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Next Gen Audio capabilities of Toshiba 2nd gen players?

post #1 of 33
7/22/07 at 6:11pm
Thread Starter 
There is a firmware upgrade in the pipeline for the Toshiba XA2 that will enable what they call High Bit Rate Audio that will allow the XA2 through its HDMI 1.3 output to provide support for bit-stream output of DD+, TrueHD, DTS-HD in both formats to a receiver. It is supposed to come out in Sept. along with the 24p upgrade. The player should bypass the advanced content flag to allow this to happen.

Now before anyone goes off on a the player decodes it so it doesn't matter rant, it does matter because the player cannot internally decode DTS-HD in HRA or MA formats. While not a crisis in the states in Europe many titles are DTS-HD MA. I have a feeling a firmware upgrade for DTS-HD HRA is coming for internal decoding. As processor intensive as the DTS-HD MA is I highly doubt it.

Getting more specific will any of these players support 7.1 channel audio from DD+, True HD or DTS-HD with a firmware upgrade. Maybe it would take a 3rd gen player to do this. In the manuel for the XA2 the max listed channels is 5.1. Anyone here with who can add more detail to this?
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post #2 of 33
7/22/07 at 6:20pm
First of all are those European titles's DTS HD MA tracks are advanced or standard content?
Second, the only reason IMO to enable these players to pass those new formats undecoded, is to bypass the limitation of the players. I.E. only 5.1 ch.
However what might be possible is with a FW update for at least with Dolby THD, that the player decodes it and send 7.1 ch PCM instead. DTS HD MA is another matter. We shall see.
BTW do you have a link where they announced this new audio update?
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post #3 of 33
7/22/07 at 6:30pm
Thread Starter 
The information came from Tolstoi who posts here and Javier who is an hddvd insider from a french forum. This rumour at this point as Toshiba has not officially confirmed it. Kind of like their 24p rumours that started last Dec. I first read this from Javier who posted it in May and mentioned the June firmware for the web enabled content as well. The rumours have been consistent in stating the Sept. time frame for this to occur. Whether True HD will be lighting up on Onkyo Receivers by then remains to be seen.
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post #4 of 33
7/22/07 at 7:19pm
will the A2 get dts-hd MA pass through as well? or is it just the XA2?
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post #5 of 33
7/22/07 at 7:26pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by PRO-630HD View Post

I have a feeling a firmware upgrade for DTS-HD HRA is coming for internal decoding. As processor intensive as the DTS-HD MA is I highly doubt it.

I've yet to see any verification at all that DTS-HD MA decoding on HD DVD is significantly more (or even any more) processor intensive that DD TrueHD. As far as I can tell it's nothing more than a rumor, perhaps based on the higher DTS-HD MA bandwidth limit than DD-TrueHD on BD, but that's BD, not HD DVD.

If anyone has some solid information to support that contention, I'll be very happy to take a look at it. Until such information shows -- it looks like smoke to me.

Thanks -- Trevor
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post #6 of 33
7/22/07 at 7:54pm
Thread Starter 
All I can say is Chris Walker from Pioneer confirmed that the BDP-94HD will not get DTS-HD MA as he claimed processing was too intense, though he has confirmed that it will get a firmware upgrade for DTS-HD HRA. But again that is bluray not hddvd as you pointed out.
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post #7 of 33
7/22/07 at 7:57pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rakesh.S View Post

will the A2 get dts-hd MA pass through as well? or is it just the XA2?

The A2 and A20 cannot do pass through at all since they have HDMI 1.2a, They will have to decode the audio internally and send it out as LPCM.
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post #8 of 33
7/22/07 at 8:08pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by PRO-630HD View Post

All I can say is Chris Walker from Pioneer confirmed that the BDP-94HD will not get DTS-HD MA as he claimed processing was too intense, though he has confirmed that it will get a firmware upgrade for DTS-HD HRA. But again that is bluray not hddvd as you pointed out.

The SHARC DSP should be more than capable of decoding DTS-HD MA. It's just a compression format after all. If it isn't, you might as well kiss DTS-HD goodbye. Why would studios support a format that is more processor intensive than TrueHD, takes up the same space and bandwidth, yet delivers the same lossless content, and no more? Until you need more than the 14 channels TrueHD supports, I see no real need for DTS-HD MA at all.
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post #9 of 33
7/22/07 at 8:08pm
Quote:


Getting more specific will any of these players support 7.1 channel audio from DD+, True HD or DTS-HD with a firmware upgrade. Maybe it would take a 3rd gen player to do this. In the manuel for the XA2 the max listed channels is 5.1. Anyone here with who can add more detail to this?

Well if their bitstreaming the audio out via HDMI (as per the proposed firmware upgrade) then you should get all the channel information possible, as anything else would no longer be bitstreamed, but rather processed to some degree...

Weather or not the upgrade will include interal decoding of more that 5.1 channels is unknown.
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post #10 of 33
7/22/07 at 8:17pm
There are no 7.1 HD-DVD titles. Again, the SHARC processor can do 7.1 so it's just a matter of a firmware update to enable it.
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post #11 of 33
7/22/07 at 9:15pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by PRO-630HD View Post

All I can say is Chris Walker from Pioneer confirmed that the BDP-94HD will not get DTS-HD MA as he claimed processing was too intense, though he has confirmed that it will get a firmware upgrade for DTS-HD HRA. But again that is bluray not hddvd as you pointed out.

From looking around some it appears it's being effectively attributed to Kjack since their DTS-HD MA capable chip has been delayed due to the processing requirement -- but that chip is to support both formats, which implies it comes down to the much higher max bitrate on BD again.

I just sent him a PM to see if he can shed any light on this popular saying. Hopefully he'll take the time to respond.
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post #12 of 33
7/22/07 at 9:16pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by littlesaint View Post

There are no 7.1 HD-DVD titles. Again, the SHARC processor can do 7.1 so it's just a matter of a firmware update to enable it.

Interesting though that the first gen A1 and XA1 had four SHARC DSP's while the second gen A2,A20 & XA2 only have one SHARC. In addition to decoding the lossless dts-HD MA codec there is also bass management, various channel levels, and distance settings. Are we sure that there is enough thru-put for dts-HD MA? Not to mention that the XA2 bass management fix required shutting down the re-encode to DD or dts on the SPDIF output.
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post #13 of 33
7/22/07 at 9:32pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by bobgpsr View Post

Interesting though that the first gen A1 and XA1 had four SHARC DSP's while the second gen A2,A20 & XA2 only have one SHARC. In addition to decoding the lossless dts-HD MA codec there is also bass management, various channel levels, and distance settings. Are we sure that there is enough thru-put for dts-HD MA? Not to mention that the XA2 bass management fix required shutting down the re-encode to DD or dts on the SPDIF output.

True, one would expect the A1 would have sufficient processor power, but at the same time -- most of the audio associated processing on the A2 is done by the NEC EMMA chip. Since the EMMA specs don't include DD-THD, I'm presuming that's a SHARC responsibility. If that one chip can handle that, I would think there's at LEAST a good chance it can handle the like bandwidth DTS-HD MA.
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post #14 of 33
7/22/07 at 9:37pm
Sharc makes many different chips just like Motorolla, or Texas Instruments. Do we know for sure that the shutdown of some processing that in turn enables BM is because of the lack of computational power or just another bug in the software?

BTW it is my understanding the the Broadcom chip is the one doing all the video and audio decoding, and the Sharc was doing the BM and TA functions only.
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post #15 of 33
7/22/07 at 9:50pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by thehun View Post

BTW it is my understanding the the Broadcom chip is the one doing all the video and audio decoding, and the Sharc was doing the BM and TA functions only.

The video/audio processor is NEC, not Broadcom.
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post #16 of 33
7/23/07 at 4:25am
OK, so how the Sharc figures in? What exactly it's performing?
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post #17 of 33
7/23/07 at 6:18am
I'm a little confused here.

When encoding HD audio the studio master is PCM. That is encoding using a compression algorithm whether it's DD+ or TrueHD or DTS-HD MA. The HD player (or receiver if bitstream output is enabled) decodes the compressed file back to PCM using the appropriate codec.

Where does the extra processing and bandwidth come into play? It's just uncompressing a file using a codec. Things like BM and signal processing happen on the PCM audio, not the compressed file, so whether it's TrueHD or DTS-HD MA or the original PCM, the processing and bandwidth should be the same. If it is that much more intensive, why bother at all when TrueHD gives the exact same result?

Also remember that BD players do not have secondary audio processors (yet), so in their current form they may not be able to handle processor intensive audio (again I'm unclear what exactly that is) while managing other features.
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post #18 of 33
7/23/07 at 6:26am
Quote:
Originally Posted by thehun View Post

Do we know for sure that the shutdown of some processing that in turn enables BM is because of the lack of computational power or just another bug in the software?

I do not know for sure about why shutting off SPDIF bitstream output fixes the BM on the XA2's 5.1 analog outputs. Just very suspicious that a real-time software deadline got exceeded otherwise. Seen things like this happen in other real-time embedded software.
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post #19 of 33
7/23/07 at 8:42am
Quote:
Originally Posted by littlesaint View Post

I'm a little confused here.

When encoding HD audio the studio master is PCM. That is encoding using a compression algorithm whether it's DD+ or TrueHD or DTS-HD MA. The HD player (or receiver if bitstream output is enabled) decodes the compressed file back to PCM using the appropriate codec.

Where does the extra processing and bandwidth come into play? It's just uncompressing a file using a codec. Things like BM and signal processing happen on the PCM audio, not the compressed file, so whether it's TrueHD or DTS-HD MA or the original PCM, the processing and bandwidth should be the same. If it is that much more intensive, why bother at all when TrueHD gives the exact same result?

Also remember that BD players do not have secondary audio processors (yet), so in their current form they may not be able to handle processor intensive audio (again I'm unclear what exactly that is) while managing other features.

I think that processor intensive thing is just a rumor for DTS HD-MA. I think it's more of a compatibility issue then anything else.
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post #20 of 33
7/23/07 at 10:15am
Quote:
Originally Posted by PRO-630HD View Post

The information came from Tolstoi who posts here and Javier who is an hddvd insider from a french forum. This rumour at this point as Toshiba has not officially confirmed it. Kind of like their 24p rumours that started last Dec. I first read this from Javier who posted it in May and mentioned the June firmware for the web enabled content as well. The rumours have been consistent in stating the Sept. time frame for this to occur. Whether True HD will be lighting up on Onkyo Receivers by then remains to be seen.

Does this help answer your question?
LL
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post #21 of 33
7/23/07 at 10:23am
^^^ I can see why given that schematic that 7.1 analog output with bass management will not be possible for the XA2. :sigh:

The Wolfson DAC gets serial audio direct from the Emma chip without going through the SHARC.
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post #22 of 33
7/23/07 at 11:24am
Quote:
Originally Posted by bobgpsr View Post

^^^ I can see why given that schematic that 7.1 analog output with bass management will not be possible for the XA2. :sigh:

The Wolfson DAC gets serial audio direct from the Emma chip without going through the SHARC.

Well that and it only has 6 analog out ports for multichannel. I don't think a firmware update is going to physically wire two more RCA jacks.
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post #23 of 33
7/23/07 at 12:13pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by littlesaint View Post

Well that and it only has 6 analog out ports for multichannel. I don't think a firmware update is going to physically wire two more RCA jacks.

It looks like the Wolfson stereo DAC drives the two channel analog outputs. The three Burr-Brown 2 channel DACs drive the 5.1 analog outputs. It was a hope that Toshiba could have a mode where it used the two channel outputs in conjunction with the 5.1 output to make a 7.1 total analog output.

The XA2 schematic shown does show a total of 8 analog outputs.

The gen 1 players used four Burr-Brown DACs with a more likely looking schematic design that looked like it could do that (modifed via firmware to do 7.1).
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post #24 of 33
7/24/07 at 3:51am
Is it still possible to output 7.1 as 8channel PCM over HDMI from the XA2/XE1 if enabled via a firmware update?

cheers
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post #25 of 33
7/24/07 at 9:33am
Quote:
Originally Posted by thehun View Post

OK, so how the Sharc figures in? What exactly it's performing?

Well, logically, it's performing functions not supported by the NEC. Two probable ones are DD-THD (as I mentioned above) and crosscoding to DTS.
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post #26 of 33
7/24/07 at 9:52am
Quote:
Originally Posted by littlesaint View Post

I'm a little confused here.

When encoding HD audio the studio master is PCM. That is encoding using a compression algorithm whether it's DD+ or TrueHD or DTS-HD MA. The HD player (or receiver if bitstream output is enabled) decodes the compressed file back to PCM using the appropriate codec.

Where does the extra processing and bandwidth come into play? It's just uncompressing a file using a codec. Things like BM and signal processing happen on the PCM audio, not the compressed file, so whether it's TrueHD or DTS-HD MA or the original PCM, the processing and bandwidth should be the same. If it is that much more intensive, why bother at all when TrueHD gives the exact same result?

I've asked the question elsewhere as to what the additional max bitrate of DTS-HD MA buys you relative to the lower max bitrate DD-THD on BD -- naturally, I got no answer !

Seems to me the only thing that can ultimately vary is the max number of channels supported, given lossless means lossless for the PCM itself. There is a possible at least partial explanation in that since DD-THD doesn't include an extractable core, DTS requires extra bandwith to include it. I don't know how much inefficiency that separation incurs, but it's hard to believe it can possibly explain the big difference in the BD specs for the two CODECs -- they seem to favor the DTS-HD MA for some reason.
Quote:
Originally Posted by littlesaint View Post

Also remember that BD players do not have secondary audio processors (yet), so in their current form they may not be able to handle processor intensive audio (again I'm unclear what exactly that is) while managing other features.

Don't you mean secondary video processors? That being for support of PIP? I hadn't read anything about secondary audio processors as well.
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post #27 of 33
7/24/07 at 10:02am
Quote:
Originally Posted by bobgpsr View Post

I do not know for sure about why shutting off SPDIF bitstream output fixes the BM on the XA2's 5.1 analog outputs. Just very suspicious that a real-time software deadline got exceeded otherwise. Seen things like this happen in other real-time embedded software.

Another interesting behavior is that (from what I read in a test review and confirmed by an owner), if the S/PDIF output is set to bitstream while outputing HDMI LPCM, the LPCM will be 48Kbps, whereas if the S/PDIF output is set to PCM, then the HDMI LPCM output is 96Kbps.

So, are these two behaviors (the analog BM and the HDMI LPCM) undocumented features, defects, or unavoidable compromises?

I'm unaware of any answers to that.
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post #28 of 33
7/24/07 at 10:48am
Quote:
Originally Posted by TrevorS View Post

...
Don't you mean secondary video processors? That being for support of PIP? I hadn't read anything about secondary audio processors as well.

Your right, I read the 1.1 profile spec wrong.
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post #29 of 33
7/24/07 at 3:54pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by littlesaint View Post

Your right, I read the 1.1 profile spec wrong.

Not so fast! Here is a description of 1.1 from the Wikipedia
Quote:


1.1 (mandatory November 2007)
What is typically referred to as "Profile 1.1" (but is more formally known as "Final Standard Profile") adds a secondary video decoder (typically used for picture in picture), secondary audio (typically used for interactive audio and commentary) and capability of supporting a minimum of 256 MB of local storage (for storing audio/video and title updates). Compliance with this profile will be mandatory for player models introduced to the market after October 31, 2007,[1] but existing products will be unaffected. No players compliant with this profile have been announced or released.

Some profile 1.0 players may be upgradeable via firmware update to profile 1.1 if they have the appropriate hardware, but no manufacturer has announced any such upgrade. When software authored with interactive features dependent on Profile 1.1 hardware capabilities are played on profile 1.0 players some features may not be available or may offer limited capability. Profile 1.0 players will still be able to play the main feature of the disc, however.

It looks like BOTH are required !
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post #30 of 33
7/24/07 at 5:23pm
I'm wondering about the semantics of "decoder" and "processor". Is it added software running on the existing processor, or the addition of a dedicated processor? The new Denon BD player was announced today with the 1.1 profile. Anyone wanted pick one up and take it apart? Only $2k.
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