I was reading this article today about audio compressions and on page 2 it has a table that lists each method and a bitrate standard on it. It lists PCM as 1411kb/sec. So we know that Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA have bitrates higher than this.

Is 1411 kb/sec actually a standard for PCM? For current gen hi def players that decode and output PCM are they actually down rez'ing to this standard or can PCM actually go much higher?

I tried to find some info to help me understand this but couldn't find much. All I know to my ears TrueHD sounds better than DD+ so if a limit of 1411kb/sec is actually used than this doesn't make sense to me.

http://www.cepro.com/article/7_facts_audiophiles_need_to_know_about_digital_music/K301

That is the bit rate for audio CDs 1411 kbps. PCM can get extremely high data rates depending on sampling rate and bit depth. HD DVD and Blu-Ray use many more sound channels than CDs do.

PCM examples

2.0 16/44.1 Audio CD
1.411 mbps

5.1 16/48 On Blu-Ray movies
4.6 mbps

5.1 24/48 On Blu-Ray movies
6.9 mbps

7.1 24/48 A few Blu-Ray movies may have this
9.2 mbps

7.1 24/96 Haven't seen a Blu-Ray with this
18.4 mbps :eek:

It all depends on the number of channels, bit depth and sampling rate. CDs are 2 channel 16/44.1 so their bit rate is much lower than PCM found on Blu-Ray titles.

War BD has been announced with a 7.1 24bit/48khz track.

Chris Botti BD has a 5.1 24bit/96khz 13.8mbps track O.O

The Ultimate Avengers Collection on Blu-Ray has 7.1 PCM, but I don't know the other specs.

Don't forget good old 48khz, 16-bit stereo PCM at 1.536Mbit/s (1536000bit/s)