Microsoft to improve HD DVD addon audio; patch to make it similar to HD-A1 optical.

[Ruined]

Didn't see this posted, a helpful heads up for those who have the 360 HD DVD addon.

On AVSFORUM it has been confirmed by Amir himself that Microsoft's next firmware update for the HD DVD Addon will transcode the DD+/DDTHD sound to DTS (instead of DD), making the 360's digital output sound even better and just as good as the Toshiba HD-A1 standalone's coax/optical which no one ever had any complaints about. Way to make an awesome product even better!

http://avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9001981&&#post9001981

 

[22psi]

Way to go MS. I am impressed when companies stand behind their products.

 

[jamesnmandy]

i have been planning on buying one of these myself, and now to be able to have DTS audio with it as well, well.....i prefer DTS over DD anyday of the week, so i say bring it on !!

 

[Farid]

Keep on topic, folks.

And the topic has nothing to do with discussing about the role of some MS employes on forums, as much as it has little to do with the supposed hidden agenda other members have according to you.

 

[rabidrabbit]

What's the advantage of converting from Dolby Digital to dts instead of Dolby Digital to Dolby Digital?
In DVD's, the dts track is usually better, because it's at higher bitrate and usually being a different mix makes it sound different to DD at least.
There are DVD's though, where the dts track is there just for marketing purposes, and the dts track has just been directly converted from the Dolby Digital track making it inferior to the "original".
In HD-DVD, is there a similar cap for DD tracks, where the bitrate is lower than dts?

 

[Ventresca]

What's the advantage of converting from Dolby Digital to dts instead of Dolby Digital to Dolby Digital?
In DVD's, the dts track is usually better, because it's at higher bitrate and usually being a different mix makes it sound different to DD at least.
There are DVD's though, where the dts track is there just for marketing purposes, and the dts track has just been directly converted from the Dolby Digital track making it inferior to the "original".
In HD-DVD, is there a similar cap for DD tracks, where the bitrate is lower than dts?

Well lets my clarify some things here

Usually then a movie enter in audio post production stage, the 5.1 mix from protools is stored on da88/98 or also called DTRS, those are digital audio tapes with up to 8 channel of uncompressed digital audio.

Every time you need to make the encoding of the audio for the dvd as DD or DTS you use the mix stored in the Da98 tape as source, you use it for the dolby digital encoding, and you use it for the DTS encoding, it would never happen that someone would use the alredy dolby digital encoded audio , and transcode it to DTS, unless you are crazy lol.

 

[aaaaa00]

HD DVD players are expected to decode the audio on the disc internally, in order to mix any sounds that the HDi apps or menus play into the output audio.

A player can output this decoded and mixed audio directly via HDMI or analog outputs. Unfortunately at the present time, the 360 has neither 5 analog outputs nor HDMI.

The other option is to output via optical/coax. To do this, you must re-encode the decoded and mixed audio into some other output format for transport, because optical/coax do not have the bandwidth for a full 5.1 uncompressed audio stream.

So the HD-A1 uses DTS at its max bitrate for the output codec when in optical/coax mode while the 360 currently uses Dolby Digital.

So it's quite possible that switching the 360 over to DTS will make a difference and improve the quality of the audio.

 

[DeathKnight]

because optical/coax do not have the bandwidth for a full 5.1 uncompressed audio stream.

They don't have the bandwidth in spec. Obviously the cables themselves can carry a bandwidth that far exceeds what's needed for uncompressed audio (at least fiber can).

 

[mrcorbo]

HD DVD players are expected to decode the audio on the disc internally, in order to mix any sounds that the HDi apps or menus play into the output audio.

A player can output this decoded and mixed audio directly via HDMI or analog outputs. Unfortunately at the present time, the 360 has neither 5 analog outputs nor HDMI.

The other option is to output via optical/coax. To do this, you must re-encode the decoded and mixed audio into some other output format for transport, because optical/coax do not have the bandwidth for a full 5.1 uncompressed audio stream.

So the HD-A1 uses DTS at its max bitrate for the output codec when in optical/coax mode while the 360 currently uses Dolby Digital.

So it's quite possible that switching the 360 over to DTS will make a difference and improve the quality of the audio.

Yeah, unless there is a massive difference in the compression efficiency of DD vs DTS than DTS at its maximum bitrate of 1.5 Mbps should sound better than DD at its maximum of 640 Kbps. Until/if there is a solution for HDMI, this is as good as it gets for 360 HD DVD playback sound quality.

 

[aaaaa00]

They don't have the bandwidth in spec. Obviously the cables themselves can carry a bandwidth that far exceeds what's needed for uncompressed audio (at least fiber can).

True.

To be clear, you could cram a gigabit/s over a coax or fibre cable, but if the other side is expecting a particular signal at a particular bandwidth, you're still screwed.

 

[Tap In]

looking forward to checking this out