For all D-Box enthusiasts ! - Page 55

Hi Health Nut,

just see my post above... http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...5#post15217865

This could be a solution... it passes the original and unchanged HDMI 1.3 signal including the HD audio and 'strips' the audio off...

What remains to be tested is whether it can handle all HD codecs and whether the legacy codec signal is working with the D-Box controller.

Cheers!


Markus

OK, let's share which players are known to simultaneously send the Dolby True HD / DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack via HDMI and the corresponding lossy DD / DTS soundtrack via SPDIF (Coax / Optical)

I have successfully used the Pioneer Elite BDP-HD1 (only for Dolby True HD, as it did not have DTS-HD MA capability), the Denon 3800-BDCI, and the Panasonic DMP-BD30K. I hope to pick up a Panasonic DMP-BD35K this week, and will test that player as well.

Mark

Yannick has told me the Pioneer BDP-95FD and Panasonic BD-50 also work.

Paul

YannikG.

If anyone has the sony PS3, they can play the Blu ray disc using HDMI and connect the toslink to the motion controller. IT DOES WORK... Just a fyi.

John.

so this device will take an hdmi cable input and split off the DD output from a bluray player, effectively solving this problem?

John,

Wow, great news about the PS3!

Thanks,
Paul

Absolutely....I have my D-box system running off my PS3. It works great !

I also have the Sony 5000es blu ray player if I just want to squeeze every last detail out of a movie, on those nights without motion.

In my personal opinion, Sony has taken every step via updates to ensure that PS3 has the latest blu ray firmware available on the market today.
You will be surprised how PS3 actually beats almost every bd player on the market.

Great machine .. to add to your rack

I am not so sure this would work for Dolby Digital Plus or Dolby True HD soundtracks. As mentioned before, the Dolby HD audio soundtracks do not have the core + extension design of the DTS HD audio soundtracks. The legacy DD track is a separate soundtrack on the disc.

I do not believe any player will send two soundtracks (Dolbly True HD and DD) down the HDMI cable, and that would be the only way this box would be able to "strip" off the DD soundtrack. I could be wrong, but the message here is: Buyer beware.

Mark

John,

It's a new software release they have done?

Mark may be right, I will check and let you know. DD for sure...

Ok... am I right in saying that this would be fairly significant? I mean, everyone here wants to watch their blurays with lossless audio on whatever bluray player they want- so if the dd lossy soundtrack which you guys sync to is simultaneously output on the hdmi cable and picked up and split off by this adapter, it would solve the problem and not require you guys to do a brand new controller, right?

Hi Mark,

I have been looking a little deeper into Dolby TrueHD and it appears that you are right...

TrueHD seems not to be packaged like DTS, but losslessly compressed using the same technology that DVD Audio has been using, adding some more features and a higher bandwidth. The comment that DTS HD-MA is more efficient, must have been based on the fact that to maintain compatibility to the legacy codec, TrueHD needs the extra Dolby Digital bitstream, whereas DTS HD-MA has the legacy DTS core embedded...

That would mean that the player actually is the only source where TrueHD for listening and the legacy Dolby Digital for motion can be sourced. So every Blu-Ray player that delivers both Dolby streams (HDMI + S/P-DIF) seems to read two tracks in parallel. Now, if the player can read and output TrueHD and Dolby Digital simultaneously, why can't it do the same with LPCM HighRes and Dolby Digital?

I need to contact Denon about this...

It would have been too nice, though, if the Cypress box had worked...

Cheers!


Markus

Markus, I never thought about that...why can't they read LPCM and DD simultaneously? I hate having to listen to legacy DD when LPCM is present on the disc.

Mark

In any case, I would hope that when D-Box does come out with an updated controller with blu Ray drive that it would have an HDMI input. I'd rather see you delay a new version to incorporate HDMI.

That is a good question.... I'm not sure how the MLP coded track and the Legacy 640K track are intertwined... Even though DD True HD = 640K DD and the MLP lossless track, I wonder if they are still read as one track somehow.... Whereas LPCM is only one track.

so- bam! No new controller needed, right? You guys should promote this device as an official solution.

Wouldn't having an audio processor that has a digital output, also solve this issue?

Hi Yannick,

what exactly does this switcher do?

Having a look at the page and the manual, I would say that it simply switches HDMI 1.3 (including HD audio) and a coax/toslink S/P-DIF signal in parallel. So this would be useful for somebody who has multiple sources and wants to redirect HDMI and S/P-DIF to a single receiver.

Or does it actually convert the HD audio stream from HDMI to S/P-DIF?

Another important question:
What exactly in a legacy DTS or Dolby Digital bitstream is it that the D-Box controller synchronizes to? Is it the audio signal, some checksum of it or some meta data contained in the bitstream?

Cheers!

Markus

Yeah, it doesn't look like that box strips the audio off the HDMI input, it only sends the signal from 4 optical inputs to a single optical output.

My understanding is that you want to come out with a new controller that has a Blu Ray drive at some point in the future. My only point is that you should incorporate an HDMI input on the controller, whenever that version becomes available. I can't imagine this being a difficult solution anyway... I don't think it is going to take any major man hours to add HDMI input to a future controller... as you show us there are multiple solutions out there that show how to do it... It should be incorporated in a future controller, whenver that will be....

Hi Health Nut,

the Dolby TrueHD white paper (http://www.dolby.com/uploadedFiles/z...hite-paper.pdf) describes the TrueHD bitstream as a modular design, but its components are rather packages of MLP encoded channels (see page 3 at the bottom).

What is confusing in this context is what Dolby describes on their website about how a Legacy Dolby Digital bitstream can be created:
"After playback audio signals have been mixed in the player, the PCM signal can be encoded to a Dolby Digital signal and output from the player via S/PDIF (optical or coaxial) to your connected Dolby Digital A/V receiver or processor. [...] Because Dolby Digital encoding support is optional in HD players, you will need to look for a next-generation player equipped with a S/PDIF output and built-in Dolby Digital 5.1-channel encoding technology." (http://www.dolby.com/consumer/techno...HD_avrs_2.html)

In fact, my Denon DVD-3800BDCI seems to have such an encoder. In the manual, there is a table that shows which disk audio format is output through the S/P-DIF out, depending on the disk's audio bitstream. Under special circumstances (for interactive/special content with audio mixing and 'bitstream' selected) even DTS HD-MA and legacy DTS are output as Dolby Digital through the S/PDIF out!

So can a D-Box compatible legacy Dolby Digital bitstream be created by encoding a decoded TrueHD bitstream? The answer might be linked to the question I asked Yannick above, i.e. what's needed in the Dolby Digital bitstream for the D-Box controller to synchronize to.

Can anybody shed some light on the question whether it is parallel reading of two bitstreams (TrueHD and Dolby Digital) or a decoding TrueHD/encoding Dolby Digital that has to be applied to get a Dolby Digital signal from the S/PDIF of a Blu-Ray player?

Cheers!

Markus

1) While we figure this out, is Dark Knight Day and date? This just arrived on Blu Ray and I'm looking forward to watching it....

2) There is a new Denon DVD player coming out that looks interesting...

3) ... still not thrilled with Meridian and other surround processors... no good HDMI solution yet for the high-end from what I can see...

4) I see Hancock BD is listed again on Dec 8th, does that mean the UNRATED version of Hancock is now coded properly?

Batman should be out within the next couple days

Hancock well give it a try

I don't want to try HANDCOCK until I know the Unrated version is coded...

Oh! It's like a play on words! Hilarious! (In my finest Stewie from the Family Guy voice!)

Hi Yannick,

thanks for the link!

I contacted the Octava support today and they confirmed that the '1 x 2 HDMI Splitter Distribution Amplifiier with Toslink Audio Output' cannot convert or extract anything from DTS HD-MA or Dolby TrueHD bitstreams that come through HDMI.

Or do you have different information on this particular unit?

The German distributor for the Cypress CLUX-11SA confirmed the same for that unit as well. In its current status, the box won't extract any legcay codec(s) from a HD audio bitstream...

So the functionality of the Octava device would be comparable to that of my Gefen 4x2 HDMI 1.2 switch, that also can extract the legacy codecs DTS and Dolby Digital as well as two-channel PCM from the HDMI signal if that carries those legacy codecs.

As for the Octava device, with the current information, I would say, yes, it is a HDMI solution (even HDMI 1.3), but no, it's not the one solution, solving the 'HD-sound with legacy motion sync for any HDMI HD bitstream capable blu-ray player problem'.

Cheers!

Markus

Quite a few Blu Rays for coding or resynched came in this week:

1) Dumb and Dumber, a classic that should be coded...

2) Jet Li: Fearless

3) The Bone Collector

4) Super Troopers

5) The Dark Knight (should be finished very soon).

What is the definitive word on unrated Handcock? The only reason I bring it up is that it appeared on the D-Box website on 12-4-08 for a second time as BD US

When will Wall-E be finished? Or even started?

Thanks.

Mark

For some reason I thought that was day and date and already coded???

Health Nut. No I don't believe Wall-E is done but I am pretty sure I read that it is coming. And I just have to add... what a game Sunday! I am a big time Cowboys fan and that was a heartbreaker. Great defense on both sides, but alas, the Steelers stole it when all was said and done. How about we go ahead and agree to a rematch in February. Sound good to you??