added to the soup.

You will never know what poison a witch uses.

Question 2) Wow! too many questions together Jason. I will give it a shot.
This stuff the have
created is certainly messy.

a) all the players will have a codec for audio multichannels. Some have
mandatory TrueHD and DTS-HD
(HD DVD), some have them optional (Blu-ray). Check the player before you
buy, the report is VERY
meticulous about that issue.

b) The codecs are optional for the disc, the content provider chooses want
they want for their
movie, remember that these codecs are lossless monsters 18Mbps (not 384-640
kbps of Dolby or 1.5
Mbps of DTS), the bps demand is close to ATSC MPEG-2 19.4 Mbps of the video
part.

So how many of these monsters can they put on a single layer 25GB HD DVD
MPEG-2 encoded before they
decide to start the butchering?, make the math, not much for MPEG-2, more if
VC1 and MPEG-4 video
codecs are used for the movie part (50% average gain due to compression for
similar image quality,
no snipers please, just simplifying).

c) The player decoder takes that DTS-HD or Dolby TrueHD stream (stored in
the disc), decodes it and
separates the channels as PCM, and send the group out with HDMI (1.1, 1.2,
1.3 later), or analog
cables (6 to 8, DVD-Audio).

d) the receiver takes those PCM (max 8 channels), and applies any DSP you
want to play with (and the
receiver is capable of), that processing takes certain juice out of the
receiver, if you let the
receiver do (in addition to the DSP, bass management, etc) the decoding of
the 18 Mbps stream it
"could" be quite a demand for small receivers, and in such case it might be
better to distribute the
job, let the player do the split decoding of channels, send it PCM 8
channel, let the receiver to
the back part.

e) In other words the old demand of power for decoding legacy 385Kbs of
Dolby Digital (12 times the
compression) or DTS is compression ratio 3.75:1), both lossy, at either the
receiver or the player,
is not the same as demanding 8 channels at 18 Mbps, not to mention handling
the monster Master Audio
at 24 Mbps. Imagine the space on the disc for the 24Mbps. These Mbps are
max of course, they run
at less and are variable per channel, but the design has to support the max
to carry the logo
(everyone wants one more logo), on the player or the receiver.

One word in favor of the writer (the info was not incorrect, just old),
Dolby thought at the
beginning that legacy receivers (without HDMI) would have no other choice
than to use analog cables
(6-8 as DVD-Audio) but after a while they realized that even using the basic
HDMI sending the
decoded stream as PCM would be able to be handled by any receiver out there
without 1.3 level of
HDMI. This was made known by Dolby exactly that way a few moths ago, they
might even have it on
their web site now.


I hope I covered all the questions.

Best Regards,

Rodolfo La Maestra








-----Original Message-----
From: HDTV Magazine On Behalf Of
Jason Burroughs
Sent: Friday, March 10, 2006 2:47 PM
To: HDTV Magazine
Subject: Re: "A First Look at Blu-Ray"


----- HDTV Magazine Tips List -----

Rodolfo, I have 2 comments/questions on this:

1. it's my understanding that there are compression schemes that are truly
lossless. One example in the computer world would be if you have 18 1's in a
row, then it would simply say "18 1's" instead of 11111111111111111. In
other words, if you uncompress, you have bit for bit accuracy to master. Are
these so-called lossless codecs doing it this way, or are they actually
doing a slightly lossy signal?

2. In your discussion about using HDMI for audio, I believe it's the case
that you must have a decoder built into the player in order to use HDMI for
audio, is that correct? That's what you mean by PCM, right? Assuming that's
the case, is there any reason to believe that the decoder built into a
future receiver would be any better than the one in the player? Unless you
are applying special tweaks to it (sound stages, etc) to it, it seems that
as long as the data goes to the correct speaker, it would be the same. Were
there cases with DD/DTS in which the player or receiver had markedly better
than the other?

Thanks!

Jason



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day) send an email to:
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day) send an email to:
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day) send an email to:
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day) send an email to:
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