Do Blu-ray movies have lossy audio (digital noise reduction) compared to DVD movies? Or is it better than DVD?
Author: admin Category: Noise Reduction
For the first question, I certainly hope not.
The best audio DVD supports is Dolby Digital 5.1 or DTS and both of these are lossy audio formats.
Blu-Ray also support Dolby Digital 5.1 (lossy), but the Blu-Ray format also adds three new lossless (HD audio) formats: Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD Master Audio (MA). These formats support 7.1 surround sound, which can generally be configured so that the lossless audio is sent to 5.1 recievers as well.
Now comes the tricky part: Getting this to work with your setup… If your DVD player is connected to your audio receiver by optical (aka TOSLINK) then you will not get the benefit of lossless audio or 7.1 surround. The manufactures have made it so these loss less formats are copy protected and only transmit through HDMI.
But wait, there’s more confusion (sorry I didn’t create these rules), some Blu-Ray players have HD audio decoding built in (you can always tell because these are the Blu-Ray players with many RCA type audio outputs on the back). If you’ve been wondering why some Blu-Ray players cost hundreds more than others, this is one of the features typically not found on the lower cost Blu-Ray players… If the Blu-Ray player can decode the audio and sent it to the receiver via RCA, then you just have to use RCA cables to hook up the Blu-Ray player to your stereo (assuming your stereo has pass-through RCA inputs for each channel, not all do).
Also I wanted to point out that even when comparing lossy audio, Blu-Ray’s sound quality is better. Comparing Lossy Dolby Digital 5.1: Blu-Ray supports up to 640 kbit/s while all DVD players will only support 448 kbit/s. So you get superior audio quality on Blu-Ray even if you don’t have an audio receiver that supports HDMI/7.1 lossless.
Why is all of this so complicated? That’s a good question, but it keeps the home theater installers in business I suppose.
August 7th, 2009
The best audio DVD supports is Dolby Digital 5.1 or DTS and both of these are lossy audio formats.
Blu-Ray also support Dolby Digital 5.1 (lossy), but the Blu-Ray format also adds three new lossless (HD audio) formats: Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD Master Audio (MA). These formats support 7.1 surround sound, which can generally be configured so that the lossless audio is sent to 5.1 recievers as well.
Now comes the tricky part: Getting this to work with your setup… If your DVD player is connected to your audio receiver by optical (aka TOSLINK) then you will not get the benefit of lossless audio or 7.1 surround. The manufactures have made it so these loss less formats are copy protected and only transmit through HDMI.
But wait, there’s more confusion (sorry I didn’t create these rules), some Blu-Ray players have HD audio decoding built in (you can always tell because these are the Blu-Ray players with many RCA type audio outputs on the back). If you’ve been wondering why some Blu-Ray players cost hundreds more than others, this is one of the features typically not found on the lower cost Blu-Ray players… If the Blu-Ray player can decode the audio and sent it to the receiver via RCA, then you just have to use RCA cables to hook up the Blu-Ray player to your stereo (assuming your stereo has pass-through RCA inputs for each channel, not all do).
Also I wanted to point out that even when comparing lossy audio, Blu-Ray’s sound quality is better. Comparing Lossy Dolby Digital 5.1: Blu-Ray supports up to 640 kbit/s while all DVD players will only support 448 kbit/s. So you get superior audio quality on Blu-Ray even if you don’t have an audio receiver that supports HDMI/7.1 lossless.
Why is all of this so complicated? That’s a good question, but it keeps the home theater installers in business I suppose.
References :
Good ref article:
http://forum.ecoustics.com/bbs/messages/34579/464956.html