360 HD add on surround sound question

It uses the optical cable or the HDMI. You can only get the DD, DTS, or WMA Pro audio out of it through either, though. That means no DD+ or DD TrueHD or DTS MA. The sound had issues before a patch earlier this year because it always had dynamic compression enabled.

As the audio is now, you'd probably be hard pressed to ABX the output of the HD addon and a DD+ or TrueHD lossless track.

I am not sure what you mean by "sucks." It will output 5.1 surround sound. Just like when you play a game with surround sound. It just can't output HD surround sound. Only some of the stand alone HD DVD players can. Not to mention you have to have a receiver that can decode it and HDMI 1.3 cables. So, unless you have all of that... then you are fine.

If you have all of that, then you obviously have money so why are you buying the add-on?

I said you won't be able to tell the difference between the add-on sound output and TrueHD or DD+ from a standalone player. So I'm saying it sucks only if you think that TrueHD lossless and DD+ suck. It seems like you didn't actually read what I wrote.

If you have a receiver that supports DD+ and True HD, then I would go with a stand alone player. If you don't, just set the HD add on to output DTS and you will be just fine

The sound is great using the add on. You heard wrong.

The 360 will downmix any True-HD or DD+ track to DTS. It certainly sounds a lot better than most Blu-rays through optical.

The sound does not suck. I output DTS and it sounds awesome every time. DD+, TrueHD and DTS MA are nice but honestly regular DTS is still fantastic.

unless you have a brand new receiver that is capable of decoding hd audio formats, or want to spend at least $400 to get an hd-dvd player with analog outputs, then the add-on will be fine. it sounds great on optical with my setup. you can still output the truehd and dd+ at 1.5Mbps which is better than almost every sd-dvd (usually 600kbps) out there. you will notice a difference in quality.

DD 5.1 on dvd is usually 448k. The downmix on the hd dvd add on maxes the spec to 640k, so you're getting more than a typical dvd.

Alternatively, you can downmix to DTS, again at max spec, which in that case is 1.5m.

It's a far cry from Dolby True HD, but it's better than what you'll get with regular dvd.

Can the xbox 360 w/ HD-DVD add on (connected with HDMI to the Samsung HT-AS720) provide dolby true hd or DTS-HD?
If of course the hd-dvd has true hd(The new Harry Potter for example).

It will output DD DTS or WMA Pro over optical

HDMI is 2ch PCM

That is a no brainer. My question states dolby TRUE HD and DTS-HD.
Optical? Were talking HDMI here.

He already stated every possibility. You can get DD, DTS, or WMA Pro over optical and HDMI, or you can get 2 ch PCM over HDMI. Anything else is decoded and then re-encoded to one of those formats if necessary. In fact, both posts 2 and 8 in this very thread already covered your question.

This is slightly misleading--though ferrisg said it, I just want to amplify that 360s can output DD, DTS and WMA Pro over HDMI as well as 2 channel PCM. The difference with a standalone HD DVD player is that most can internally decode DD+ and the DD TrueHD and DTS-HD MA lossless formats and output them as 6-to-8 channel PCM over HDMI--many HDMI switching receivers which can't handle those formats as encoded streams can handle multichannel PCM (only HDMI 1.3 has a mode to transport encoded audio at the necessary higher bit rates). The inability to output uncompressed 8 channel PCM is a shortcoming of the 360's implementation of HDMI.

According to its spec-sheet the Samsung HT-AS720ST's AVR cannot process DD+, DD TrueHD or DTS-HD MA, though it can pass the formats through to a downstream sink which can.

Xbox 360 addon takes all next gen audio codecs (DD+, DTRUE HD, DTS-MA) and reencodes them to 1.5 mbps DTS, Dolby Digital (640 kb), or a WMA pro signal, which is then sent to a receiver via optical cable. When sending via optical, the receiver you own must be capable of decoding DTS, DD, or WMA signals if you want to hear one of these (DTS is the best from personal experience with the addon). The 360 elite cannot decode any next gen formats and send via PCM to a receiver (this was a major downer when the elite was released and a big reason to not get an addon if lossy/lossless audio is wanted).

Long story short, the 360 addon is a great option for an affordable HD player. If you have a nice 5.1 settup though, I would spend the extra 50-60 dollars on an A2 or A3 and get a dedicated player.

Thanks michaeltscott!

What does "pass the formats through to a downstream sink which can" mean?
Can you give me an example?

HDMI terminology--a device which transmits a media stream is called a "source" and a device which consumes a media stream (processes it for display or audio playback) is called a "sink". The direction from which content is flowing is "upstream" and to which it is flowing is "downstream".

I have no idea how you use an HDMI AVR which pass-through a format. Many AVRs with HDMI inputs can't play any HDMI sound at all (useless ) and pass every sound format through untouched. This one can play the "standard definition" encoded surround formats (4 Dolby and 4 DTS formats, including DD 5.1, but not WMA Pro). I'm assuming that it will also process multi-channel Linear PCM from HDMI, though nothing I can find explicitly says that it can. Something I read said that it that it did HDMI pass-through for DD+ and the lossless formats, but it might have been an e-tailer's blurb for the product--I can't find anything at Samsung's site that says that it does. Pass-through would just mean that those sound formats would pass untouched to a device connected to its HDMI output. I have no idea how that could possibly be useful. Googling it, I found a lot of conflicting information, but Samsung's page on it explicitly says that it can't play those formats.

There has to be a thread on that HTiB on AVS Forum someplace--hunt it down and ask about it there.