So which HD Audio format sounds best ?

[Shadowman82]

With people having had some time now to experience the different Audio formats commonly found on Blu-ray discs ( PCM , Dolby DigitalTrue HD, dts-hdma) did any of these turn out to sound better than the others or are they all equally good ?

[Pirate]

I don’t think we’ve been able to do enough direct comparisons to answer this question. Soon, with HD DVD exclusives like Top Gun coming to Blu-ray, we’ll be able to compare TrueHD to DTS-MA.

They all sound great, in my opinion--even DD+.

[ganthc]

Yeah, it's hard to tell sometimes, because you are comparing different movies that have different audio tracks. The biggest indicator will be Universal releasing all their movies on DTS-HDMA versus the lossy DD+ that it had on hd-dvd.

I am really eager to find out the differences in sound for Transformers, Bourne Identity, Bourne Supremacy, and Serenity are among the hd-dvds that I own now that I will rebuy on blu-ray for the enhanced audio.

["The Dude"]

I may be wrong as I haven't watched my copy yet, but doesn't Close Encounters of the Third Kind have BOTH a TrueHD track and a DTS-HDMA track?

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by Shadowman82

With people having had some time now to experience the different Audio formats commonly found on Blu-ray discs ( PCM , Dolby DigitalTrue HD, dts-hdma) did any of these turn out to sound better than the others or are they all equally good ?

Remeber with PCM, Dolby TrueHD, and DTS-HDMA we are comparing the mastering/mixing and not the codecs themselves. For the actual codecs all three have exactly the same mathematical output; however it is possible that a soundtrack may be "sweetened" for prior to encoding for one codec and not another.

I believe DTS still does a lot of encoding in-house and I believe they feel that "sweetening" is part of getting the home experience right. IIRC their encoders have different presets based on the type of movie being encoded and I believe the master is EQ'd differently prior to encoding in order to give the best home experience. Also since DTS does a lot in-house you have talented people very familiar and experienced with encoding/mixing/mastering for the home. DTS also has the alternate surround speaker configurations for 7.1 (again often used for straying from the theatrical masters to enhance the home experience), and less support for lossless decoding in hardware due to needing large amounts of DSP processing power. Finally when contracted for an encode DTS will often go above and beyond the typical studio effort to ensure they have the best master that exists for a given title, which is something to be considered. Not all DTS encodings are done in-house anymore, though, so these statements don't always apply.

Dolby TrueHD is primarily encoded by the authoring house or studio, so in these cases you may have less experienced people or people whose job it is to just encode the master attenuated for home levels - so you might have soundtracks with less "pop" when mastered in TrueHD simply because you don't have top-notch experienced DTS-employed mixers doing the mastering prior to encoding. Also, some complain that the Dialog Normalization feature of Dolby TrueHD theoretically harms the signal; personally I think that is a bunch of baloney because any cheap crappy PC software can do the manips that DialNorm does without any significant quality loss. But if you are over-analyzing you could consider that, I guess. This has a ton of support in hardware.

PCM is similar to TrueHD, except it requires even less skill so you could probably get away with doing a simple home attenuation EQ - no real encoding required here. One disadvantage to PCM is that it is not packeted and if it is stored on a hard drive that has some bad sectors somewhere on the way to getting on the Blu-ray Disc you will hear snap/crackle/pop on the soundtrack (like Unbreakable). On TrueHD/DTS-HDMA bad sectors are much less of a problem because they would either be able to be corrected w/ error correction or you would get a dropout. A dropout is a lot easier to detect in QA than a few snap/crackle/pops as would be the case with PCM. Again, PCM is widely supported in hardware.

"Which sounds best" really depends on your definition of "best," and you must remember you are only comparing the typical mastering/mixing process prior to encoding in each codec, not the actual codec itself since all the codecs output the same thing. Some people feel they should get the theatrical master, period - attenuated for home levels and no other changes. That is not a bad viewpoint but one must consider that the acoustics of the home environment are far different than a theater.

A better question for what you are trying to ask would be, "whose typical pre-encoding mixing/mastering process do you prefer?"

But, if you were to ask me in terms of codeec which I think is the best, I would go with Dolby TrueHD. All three codecs sound exactly the same (mathematically identical output), so asking which sounds best is not useful. However, Dolby TrueHD takes much less processing power than DTS-HDMA and as a result has far superior support in hardware. And, it is much more efficient than PCM while retaining mathematically identical sound input.

So, given an identical mastering & mixing job with no pre-encoding EQ applied, TrueHD would be my choice since it offers mathematically identical sound quality (exact same output bits) to the other two options while using much less processing power than DTS-HDMA and much less space/bandwidth than PCM.

[ganthc]

I would have to say that so far DTS has been very impressive. I liked even the lossy tracks that were produced from the DTS-core. But I am also basing this on movies that tend to have more aggressive soundtracks. That said, I was one that felt that DTS tracks sounded better on dvd. So who knows.

[Shadowman82]

Since I don't own any HD releases I can't really give any opinions myself . I think if several different tracks were provided on a single disc I'd probably choose the dts-hdma track out of force of habit . lol

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by Shadowman82

Since I don't own any HD releases I can't really give any opinions myself . I think if several different tracks were provided on a single disc I'd probably choose the dts-hdma track out of force of habit . lol

That's probably your best bet since DTS seems to have the most talented mixers/mastering team and seems to know the best how to make something sound best in the home environment based on how good their soundtracks turn out.

[Derb]

dts usually sounded better than dolby with regard to dvds because of CVB bitrate being higher. Each channel has more presence & each channel's db is mixed real well. So if you decide to crank up the volume, the center channel isn't the only one which gets effected for example.

Top Gun will be interesting to compare because I found the dts lossy 1.5 enhanced track superior to the 1.5 dolby track & lossless TrueHD track.

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by Derb

Top Gun will be interesting to compare because I found the dts lossy 1.5 enhanced track superior to the 1.5 dolby track & lossless TrueHD track.

Again, not a codec thing but instead due to DTS' fantastic mastering/mixing team compared to the typical studio/authoring house mixing teams.

I would pick DTS soundtrack most times for that reason myself, but in terms of codecs I think TrueHD is technically the best. But with TrueHD you don't get the talented DTS team mixing/mastering prior to encode, so DTS ends up sounding better regardless.

[ganthc]

I will say that Dolby TrueHD has had some impressive tracks as well. I think Twister had a lean bit rate, but sounded fantastic. There have been quite a few others. Knowing that TrueHD and DTS-HDMA sound as good as LPCM, helps me be okay that the uncompressed lossless audio as an option going the way of the dinosaurs is okay.

But yeah, DTS tracks have been amazing. Die Hard 4 is one of the top ones that come to mind.

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by ganthc

But yeah, DTS tracks have been amazing. Die Hard 4 is one of the top ones that come to mind.

Too bad there is no unrated version on BD

Although I think TrueHD is a better codec than DTS-HDMA for BD since it is leaner and has more support with the same output quality as DTS-HDMA, I have to give credit to DTS for their codec (in addition to their superb mixing/mastering team). The DTS-HD, DTS-HDMA, etc, codecs are all part of the original DTS Coherent Acoustics codec that launched way back when on DVD. The full codec capabilities have simply been fleshed out on Blu-ray since DVD did not have the space/bandwidth to accomodate them. TrueHD, on the other hand, is Meridian's creation and was purchased by Dolby to compete with DTS-HDMA, it is not a part of Dolby Digital...

I picked DTS soundtracks on DVD for their superior sound, and I will continue to do so on Blu-ray with DTS-HDMA. DTS' mixing/mastering team simply can't be beat.

[umainebearman]

Originally Posted by Shadowman82

Since I don't own any HD releases I can't really give any opinions myself . I think if several different tracks were provided on a single disc I'd probably choose the dts-hdma track out of force of habit . lol

I'm the same way. If there's a DTS track on a disk I always choose that one over the DD one.