The DD+ through the six channel analog is a significant jump in quality from full bitstream DTS and I believe its double the bitrate of DTS over the digital connection. The player converts the DD+ to analog and sends it to the receiver for output so you are getting the full DD+ quality. Of course the TrueHD and DTS-HD will be even bigger jumps in quality, but we will have to wait for equipment to support them to find out how much better sounding it is.

LPCM is essentialy the same thing as SACD. Uncompressed 5.1 analog sound. It technically should sound better than DD+, but TrueHD and DTS-HD are rumored to be 3 times better than even LPCM.

I personally think DD+ is a huge benefit for HD DVD because the sound is very high quality though lossy and it cuts down significantly on file size. Blu-ray not having support for it means that much of the size advantage of the 50GB discs is lost using LPCM and since they are stuck with 25GB for awhile Blu-ray has a real disc space problem for these early discs. The LPCM if used will cut into the quality of the video since they are also using MPEG2. I'm betting many early releases won't have LPCM at all meaning most users are limited to regular DD 5.1 and DTS that they are used to with DVDs. It will probably be a bit better than current DVDs, but not what you will hear with DD+.

Again you aquate Blu-Ray with Sony. Sony is just one of several Blu-Ray supporting studios. Sony will not be all or even close to the majority of Blu-Ray titles. Blu-Ray supports the same sound standard as HD-DVD in the spec and at least all Blu-Ray players support Dolby Plus.

Really? Sony's player can only take the standard DD stream out of the DD+ track. That is not the same as the Toshiba which can decode and output the full DD+ track. So either Sony's player does not fully support DD+ or they need to fix their specs at the Sony website. The Pioneer and Samsung have listings too vague to tell if they decode DD+.

BTW, the fact the Sony player supports LPCM, but is not compatible with SACD is complete bullcrap. Freaking Sony.

Can you link it. Sony says there player can output DobyTrueHD and DTS-HD (which Toshibas can't do) now if it can handle those it can definutly handle the much lower dolby plus.

I am not sure about Samsung or Pieoneers. They both output full Dolby Plus but I am not sure how they will handle the high definition sound formats.

From http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTE..._bluraydiscsub

Dolby Digital Plus is mandatory for the HD DVD format but optional for Blu-ray so not all players will be able to decode it, but all will be able to extract the core 5.1 stream. The only advanced codec the Sony player can handle is LPCM. With the others it will only extract the 5.1 core giving you nothing more than a bit better DVD sound. This is definitely a limitation for the first generation of Blu-ray. I'm sure by the time the second generation comes around HDMI 1.3 (or higher) will be finalized and all the players will be able to send the full HD audio to a receiver that by then will also be compatible.

Definitely some bumps in the road for the first gen for both HD formats.

I am sure you are misinterpreting the information. Sony is not going to allow HD-DVD to have superior sound quality. Even if Sony was ever planning on doing otherwise they will not allow HD-DVD to sound better that would be market suicide. This player isn't comin till mid-August more then enough time for Sony to change.

I am a little curious as to how Pioneer and Samsung sound. Those players a pretty much finalized for a June 25 release date.

Well it should be noted in Blu-ray's defense that it can carry the DD bitstream at 640kbps compared to the 448kbps of DVD and the 504kbps of HD DVD. That is probably the reason HD DVD made it mandatory for all players to decode DDplus and Blu-ray made it optional.

Also due to the structures of the discs DDplus on HD DVD has a maximum bitrate of 3Mbps, but can be pushed as high as 4.7Mbps on Blu-ray if they add more channels than 8.

So from a pure technical standpoint Blu-ray has the superior potential, but the first generation won't be a place to enjoy it for at least Sony's debut player.

Thank you for the information darkside. This stuff is starting to make some sense to me now.

I am kind of bummed that first gen BD players don't appear to be using a better and more efficient analog sound option. I have no plans to upgrade my otherwise excellent receiver even when HDMI 1.3 does become available.

At least LPCM space won't be as much of an issue when Sony dumps MPEG2 for the advanced video codecs. I hope and expect that the other studios making Blu-ray Discs will use VC-1, or its equivalent, AND include an LPCM audio option.

Those user reports about DD+ analog on Toshiba's A1 have me much more interested in the HD-DVD format than I was before. Wish they had more studio support; damn format war!

Should be interesting to see what shakes out over the next few months.

Actually, it does. Sony is the only company providing Blu-Ray authoring tools to the other Blu-Ray supporting studios, and the only authoring tools they're currently offering are for MPEG2. Thus, even if another studio wants to use VC-1, they can't until Sony gets their act together.

Not true at all. Phoney as a three dollar bill. The Blu-Ray spec has MPEG-4, and VC-1 right there. Warner said specifically that all Warner Blu-Ray releases will use VC-1. When asked why support both formats they said why not support both formats since once a movie is mastered in HD-DVD it can be transfered to Blu-Ray almost cost free. There will be no difference in quality or method of encoding. Fox has said they are leaning towards MPEG-4 for the first Blu-Ray releases which is pretty similar to VC-1. Whether Sony releases in MPEG-2 or not is totally absolutly positively irrelevent to what other studios do.

Nope. What the spec offers is irrelevant if the initial set of authoring software doesn't support it.

Studios make there own authoring software. What Sony does is irrelevent. I am sure most if not all non-Sony studios will offer there first Blu-Ray titles in advanced codecs.

Josh Z was right. Eventually Blu-Ray will probably use Microsoft's VC-1, but for now the Sony software that all studios will use is MPEG-2.

http://www.cnet.com.au/hometheatre/d...0058671,00.htm

It says plain as day there that Fox will use MPEG-4 not MPEG-2. It also mentions whether other studios will follow Sonys lead meaning that what Sony encodes its movies in is its own descign and does not effect the encoding of any other studio whatsoever.

That article was speculation written six months ago. I have no doubt that the studios will eventually use compression schemes other than MPEG-2. But not today.

Why does every Blu-Ray disc we have release information for use MPEG-2 compression? No disc announced uses any other compression. Why is that?

Cause only Sony has announced those details thats why. Sony is using MPEG-2 I have never disputed that. I am disputing the idea that Sony is forcing other studios to release in MPEG-2. Not one studio have ever publicly complained about Blu-Ray lacking advanced codecs. Not even Warner who are huge supporters of VC-1. Seems suspicious that Sony could really do such a thing without any complaint.

The studios haven't issued any formal statements, but the people actually authoring the discs have been complaining plenty.

Blu-Ray = 25GB discs, MPEG-2, old audio formats... so this is supposed to be a superior HD format huh.

Wow....sony fanboyism at its finest.

He has the info from Sony's website, but still doesnt buy it.

Got a link? I have been following this war fairly closly and I have not heard a peap from any other studio. Sony is extremly stupid for using MPEG-2 but they can't and won't force other studios to follow this stupid lead.

No, they don't. If they did, companies like Sonic Solutions wouldn't bother with authoring software like Scenarist 4.

As for a link, here's one post from AVS; I'm sure other people can post to more relevant posts, but I'm on my way out the door and can't dig up anything more substantial right now.

Thats interesting...I wonder if this is why Warner titles arent available for pre-order yet or if they just didn't want to detract from the hd-dvd titles. If the former, then this could delay the BD titles for Warner.

Still looking for concrete evidence here, darkside. Some fans' thoughts that TrueHD is 3 times better than 24/96 PCM is hardly solid. Esp since it claims the same rates. I wonder if these people have actually listened to high-end DVD-Audio, not just the 24/48 cheap stuff that the mainstream studios threw out.

The parallels to video are striking. DD+ is an evolution of DD in the same way MPEG4 is an evolution of MPEG2. And the new audio systems, via HDMI or possibly Firewire digital interfaces, allow for far greater bandwidth than before, in the same way that new satellites and technology have increased the bandwidth available for TV signals. (except terrestrial TV) It allows for more channels and higher bitrates in the same bandwidth with better compression. Plus, the new audio systems allow for greater bandwidth. So while it is capable of better sound, it could be even more compressed than DD, depending on authoring.

Don't get me wrong, I am not knocking this technology. I desperately want real 7.1 recordings at my house and DD+ and the lossless formats are perfectly fine. Esp the lossless is what I want, I would love some DTS-HD audio discs. But some of the claims around here are bordering on ludicrous.

I'm not sure how much we can read into that. We only had a few days leadtime to pre-order Goodfellas and Swordfish on HD-DVD, for example, and if the studios keep their Blu-ray cards as closely to their chests as they have with HD-DVD, we might not get a lot of release information from the studios in general until much, much closer to launch. We still haven't heard from Fox or Disney either, I believe.

I agree. I keep reading stuff about it being 2-3 times better sounding, but I have no idea on what this is being based or how good the equipment will have to be to bring out the enhanced sound. I'm really happy with DDplus and will enjoy that for now. Hopefully some equipment will materialize soon so I can go and actually listen to the HD sound somewhere.