After having done some research through various websites and venues, I'm left with one question: Is there currently a Blu-Ray player on the market that is capable of handling DTS-HD Master and Dolby TrueHD? I am aware of the firmware update for Sony's player that allows for TrueHD, but in the disc reviews I've read, as well as the technical specs on pretty much every website I've visited, I've seen nothing that would indicate that DTS-HD master is capable of being handled by any player on the market. Anyone have any info to the contrary? It would be appreciated. Thanks!

I believe the Panasonic can handle both, although it may only be DTS-HD, not the MA variation.

There are no Blu-ray or HD DVD players that can decode the full lossless DTS-HD Master Audio extension. The Panasonic player only decodes the DTS-HD "core".

What is the DTS-HD (DTS-HD High Resolution Audio) "core"? Is it any different from the DTS-HD MA (DTS HD Master Audio) "core", which all players can decode? Isn't the core for both of these DTS Digital Surround (1.5 mbps)?

Chris Walker at Pioneer said in an AVS Forum thread that the decoding of DTS-HD MA was too intensive for the existing BD player chip sets. It appears that fully resolving DTS-HD High Resolution Audio and DTS-HD Master Audio will reside on the receiver-side in the short-term, as every HDMI 1.3 BD and HD DVD player I have heard of only has plans to past the bitstream at this point.

By the way there is a similar firmware update for the Pioneer Elite BDP-HD1 that allows for the decoding of DD+ and TrueHD. The Pioneer Elite BDP-94HD comes with this ability out-of-the-box.

I really have to wonder why anyone is supporting MA. Stick with TrueHD or just give us uncompressed PCM.

No one is supporting MA, I think that's the problem that is being discussed here from time to time. And TrueHD and uncompressed PCM are virtually identical, other than the words on the box.

Paul,
MA is lossless, the other DTS-HD is compressed.

^Yes, I understand that MA is lossless and HD is lossy, but with respect to their 'cores' are they both DTS Digital Surround (1.5mbps)?

Yes. For compatibility with older DTS systems.

This statement should be repeated over and over again because there are some really ridiculous explanations being made here and eslewhere.

Pro-B

The new DTS-HD formats are like an artichoke. There's a central core surrounded by layers of extensions around it.

The "core" is always standard old-fashioned DTS, just like on DVD. Beyond this you can add a High-Resolution extension, which gives you a higher bit rate version of DTS, and beyond that the full Master Audio extension, which makes the track lossless.

Currently, all players from both formats extract only the core from an MA track.

Josh,

OK. Thanks for the analogy that helps a lot.

So, then if "all players from both formats extract only the core from an MA track", then all players should also be able to extract the core from a DTS-HD (High Resolution) track. You had indicated that only the Panasonic could decode the DTS-HD core, which we've established is good-old DTS Digitial Surround. Did you mean that the Panasonic (which one by the way) can fully decode DTS-HD?

Well, it's complicated. As I understand it, if a disc is authored as DTS-HD MA, the player only extracts the central DTS core. However, if the disc is specifically authored as DTS-HD HR, the Panasonic and I believe PS3 can decode that whole thing. As far as I know, there haven't been any discs authored as DTS-HD HR, probably because the studios are just as confused about all this stuff as we are.

It sure is complicated and confusing. OK, so I have one more question if you don't mind. The Basic Instinct BD says it has DTS HD Audio is that not DTS-HD High Resolution? I believe there are only the two flavor of DTS-HD (HR and MA), and I would've thought that they'd have specified if it were MA.

If it doesn't specify that it's MA, then it is HR.

You know, I'm going to admit my own confusion here, but I think there are actually 3 DTS-HDs.

DTS-HD - Just a rebranding of standard DTS.
DTS-HD HR - A higher bit rate version.
DTS-HD MA - Lossless.

I think that if it doesn't actually say HR, it's not safe to assume that it is.

Edit: Maybe I'm wrong. This chart seems to imply that they've done away with plain "DTS-HD" in favor of just HR or MA.

http://www.dtsonline.com/dts-hd/dts-...-and-hddvd.php

What doesn't help anything is that DTS has changed their nomenclature several times since introducing these formats, so even the studios don't know what to encode or label their discs as.

What that Basic Instinct disc is, I have no idea. I doubt if I asked anyone at Lionsgate that they would know either.

Another edit: I was previously just looking at the top of that disc back cover, where it says "DTS HD", but I see now that it also specifically has a "DTS-HD High Resolution" logo at the bottom. Ugh, this stuff makes my head spin.

This is the real problem. There is no way, even for experts, to understand DTS-[insert new codec name here]. And it is nobody's fault except DTS's. I mean, you really have to NAME your flippin' technology. This means any disc that comes out right now has the chance to be mislabelled once it is all sorted out. There's just no way to be sure it is what you want.

I think Josh is correct. There are 3 types of DTS HD audio.

Actually we are just down to two, DTS-HD Master Audio and DTS-HD High Resolution. DTS-HD MA is lossless at a variable up to 24.5 Mbps for BD and 18 Mbps for HD-DVD. DTS-HD HR is still lossy at a constant bit rate with up to 6 Mbps for BD and 3 Mbps for HD-DVD. Just wait till the fun of channel counts and sampling frequency get into the mix.