Where Are All Of The DTS-HD™ And Dolby® TrueHD Releases?
Dear Gary:
I have been looking at both HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc movies that are either out or are going to be released soon, and there seem to be very little with Dolby® TrueHD, and I haven’t seen any (I probably haven’t looked enough) with DTS-HD™. Am I missing something? Isn’t this lossless technology supposed to be part of the Hi-Def experience? Is it the “cart before the horse” thing?
I was surprised that you rated the Dolby TrueHD lower than the Dolby Digital Plus in the Phantom Of The Opera review. Is this what we can expect for the future of sound?
Do you know if any products will have the HDMI 1.3 standard by Christmas this year, since it is now approved? I don’t want to buy anything that is destined to be obsolete so soon. I feel that running a single cable to an A/V preamplifier is a far better idea than running one for each channel, and an important step forward, not to mention the lip sync, lossless audio, higher bandwidth, and deep color technology features of the specification. I’m not sure how small the mini connector is, but since it is an option, I hope they keep the current connector; it is small enough and easy to work with.
Dave Wagner
mailto:daytripperdave@yahoo.com
Managing Editor Danny Richelieu Comments:
You are correct in noting that most titles do not include Dolby TrueHD encodings, and none yet have included a DTS-HD or DTS-HD Master Audio encoding. The reason for not including these is a studio decision, as it was never mandatory to use these codecs on individual discs in either format’s specification, only optional. In addition, the first HD DVD players from Toshiba only include capability to decode two channels of Dolby TrueHD (they will decode DTS-HD internally, but they are not compatible with DTS-HD Master Audio), and that could be one reason why Warner and Universal have decided to use the space on the disc for information other than a TrueHD or DTS-HD encoding. Instead, they have stuck with the Dolby Digital Plus encoding, which is still significantly better than what you could ever get from the original Dolby Digital or DTS codecs that are used with standard-definition DVD.
You are right, these lossless codecs are part of the next-generation experience, and we fully expect the studios to include more losslessly encoded soundtracks in the near future. For the record, all of the first Blu-ray Disc releases from Sony Pictures will include 5.1-channel 16-bit/48 kHz (CD quality) uncompressed linear PCM on the disc, which has the potential to sound as good or better than any of the lossy, or lossless codecs.
When judging the Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby TrueHD soundtracks, I felt it would be a better barometer of their quality by rating them against other soundtracks using the same codec. So, when a title gets a lower score on the TrueHD track over the Digital Plus encoding, it does not necessarily mean the TrueHD sounds worse than the Digital Plus. In the review, I will always mention which one sounds better. Because of the limitations of the current HD DVD players (only outputting two-channel TrueHD), it is very difficult to accurately judge between the two formats, as the 5.1-channel encoding will always be more immersive and draw you into the movie more, and therefore sound more realistic and convincing. Trust me, what we have now is not what we can look forward to for the future of sound; just go back to some of those original DVD releases and compare them to the great DVDs that are released today... With time, they will only get better, as those doing the encoding and mastering become more and more familiar with the new tools they have available to them. It’s a great time to be a home theatre enthusiast, to say the least!
As for products including the HDMI v1.3 connection, the only one I know of for sure that will be out before Christmas is Sony’s PlayStation®3. There have been announcements from a variety of manufacturers—actually most of them—that they will be supporting HDMI v1.3 in their next run of products now that it is finalized, but it is just too soon to say how many will be available before Christmas. We are all looking forward to that kind of convenience in our home theatres, and, hopefully, they will have perfected this version of HDMI as well as possible before it is released and ensure that the companies licensing this version will fully comply with the standard. As for the mini connector, the plan is to only use it for portable devices, such as personal media players, laptops, and things of that nature, and I don’t see it being used in the home theatre space often, if at all. While I haven’t seen a mini-connector in person, the mock images I have seen put it on a similar scale to the mini-USB connector.
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