anyone else feel this way? I'm starting to feel like I'm really being ripped off.

I just want a player that will simply play what's on the discs, advanced content, DTS MA and all.....

the format war is bad enough, are they intentionally witholding features on these units or what? I understand the upgrade game, but this is a little too much imo

It took DVD players years to support DTS, so nothing new here at all.

I have to tell you..I am a huge audio guy and have spent years tweaking my system for the ideal audio and reference playback. Unlike years ago, Dolby has caught DTS in terms audio quality. DTS was important at the time (particularly in LD and DVD up until a couple of years ago). The early DTS soundtracks were dramatically better and more enveloping than DD. Now, mind you the first big DTS releases on LD like Jurrasic Park / The Shadow / Casper had hot bass levles but they toned them down( eventually). Many felt that was the advantage DTS had accomplished over DD (tweaking the bass and surround levels). And for some time, it was true. Yet after things were recorded at unvarnished, DTS still had a smoother sound than Dolby. Up until a few years ago, Dolby always a bit of a hard edge at higher levels and I would always select DTS. Today, Dolby is very good. I see no need for DTS MA as long as TRUE HD or Uncompressed PCM is available. So, I wouldn't worry too much about DTS MA coming to be. In my opinion, we don't need any DTS anymore.

Nope. True HD is very good.

bland...yeah, but some of these fox titles like Speed only have DTS-MA. There is no TrueHD or PCM option. And the way the players are now, we can only extract the core DTS at 1.5 max. Don't you want to be able to get lossless sound from a title like this? Or are you saying, Fox, you need to have more options other than DTS?

I hope Fox does change their strategy. While they're holding off on releasing movies on Blu-Ray, I wonder if they might also re-author the audio on their pending titles...

Greg

DTS is the HD DVD of this format war...they should just go away as Dolby is equally as good and far more pervasive. DTS is yesterday's news.

I thought that the PS3 would be able to decode DTS - MA by now. I have several BDs from FOX and would like to see and hear the movies at its finest. I just hope that PS3 gets an upgrade to allow this because I don't intend to buy a BD player just to allow decoding of DTS - MA.

frustrated by players not supporting DTS HD MA? um, maybe a little. not much.
frustrated by fox putting these tracks on discs when nothing can decode them and there's no advantage to the format over PCM or trueHD? YES!!!! stupid fox.

There isn't alot of 7.1 tracks either. It will come with time. To put a positive spin on it, much like DVD, the DTS tracks will be extra treats. If everything were that good, then it would just be ordinary:)

... much like DVD, the DTS tracks will be extra treats. If everything were that good, then it would just be ordinary

Extra how? Assuming players become available in the future that support it, the format doesn't offer anything that isn't available from PCM and TrueHD right now.

The launch of DTS-HD MA has been even worse than DTS CA on DVD (if that's even possible). No hardware support, very little software support, and the biggest supporter (Fox) going AWOL. On top of that, if/when decoders actually become available, the result won't be any better than TrueHD or LPCM anyway!

At least on DVD there was an argument to be made that it was technically better than what was already available from the competition (at least before the end of '99 when titles started to be issued with 754kbps DTS and the format lost any genuine claim of superiority). Frankly, on HD, DTS-HD MA is completely redundant.

I'm more pissed off that some jackass decided it was a good idea to prevent bitstreaming of codecs.

I feel scammed and ripped off! I have a PS3, and I had the Onkyo 605 receiver. Both HDMI 1.3. Who decided I can't send my audio bitstream to the receiver to play it?

anyone else feel this way? I'm starting to feel like I'm really being ripped off.

I just want a player that will simply play what's on the discs, advanced content, DTS MA and all.....

the format war is bad enough, are they intentionally witholding features on these units or what? I understand the upgrade game, but this is a little too much imo

if you have to have it. you can get it (since december '06) from a PC using PowerDVD and analog outs of a high quality sound card like x-meridian.

if you have to have it. you can get it (since december '06) from a PC using PowerDVD and analog outs of a high quality sound card like x-meridian.

PowerDVD does not support full DTS-MA decoding.

Matter of fact, the latest DTS-MA decoding demo done by DTS used a PC and was billed as a "future" development.

TrueHD & PCM should be the defacto standard for lossless. DTS-MA is too little, too late. Even if they got it to work it takes more CPU horsepower & more bandwidth.

even worse than DTS CA on DVD (if that's even possible).

What is DTS CA? Can't find anything about it on google.


Evan

It does seem odd that the PS3 doesn't allow bitstream of DTS HD MA over the HDMI 1.3 now that the receivers are coming out with decoders. I was waiting on upgrading my pre HDMI Pioneer Elite for one of the newer receivers, since I hope that the bitstream 1.3 will be implemented soon. Will it be cheaper (hardware or licenses) to have a player with 1.3 bitstream instead of internal decoding? If the licensing fee is higher for internal decoding I can see a small argument on buying a HDMI 1.3 receiver.

This all reminds me of the years that I had a Laser Disc player without an AC-3 decoder.

I'm more pissed off that some jackass decided it was a good idea to prevent bitstreaming of codecs.

I feel scammed and ripped off! I have a PS3, and I had the Onkyo 605 receiver. Both HDMI 1.3. Who decided I can't send my audio bitstream to the receiver to play it?


Sony, that's who. The HDMI chip in the PS3 is NOT CAPABLE of bitstream transfers. No firmware will rectify it. The fact that it is 1.3 does not matter; bitstream transfers are an OPTIONAL FEATURE of 1.3 and the PS3's HDMI chip doesn't have it.

Then there's the Advanced Authoring flag on the software side that prevents bitstream transfers even if the hardware can do it!

What is DTS CA? Can't find anything about it on google.

DTS Coherent Acoustics. Their name for their lossy home codec.

Just like Dolby Digital is AC-3 (Audio Codec 3).

It does seem odd that the PS3 doesn't allow bitstream of DTS HD MA over the HDMI 1.3 now that the receivers are coming out with decoders. I was waiting on upgrading my pre HDMI Pioneer Elite for one of the newer receivers, since I hope that the bitstream 1.3 will be implemented soon. Will it be cheaper (hardware or licenses) to have a player with 1.3 bitstream instead of internal decoding? If the licensing fee is higher for internal decoding I can see a small argument on buying a HDMI 1.3 receiver.

The PS3's revision of the output chip doesn't allow for output. However, DTS' inability to give Sony a proper software decoding algorithm is what's preventing the PS3 from decoding it and outputting it as multichannel PCM. The complexity of MA also prevents other chipsets from supporting it with similar firmware upgrades that were done for Dolby TrueHD. DTS was caught with their pants down when the Hi Definition formats launched and scrambled to match Dolby in announcing their lossless codec.

This all reminds me of the years that I had a Laser Disc player without an AC-3 decoder.

Well, except it was a mere couple months from the first LD titles (Clear and Present Danger, True Lies, Stargate) from LD players having a AC-3 RF output (Pioneer 704) and another few months or so until the decoders like the Yamaha DDP-1 came out.

Looks like DTS is FINALLY getting around to having someone produce DSP chips that can decode MA.

http://www.dtsonline.com/company/press/press-article.php?ID=1177391925&cID=1&yID=2007

The VeriSilicon ZSP G2 family of licensable processors features an eight-stage, four-way issue superscalar, dual/quad architecture to provide a high-performance, efficient solution that is capable of supporting a wide-range of demanding use-cases. The processors have already been adopted by multiple market leaders across a wide range of applications, including Blu-ray / HD DVD devices.

Who needs DTS? Dolby TrueHD and PCM are more then enough! :)

I am more frustrated with studios using it when there's no hardware that support it. Some of the smaller European distributors seem to like DTS-HD MA so there are quite a few interesting titles with only DTS MA.

I do however like DTS MA as it has one advantage on Blu-Ray over Dolby TrueHD, you don't need a "legacy" audio track on the disc also as with DTHD. So if DTS MA and DTHD are about equally efficient you are saving the space of a normal DD-track on disc. So if your player doesn't support DTS MA you at least get a 1.5 Mbps DTS core track but with DTHD you only get the normal DD-track.

I do however like DTS MA as it has one advantage on Blu-Ray over Dolby TrueHD, you don't need a "legacy" audio track on the disc also as with DTHD. So if DTS MA and DTHD are about equally efficient you are saving the space of a normal DD-track on disc. So if your player doesn't support DTS MA you at least get a 1.5 Mbps DTS core track but with DTHD you only get the normal DD-track.

That's why I like DTS-MA. I want one and only one track on my HD disks. The OAL (OAR and OAL are musts!) encoded with DTS-MA. It gives the best quality to everyone. 1.5mbps DTS over optical/analog and MA lossless over HDMI/analog are ideal for both sets of users. People are way too short-sighted on this issue IMO.

Conversely, every possible subtitle language should be on every disk.

That's the best use of the technology available IMO.

I do however like DTS MA as it has one advantage on Blu-Ray over Dolby TrueHD, you don't need a "legacy" audio track on the disc also as with DTHD. So if DTS MA and DTHD are about equally efficient you are saving the space of a normal DD-track on disc. So if your player doesn't support DTS MA you at least get a 1.5 Mbps DTS core track but with DTHD you only get the normal DD-track.

You're assuming though that TrueHD track + DD track > DTS-MA, which is not true.

DTS-MA is not as efficient as TrueHD/MLP and takes more space to compress, the same way RAR compresses more of a file than ZIP.

DTS tracks also have no meta data for night mode and other convenient options. Not everyone can watch a full range soundtrack 24/7.
Also many TVs accept AC-3 thru HDMI, and not DTS, so the widest range of consumers are NOT served by DTS.

Before someone brings up the dialog-norm argument, DTS added it to DTS-MA, because it's a feature the studios want. You have to remember for Dolby encodings, the studios do the encoding, not Dolby.

I'm more pissed off that some jackass decided it was a good idea to prevent bitstreaming of codecs.

I feel scammed and ripped off! I have a PS3, and I had the Onkyo 605 receiver. Both HDMI 1.3. Who decided I can't send my audio bitstream to the receiver to play it?

It will come. It's marketing my friend, just marketing :)

I want one and only one track on my HD disks.Why? If it was logistically easier for DTS to be stored as separate legacy and lossless tracks, why would you want "one and only one track" that relied on complicated multiplexing? Certainly turned out to be a poor choice in the real world.

Sanjay

You're assuming though that TrueHD track + DD track > DTS-MA, which is not true.

DTS-MA is not as efficient as TrueHD/MLP and takes more space to compress, the same way RAR compresses more of a file than ZIP.

Yes, I did assume that DTS MA and Dolby True HD would be about equally efficient so that adding a 640 kbps DD-track would require more space than just the DTS MA-track. I had no idea the difference was that big, thanks for the correction.

I'm still frustrated with lack of hw support though as there are quite a few titles with only DTS MA and it seems to be a popular codec with European distributors.

DTS tracks also have no meta data for night mode and other convenient options.


Convenient options that lower the sound quality? There is a very colorful discussion over in the 300 thread that claims the PCM sounds better than the Tru HD because of things like that. It sounds like the edge enhancement of audio...they should give us an option to just leave it off.

Walt

Convenient options that lower the sound quality? There is a very colorful discussion over in the 300 thread that claims the PCM sounds better than the Tru HD because of things like that. It sounds like the edge enhancement of audio...they should give us an option to just leave it off.

Walt

What Warner did with the DialNorm on 300 is not a reflection of the codec any more than a poor transfer is for the video codec.

If Warner had used DTS-MA they would have used the same DialNorm because it's there.

Not frustrated..
just waiting

Convenient options that lower the sound quality? There is a very colorful discussion over in the 300 thread that claims the PCM sounds better than the Tru HD because of things like that.

These kinds of arguments and opinions generally come from people who don't know, or don't want to accept, what these options actually do.