PCM or Dolbi TrueHD Fifth Element. Which is better?!?

Better than asking here, why dont you compare and tell us which one sounds better to you?

You'll be hard pressed to hear a difference between the two. Lossless or uncompressed, they both sound awesome.

I didn't listen to the PCM on the remaster, but the I think the TrueHD track has better dialogue than the PCM on the original. Not leaps and bounds, but it seems to have a bit better clarity and I heard some things I never noticed before. Perhaps the TrueHD has a better bit depth?

i believe they were both 16bit as i've heard paidgeek say the master was 16bit.

How could the Master be 16 bit if the TrueHD track was 20 bit, according to HighDefDigest?

here we go again.

They could have added 4 bits of zeros to it. It's quite the popular thing to do.

Umm.... ever hear of re-mastering and up sampling? It happens all the time. If done correctly it can have a positive affect on the sound quality. Just like a 480i DVD upsampled to 1080p can smooth out a few rough edges. Will it magically make it as good as if the recording was 24 bit? Of course not. Just like 480i cannot look as good as native HD.

Dan

yeah, and there's also the theory that any scaling of any kind is innately bad. if you can't add resolution to what's been recorded, then all you can do in changing it is introduce artifacts and make it worse.

not that this matters. there should be literally no audible difference. i mean, maybe if you had perfect hearing and a set of 7 full-range martin logans in an acoustically perfect room, you'd be able to detect some shred of difference. but under even remotely normal circumstances, if they're from the same 16-bit master, there's no way. if you hear a difference between them, there may be some difference in how your hardware is handling the two different formats, in which case, just stick with whichever one sounds better to you.

I don't have an HDMI receiver so I havent heard the PCM or the true TrueHD track but I can tell you that the PS3's optical conversion of the TrueHD track is leaps and bounds better than the 5.1 track on the first BD release. Much better clairity and a HUGE jump in the clairity of the dialog. I have seen this movie hundreds of times and I heard things that I never had before. Most impressive.

with TrueHD being in variable bitrate, is there any way to tell what bit-depth it is in?

Yes. During quieter passages, a 5.1, 48kHz/16-bit TrueHD encode's bitrate is usually around 1.5 Mbps. With The Fifth Element, the bitrate is usually around 2.1 Mbps during quieter passages. This is because the 640 kbps DD track is interleaved into the encode in this case. Therefore, the TrueHD track is 16-bit as "paidgeek" had said.

Personally, I'll listen to the PCM track. However, I doubt you'll be able to tell if one is better than the other.

same here even true hd technicaly better i prefer pcm, some how

Conversion? Isn't it just extraction of the DD core as opposed to actual conversion of format?

There is no DD core in a Dolby TrueHD track. I didn't think the PS3 did anything with Dolby True HD... It should just be outputting the 640 kbps standard DD track.

That's what I thought. However, the Nine Inch Nails video, "Beside You in Time" only indicates a Stereo PCM and a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 track on the menu, and it plays as a 640kbps 5.1 track through optical on the PS3 (sounds stunning I might add), though now I have it going through HDMI.

TrueHD requires a parallel Dolby Digital track for legacy support because TrueHD is an optional format for Blu-ray. This is what you are hearing.

hmmm . well whatever the case is the 5.1 track on the new one is different that the 5.1 on the old one. It isnt even close. I am thrilled. Someday I will hear the PCM.