TruHD

My opinion is frankly don't bother going there yet.

Neither format has gained any real traction in the market, and the software isn't available yet.

There are the design specs that the HD audio formats can be produced to ....but that doesn't mean they are. Current hardware cannot necc. play the HD tracks - even if they were available.

In the meantime a lot of visual harware labelled as HD capable isn't really.

I think the whole thing is a moving mess, and it is the early adopters who will get stung.

Personally I'm going to wait for a while - and carry on tracking down DVDs with PCM soundtracks!

M

My understanding, which may not actually be that good as I am still trying to get my head around it all, is that at the moment, I see TrueHD on HD-DVD's and mostly Uncompressed PCM on Bluray's (presumably as they have bags more space) although Kingdom of Heaven has DTS-HD. TrueHD found on most HD-DVD's and I think DTS-HD is loss-less compressed PCM, aka the same Medirian type stuff or simular to what you get on DVD-A.

Once you have PCM in uncompressed format either native of the disk or after decoding a compressed PCM, it can just be fed into an amp that can accept it at the frequency it's being fed at. The PS3 lists upto 192khz, but I think most disks have 96khz. On top of this though TrueHD and DTS-HD can be fed into an amp so that the amp can decode it rather than the DVD player, but no amps that I know of yet can do this, but Denon, Sony and a few others are doing them as it's nothing too complicated by all accounts.

The next big problem you are going to have though is these new audio formats because they carry much more information than 5.1/7.1 DD/DTS or 2 channel uncompressed PCM they need to be carried via HDMI rather than coax or optical. Because of this your amp is going to need a HDMI input that can accept audio. PCM can be carried over HDMI 1.1 into many amps on the market today. TrueHD and maybe DTS-HD need to use HDMI 1.3 of which there are currently none on the market.

The long and short of it is not many amps today can accept TrueHD or DTS-HD over HDMI 1.3 and decode them, but that doesn;t matter too much as many amps can already accept lossless PCM multichannel over HDMI 1.1. So if you have one of these HDMI 1.1 amps and want to listen to Blu-Rays with PCM it should work and Bob's your uncle. HD-DVD's with TrueHD or Blu-Rays with DTS-HD for the time being will need to be uncompressed within the DVD player or PS3 and passed to the amp as PCM which is no big problem so Fanny's your aunt too.

If you are still very nervous of dipping your toe in the water, I would have before hand said go for the old trusty amp with a multichannel 5.1/7.1 analogue input like the AV2 and many others, then as long as your DVD player can decode whatever current and new shiney-super-high-def-DTS-wizzbang audio you will be fine providing it can output it over analogue, but now many can't as even though they can decode TrueHD/DTS-HD to PCM they don't all have the analogue multi channel output sockets and instead may tend to only output uncompressed over HDMI as I guess it's cheaper to use just the one socket that they are already using for video anyway.

Anyone feel free to chip in and correct anything as I am not saying this is gospel, just what I understand over the past few weeks of hunting around.

simons pretty much nailed it , i use a toshiba ax1 into a meridian g68 the ax1 does the dd/hd decoding ( basicaly mlp im led to believe under a different name ) and the 68 accepts it via mc analogue . there is an audible difference between dd and dd/hd
i dont know of any player that does dts/hd at the mo

mr underhill i dont think anyone buying a hddvd player £400 or a bluray player £400 is going to get stung .
however someone buying a dvd player for £2000 + may well find out its second hand value has vastly dropped off
and before i get flamed i have all three
the software is out there and more appearing all the time . i think both formats will survive


neil

I too have all 3 in the form of SD-DVD on Naim n-Vi, Blu-Ray on PS3 and HD-DVD on XBox 360 and I feed them all through a DVDO VP50 as well as SKY-HD for that matter.

SD-DVD's the n-Vi is very much king for sure with no doubt there and just as good as my old DVD5 was I'd say for sure. Also since I feed it into the VP50 I can get a 576i feed from the n-Vi over DVI which is as good as it will get with this machine and I then feed it into my plasma at 48hz which is great (very smooth) especially with US DVD's.

HD-DVD's from my XBox are pretty cool, but I think the XBox 360 I have and it's component link, which can onlu output 1080i analogue, is a bit of a limiting factor here and so I'd like to get a standalone player that can output 1080p instead, but do not want to spend a fortune yet, maybe £300-400 etc.

Blu-Ray from the PS3 is just amazing, especially for the money of the PS3 box. I feed the picture out at 1080p over HDMI into the VP50 and the picture never fails to blow me away.

The thing with both HD-DVD and Blue-Ray is that the quality difference with HD-DVDs/Blu-Rays is much better and it is very much visable even to my girlfriend!! )

I know people say there is a format war going on and they don't want to dip their toe in the water, but for me with video, just as with audio, I want to get the best I can for my money. As Neil said it's maybe a bit too early to go spending thousands of pounds on a player but £300-400 is not that bad really, when you put it into context of what I and others are prepared to spend on audio. There are over 300 HD-DVD's and 300 Blu-Ray discs out there so I'd advise just giving them a go if you fancy it.

If had to plump for one just now it would be Blu-Ray but who knows what will win and in the mean time I will be buying both.

I currently run them all into a Panasonic TH42PH8 plasma panel and this can clearly show the difference between SD-DVD/HD-DVD & Blu-Ray, the difference is night and day with some quality source films. I plan to buy a Full HD 1080p projector soon (JVC, Sony or Panasonic I think) so these HD formats will be ideal for that.

My amp is just a naim 140. I do not need surround sound. I like two channel just fine.

So to clarify some of these responses- if I got a PS3 and connected the analog outs to my preamp, am I listening to the hidef soundtrack (assuming there is one on the disk in question) or am I listening to the low res sound? Or is this not even a correct way of looking at it?

BTW- Simon J- I just got the panasonic project you mention. It is amazing compared to the sony hs20 it replaced. Black levels and extra pixels make all the difference.

quote:

SD-DVD's the n-Vi is very much king for sure with no doubt there and just as good as my old DVD5 was I'd say for sure.........

HD-DVD's from my XBox are pretty cool, but .........I'd like to get a standalone player that can output 1080p instead........

Blu-Ray from the PS3 is just amazing........... and the picture never fails to blow me away.

The thing with both HD-DVD and Blue-Ray is that the quality difference with HD-DVDs/Blu-Rays is much better and it is very much visable even to my girlfriend!!

Simon, your report is very helpful. I have focused what you said by cutting out a few words - I don't think this changes the context. Just to be clear, I wondered if you could rank your perception of picture quality in descending order (best first)

I presume that you are saying that:-
Blu Ray HD on your PS3 is best
HD DVD on your XBox is second best
SD on your n-Vi is last (but just as good as your DVD5)

I presume that
SD on your n-Vi is the best SD
SD on your PS3 and XBox isn't very good

You haven't made any observation about the sound quality on any of your systems, are you able to provide guidance on sound quality?

As I said,-nice report-I just don't want to draw wrong conclusions

Cheers

Don

Sound quality for Simon will be limited to either 2 channel uncompressed PCM (very nice sounding by the way) which DPL II can be applied to OR legacy DD and DTS audio formats via both the PS3 and the Xbox 360 since the n-Vi lacks HDMI audio processing and must rely on optical connection (Xbox lacks the ability to output 2 channel PCM from what I recall and both machines lack 5.1 audio outputs which is just as well since the n-Vi lacks 5.1 analog inputs!).

In my experience, both Blu-ray and HD DVD CAN look fabulous provided the transfer is great and the distance to screen / screen size ratio allows you to enjoy the added resolution. I have a 42" Panasonic plasma but sit 15' away and to be honest, the pic quality from my Arcam DV89 is almost equally impressive. I know that in reality, it is not, but when I pop a sd dvd in my player, I never feel that the pic is inferior.

In terms of SD DVD playback, I would rank my Arcam DVD first, my Toshiba HD-A1 second and my PS3 a distant third.

For sound quality, I would rate my Toshiba HD-A1 first with HD DVDs, even though I am only using the SPDIF connection, as all soundtracks are converted and output as 1.5 mbps DTS, which simply sounds fantastic. Next up would be the PS3 via 2 channel uncompressed audio with DPL II applied (only hooked up via optical connection as HDMI audio processing is not available). Lastly would be my Arcam simply because it is limited to the lower bitrate soundtracks found on traditional SD DVDs. To be honest though, in my setup, ALL movies sound damn good no matter what machine I use, its just that some soundtracks sound better than others.

simon get the hd1

neil

Hmm, decisions decisions, a recent magazine review rated Panasonic better than the JVC, but I don’t really hold much faith in that review as everything else I have found out between the two rates the JVC head and shoulders above the Panasonic. What is in the Panasonics favour though is that it is probably only 10% behind the JVC in term of performance but can be had for a lot less money, like 50% of the cost if you shop around carefully. I think side by side not taking into account the cash as they are not miles apart RRP, the JVC is better, but bang for buck you probably can’t go wrong with the Panasonic either. The Sony is somewhere in between so neither the best performance wise or bang for buck.

Hi Don,

Yes picture wise with my three players if I had to rate them side by side I say :-

9/10 - Blu Ray on the PS3
8/10 - HD-DVD on XBox
7.5/10 - SD-DVD on n-Vi

Sound wise, as markusp said, I only feed DD or DTS from my BluRay/HD-DVD at present as my n-Vi cannot accept anything else.

SD-DVD wise, both PS3 and XBOX didn't look as good as the n-Vi so I have never really done any proper testing.

Simon,

Many thanks. I'm sure many others found your report helpful as well as me.

Cheers

Don

Simon / Neil,

I hope your early investment pays off.

I know that when DVD-A/SACD arrived I experimented with both - to see them whither & die over a two year period.

I accept that the situation with HD is more complex.

I decided to buy the DVD5 when it came out & sit this one out. In the meantime I have learned to burn my own DVD-As - and the DVD5 via the Benchmark DAC1 is a great CD player - so I am happy with my SD-DVD investment.

Please keep the reports coming - especially with any chance you get to listen to the HD audio formats.

I was impressed with the progress made by DVD-A / SACD in such a small period of time. Hopefully the mantle with be passed on.

M