LG BH200: Mini-FAQ + Firmware Info (TrueHD 7.1, DTS-HD, 24p) + SD DVD Multiregion! - Page 19

The Denon AVR-4806 does not support the newer formats (TrueHD/DTS-HD...). I was upset since the moves mentioned in my preious post did NOT have a DD+ soundtrack and therefore I could only listen to them in stereo, not good.

With this latest SW update, I can now downconvert the TrueHD soundtrack on these movies and send them to my 4806 as a DTS 5.1 mix sent via HDMI.

Are you saying I should try a different option in the BH200 and send it to the 4806 via the SPDIF instead of the HDMI?

I have tried all the options for both HDMI and SPDIF from the BH200's setup menu and only DTS re-encode gives my Denon AVR-4806 a 5.1 signal which it can work with. All other options present a 2 chnl PCM signal to the Denon, at least that's what it shows on the front display of the 4806.

One interesting note, during the Sony logo at the very beginning and the couple of trailers which follow right after, The Denon shows it is getting a DD 5.1 input. The disc then goes to the main Menu (30 Days of Night).

HDMI should be able to support multi-channel, even in your older 4806. It seems odd that setting your BH200 to PCM Multi-Ch does not give you 5.1 sound.

Just a thought, do you have "HDMI/DVI IN Assign" properly set to "AMP" for the HDMI input the BH200 is connected to?

two days only at fotoconnection

go, go, go....

Better idea is to stay away from fotoconnection...

http://www.resellerratings.com/store/FotoConnection_1

http://www.complaintsboard.com/?search=fotoconnection

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/re...7&changemode=1

http://search.newyork.bbb.org/report...age=1&id=79450

Thanks, for the input.

I tried burning a CD (really about 6 of them) every which way to Sunday and could not get it to work. That was really frustrating as I was able to do the March update very easily.

I picked up a 8gb USB stick and it updated w/o problem.

Later

Yes :

http://www.putfile.com/pic/8024101?pos=email





No, the 4806 only sees it as a 2 chnl source.


Tried to insert an image which I have uploaded to "putfile", but the image doesn't appear. So I pasted the web link instead....

Have the same issue with my 4306 both in the "unofficial" and the new official firmware (have reported it earlyer several times in this tread and asked for it to be noted in first post (but no luck so far...) so that denon XX06 amp owners to know what they are (not) getting.) The LG gives only two LPCM channels on the denon, all other components I have tried (two toshiba HD-DVD players, one sony and one Panasonic BR player) gives multi channel LPCM just fine.

I think we are up for the next firmware oppgrade or using the LG as a rather expensive rack filler...

heja & rms8, have you checked in the 4806 and 4806ci threads to see if anyone else has a similar problem with another HDM player? It sounds like there is an HDMI handshake issue between the LG and the 4806 - there is a CI update for the 4806 which upgrades its LPCM HDMI capabilities which may have resolved this issue for others. The update is listed as costing $500 so its obviously not something everyone would want to do.

Have the latest firmware for 4306 and that makes it 7.1 capable for LPCM. Have not read of problems with other players in the xx06 denon treads yet. The LG is the only player that I have tried that gives the Denon problem (of the 4 i have tried). And yes it is probably a handshake issue but since other players handshake just fine with the Denon so the LG is the prime suspect for now :-)

If my 4806 recognizes the TrueHD audio as a DTS 5.1 signal when the LG is set to DTS re-endcode, do I really need to go to the trouble of trying to figure out why it only sees a 2 chnl source when the LG is set to PCM Multi Chnl?

I realize that the DTS re-encoded version of the TrueHD is a very dumbed down copy of the original, but it still sounds great. Is the PCM Multi Chnl any better than the DTS re-encode?

Thanks

The PCM Multi-Channel will theoretically be better than the DTS re-encode because it's sending out all the information contained in the TrueHD track and indeed on the studio master: that is, it's a lossless signal.

What you're asking is whether the pure lossless signal will sound better than the lossless signal re-encoded on the fly to DTS. I think that in many cases it would. It is entirely possible for a high-bitrate lossy encode to sound identical to the lossless master, but that would depend on the compression tools used. I don't know anything about how the BH200 achieves its DTS re-encode but I would guess that a generic real-time re-encode wouldn't be as efficient as one that was tailored to the specific master and might not sound as good.

If it already sounds great then that's great. I'd be interested to hear how it sounds compared to a DD or DD+ track over SPDIF (if that's possible)?

Everyone who has heard lossless vs lossy and knows which one they're listening to says that lossless is better. People who are asked to pick lossless from high-bitrate lossy in blind tests have a much harder time of it.

On paper, given a sufficiently high bitrate there should be no audible difference between lossy and lossless. This is because lossy codecs do their best to "lose" only those parts of the source that can't be heard by the human ear, either at all or given what else is going on in the source.

The question is how high a bitrate you need for the lossy track to be transparent to the master (ie no human can tell the difference). Again, on paper and given the right algorithms it has been argued reasonably persuasively that 1.5 mbps is more than enough.

If that's true, then the people who claim that lossless is better are either under some kind of placebo effect, or are responding to some difference in the tracks other than faithfulness to the master. Like just about everyone else, I think that lossless sounds better than lossy, but I'm more than willing to accept that I'm wrong and being lulled into a kind of euphoria every time my receiver lights up "DTS-HD MSTR".

^Wonderfully logical post, Peter. Psychoacoustic audio (smart compression that discards the bits outside the range of human hearing) has come such a long way in modern codecs, that lossy is nearly indiscernible from lossless (as low as 128 kbps on 2-channel audio) on most occasions. The marketing folk have really pulled a quick one on the public and it's a bit sad how so many have lapped it up without doing research of their own. Quality forum on the subject of psychoacoustics: www.hydrogenaudio.org (the wiki is also informative and well organized at http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org ).

And here are the results of a proper double blind 3-year-old lossy test at 128 kbps done almost 3 years ago (just try imagine the incremental improvements since that time): http://www.listening-tests.info/mf-128-1/results.htm

New Owner's manual posted on LG site:

New sound table is on page 36 with the following notes:


Notes:
*1 The secondary and interactive audios may not be included in the output bitstream if [SPDIF] or [HDMI]
option is set to [Primary Pass-Thru]. (Except LPCM Codec : the output always include interactive and
secondary audio.)
*2 This player automatically selects the HDMI audio according to the decoding capability of the connected
HDMI device if [HDMI] option is set to [Primary Pass-Thru].
*3 The [PCM Multi-CH]/[Primary Pass-Thru] setting of the [HDMI] option and [DTS re-encode] setting of the
[SPDIF] option cannot be set together. If you set the [HDMI] option to [PCM Multi-CH] or
[Primary Pass-Thru], the [SPDIF] option is set to [PCM Stereo] automatically. Also, if you set the [SPDIF]
option to [DTS Re-encode] and the [HDMI] option is set to [PCM Stereo] automatically.
*4 The audio source recorded at 192kHz sampling frequency will be outputted as stereo sound.
*5 On the PCM audio output, the sampling frequency of HDMI/SPDIF (DIGITAL AUDIO OUT) is limited to
96 kHz.
*6 If the [HDMI] or [SPDIF] option is set to [DTS re-encode], the audio output is limited to 48 kHz and 5.1 ch.
If the [HDMI] or [SPDIF] option is set to [DTS re-encode], the DTS Re-encode audio is outputted for BD and
HD DVD advanced discs, and the original audio is outputted for the other discs (like [Primary Pass-True]).
• The audio output for the DTS-HD/Dolby Digital Plus/Dolby TrueHD source through the SPDIF (DIGITAL
AUDIO OUT) jack is limited to “PCM 2ch” if HDMI output is DTS-HD/Dolby Digital Plus/Dolby TrueHD
bitstream.
• The audio output for the Dolby Digital Plus/Dolby TrueHD source through the SPDIF (DIGITAL AUDIO
OUT) jack is limited to “PCM 2ch” if HDMI output is set to PCM Multi-Ch and [SPDIF] option is set to
[Primary Pass-Thru].
• The audio is always output as PCM 48kHz/16 bit during Audio CD or MP3/WMA file is playing back.
• The MPEG audio source is always output as PCM 2ch.

The DTS reencoding in the LG is not wery god unfortunaltly. I have heard it better done in first gen Toshiba HD-DVD players. On our quite resolving front row (B&W 802D and HTM1D) it is not difficult to hear the differenece between lossless and dts reencode of the same film (blind or not blind), on our old Toshiba it is much more difficult. The DTS reencode have a slightly harsh "shine" to it that is not there in the lossless track.

Hopefully LG will fix the problem with the denons XX06 gen recivers in the next uppdate.

Except that over a certain point, the increased bitrate might not produce as noticeable an improvement.

JPEGs might prove a useful analogy here (though I'm no audio expert, so this doesn't necessarily hold). Anyway, most can tell the different between saving a .jpeg with a quality of 40 vs. a quality of 80. (40 is more compressed, so more artifacts, etc.). Above 80 or 85 though, and the improvements aren't easy to see. File size increases dramatically though.

So, the question is whether DTS at 1.5Mbps is at a similar sweet spot (bitrates below it are noticeable, but bitrates above it might not be, even if the bitrate is substantially increased).

Without knowing which is playing, can the average person really pick out the difference between DTS-HD MA, DTS-HD HR, DTS-HD "core only", or even DTS over SPDIF @ 1.5 Mbps? Peterjcat raised an interesting point here.

Someone from Dolby labs has even said that the sweet spot is 640kbps.

Anyway, the "elite" is questionable when people are throwing out subjective claims of "I know this format sounds superior to that format, my totally unscientific test in my home theater proved it!%@"

With lossless becoming commonplace soon enough, these questions won't be important to answer any longer.

It was on here somewhere (it was apparently Roger Dressler), I'll have to look for it (sorry, ill-prepared ).

Remember though that at 448, you are talking about ~15:1 compression ration... at 1.5, ~4.6:1 with film soundtracks (the masters are at 6.9mbps)

6 channels of PCM at 24bit/48kHz is 6.9mbps...

Also, because the .1 is not a full bandwidth channel, the compression rations start to look better..

Just Bought one on ebay for total 398 shiped NIB, lets hope its works great, I cant wait to compare it to my BH100. I only wish it had 5.1 analog outs like the BH100.

Athanasios