Dobly Digital Plus & MLP Lossless & A/V receivers

So the time to buy a new receiver would not be now unless they are field upgradeable right? Anyone had experience getting and performing field upgrades? Do manufacturers supply the field upgrades in a timely manner or is this something they never actually get around to offering?

"Do manufacturers supply the field upgrades in a timely manner or is this something they never actually get around to offering?"


Mostly the latter I think, but even if they do the entry + upgrade cost always seems to be higher than just replacing nonupgradable equipment.

If you really want Dolby Digital Plus or DTS-HD support on your AV receiver you will probably have to wait until next year.

With the format wars that will go on with this, you will be good for at least three years with a receiver bought today. The dvd players with these technologies will be few and far between under $1K next year. Maybe by 2007 you might see a significant amount of titles, maybe, and a few "afffordable" machines. You have to figure that with the hardware upgrade necessary, that the transformation will be fairly slow for the general public, which drives the supply of available software. I wouldn't base a decision today on HD-DVD, BluRay, DD+, or DTS-HD. Worry about it once they become established a little bit, then make a solid purchase.

You can already have MLP lossless if you buy a DVD-A player and some discs. It gets decoded in the player and is passed along the analogue MCH outputs (or by iLink to the receiver for decoding if you have the proper equipment). That only applies to music, though, not movies or DVD concert films.

MLP will continue to be decoded in players for HD-DVD. Then for a digital path, HDMI would be used to carry the decoded PCM to the receiver/processor. It makes no sense to tie up DSP resources to decode MLP which could be better used for things like Room Correction. Additionally, you increase processing requirements and effectively decrease available DSP power if the MLP encoded tracks were passed to the receiver. Not to mention the added licensing cost for a second MLP decoder.


Analog path would be remarkably similar to current DVD-Audio/SA-CD players


Cheers,

If the DD+ is sent via the analogue MCH connection and the player decodes it, then your receiver doesn't need to do anything else (though if you have autoEQ, it likely won't work on your MCH input). Another potential limitation is if DD+ requires more input channels than are available on your receiver. If a version of it will work with a 6 channel input, then everything will be fine.

DD+ and MLP, if and when there are 7.1 movies (none are planned by the major studios yet), will always be able to provide a proper 5.1 version of the mix to ensure compatibility.

Roger:


Are they changing over to the Dolby Lossless nomenclature for HD-DVD as well?


Cheers,

Hi John,


We will use the same name for extended MLP technology in both HD disc formats, as we wish to distinguish it from DVD-A's use.

Hi Roger,


just to clarify what you are saying - are you saying that HD-DVD players will have the capability to take a DD+/MLP 7.1 bitstream and transcode it to a DD/DTS 5.1 bitstream (still output digital, no D/A or A/D conversion)? Or only downmix to a DD+/MLP 5.1 bitstream?


Andy K.

>>are you saying that HD-DVD players will have the capability to take a DD+/MLP 7.1 bitstream and transcode it to a DD/DTS 5.1 bitstream (still output digital, no D/A or A/D conversion)? Or only downmix to a DD+/MLP 5.1 bitstream?

Roger:


Is the functionality going to be the same as in current gen DVD-A players, with Dolby lossless in the player, and either an encrypted/uncompressed PCM stream (via HDMI or proprietary interface) and/or an analog output from the HD-DVD or Blu-ray player?


With the inclusion of Dolby Lossless, HD-DVD is looking weak, except for the content providers that are currently backing it


Cheers,

John,


As in DVD-A, there is no format restriction in HD DVD or BD-ROM on the player outputting analog or digital, the latter being either the encoded bitstreams or decoded signals in PCM form, of course encrypted. The main difference with DVD-A is that HDMI has come a long way since then, and we think most players will include such a connection from day 1.

The flaw with sending encoded bitstreams is that you're mandating a decoder license in both receiver/processor and in the player. That was the whole point to having the decoder in the player only for DVD-A to begin with.


So while having a decoder in both places is certainly good from a licensing revenue standpoint, it isn't necessarily as good from a consumer's standpoint, since they have to pay for the license in both places.


Cheers,

>>The flaw with sending encoded bitstreams is that you're mandating a decoder license in both receiver/processor and in the player.That was the whole point to having the decoder in the player only for DVD-A to begin with.So while having a decoder in both places is certainly good from a licensing revenue standpoint, it isn't necessarily as good from a consumer's standpoint, since they have to pay for the license in both places.

Quote:
Is it likely the players will have MCH analogue outputs, as DVD-A and SACD currently have, in addition to HDMI, so people can adopt DD+ without having to replace both the player and receiver/pre-pro?