In Reply to: Linear PCM soundtrack compared to DTS-HD & Dolby TrueHD posted by jeromelang on January 8, 2007 at 21:41:01:
does anyone knows what sonic advantages dts-hd and dolby truehd will provide over lpcm?Neither has any sonic advantages over LPCM. When they are decoded, they are LPCM. The advantage that each has is in storage space. These new codecs are like zip files for computers. When they're "unzipped" (ie, decoded), they are exact copies of the original.
currently where do the linear pcm soundtracks on blu-ray movie discs derived from? from studio masters?
They are from the studio masters, but they may not be at the bit depth of the original. Most, but not all, of these LPCM soundtracks on BD are recorded as 16/48 rather than the 20/48 or 24/48 of the originals.
Whether it's on BD or HD DVD, it's a shame that the only studio truly taking advantage of these new codecs is FOX. All of their releases are DTS-HD MA (lossless at 24/48 or 20/48). It's not a space issue, as DTS-HD MA is losslessly compressed and actually uses just a bit more space than a 5.1 16/48 LPCM soundtrack. While there aren't any DTS-HD MA decoders in consumer equipment at this time (DTS said the PS3 will have this feature in March and Panasonic promises a firmware upgrade for their player), the core 1.5Mb/s DTS stream is able to be decoded by every BD player and nearly every surround receiver/processor on the market. After new hardware and firmware upgrades come out in a few months, FOX has given everyone who has purchased their titles today an instant upgrade in sound quality to a lossless soundtrack. And since FOX is handling the MGM/UA releases in the US, look for these titles to be DTS-HD MA as well.
As for the rest of the studios, they need to get their collective asses in gear. All of them.
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Follow Ups
- new codecs - Joe Murphy Jr 10:28:43 01/09/07 (3)
- some further questions please, - jeromelang 20:54:29 01/09/07 (2)
- some answers - Joe Murphy Jr 23:32:24 01/09/07 (1)
- Thanks for your nicely detailed answers - jeromelang 02:49:04 01/10/07 (0)