[cdh027]

I have been lurking here for a couple of years but havent really posted. I just picked up a Mitsu 73837, Sony STR-DH800 receiver and a Panasonic DMP-BD60K BD player. I have been playing around with letting the BD player do the decoding or having the Sony do the decoding. Can anyone tell me which way is better and why?


Thanks,


Darrin

 

[kplex]

Do you hear a difference between player decoding and receiver decoding?

 

[sdurani]

Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA are lossless codecs. Whether you decode them in your Panny player or your Sony receiver, the result will be identical: a bit-for-bit copy of the encoding master. That's lossless, by definition.

 

[MichaelJHuman]

One difference is that secondary audio requires player side decoding (some player can re-encode the mixed audio to bitstream though.)

 

[cdh027]



Quote:
Originally Posted by kplex /forum/post/16860954


Do you hear a difference between player decoding and receiver decoding?

Yes. That's why I wanted to ask you guys. I was thinking like sdurani, that it shouldnt matter, but even the center channel and surround volumes are different with the same Bluray depending on which device I use for the decoding. I'm thinking the Sony sounds better.

 

[cdh027]

The one thing that sucks with having the reciever do the decoding is if a Bluray has LPCM uncompressed audio, I have to go into the Bluray setup and change the setting.

 

[Foxbat121]



Quote:
Originally Posted by cdh027 /forum/post/16862186


Yes. That's why I wanted to ask you guys. I was thinking like sdurani, that it shouldnt matter, but even the center channel and surround volumes are different with the same Bluray depending on which device I use for the decoding. I'm thinking the Sony sounds better.

The overall volume level from decoded LPCM maybe lower than bitstream. If you raise up the vol to match the bitstream, you may not hear any difference at all.



One thing to note about player decoding on Panasonic players, if you enable secondary audio, you will never get lossless decoding.


As for uncompressed LPCM, I don't understand why do you want to make changes to player setup. Uncompressed LPCM tracks will work just fine in bitstream mode.

 

[MichaelJHuman]

I did measure both MPCM vs Bitstream on my setup. I believe bitstream was around 3 dB louder. I would be curious what causes that. I could make a guess that it's gain related. But I can't guess at why gain (applied digitally) would differ.


Some people insist there's a difference in dynamics. Which could happen, I guess, if your player and receiver are not applying the same level of dynamic range control. For example, my PS3 DRC setting is automatic vs. none, where my receiver gives me min, std, max. It's hard to know for sure what setting combination makes them identical, if any - my guess is to set the PS3 to none and the 3900 to max.

 

[sdurani]



Quote:
Originally Posted by cdh027 /forum/post/16862186


the center channel and surround volumes are different with the same Bluray depending on which device I use for the decoding

Changing channel levels relative to each other would require re-mixing, and no decoder does that. More than likely the overall level is what's different, as Foxbat pointed out. A quick turn of the volume knob will even out the differences.

 

[Foxbat121]



Quote:
Originally Posted by MichaelJHuman /forum/post/16862681


I did measure both MPCM vs Bitstream on my setup. I believe bitstream was around 3 dB louder. I would be curious what causes that. I could make a guess that it's gain related. But I can't guess at why gain (applied digitally) would differ.

I think a few things could attribute to that. For one, bitstreamed audio usually contains DialNorm value to give receiver a hint what kind of volume level it should set. LPCM has no ability to pass any such meta data. The player has to make sure leave enough head room in the LPCM as to not clip the output. So it tends to dial down the volume level.