HDMI Audio Transmission for Blu-ray and HD DVD

[Seth=L]

Potentially there is no difference for HD DVD. HD DVD discs authored as Advanced Content require the audio to be decoded and mixed. Presently that process occurs in-player. In BD, there is also little to no difference, since the decoders in the players are often the same as the decoders in the receivers or processors.

This is what I like to hear, this should be widely public on the forum, like a big bulletin when you log in.

 

[admin]

Ever wonder how the new surround formats are transmitted from the next generation DVD players to the receiver/processor? Our quick interview session with Craig Eggers from Dolby Labs helps shed some light on this subject. Check out this FAQ to learn about HDMI audio transmission and the future for HDMI ver. 1.3 enabled receivers and processors.


Discuss "HDMI Audio Transmission for Blu-ray and HD DVD" here. Read the article.

 

[Chuck V]

That sounds great, no need to get panic attacs if your receiver don't have 1.3.

One will do fine with 1.1 in general, but there is cases where this don't work well if you want 7.1 HD audio.

/Chuck

 

[FoolintheRain]

Advantages I can think of...

There are two advantages I can think of for the receiver to be receiving the new audio codecs over HDMI, although not really a reason to actually purchase a new receiver.

1) The ability to take a 5.1 soundtrack in any of the new codecs (DD+, DDTrueHD, DTS-HD) and apply DDPLIIx or DTS NEO:6 to expand it to a 7.1 speaker setup. I do this with all my regular DVDs that are 5.1 right now so I can enjoy a more immersive soundfield. I know its not true 7.1, its matrixed (please don't start that argument), but it is an advantage to me to use all my speakers.

I currently do the following with DVDs to use all my 7.1 speakers:

a) if 5.1 DTS or DD, I apply DDPLIIx or DTS NEO:6 to utilize my 2 rears in a stereo (DDPLIIx) or mono (DTS NEO:6) sense.
b) if DTS-ES or DD-EX obviously the 2 rears are already being used in a mono sense

2) The ability to use 6.1 or 7.1 soundtracks in any of the new codecs (DD+, DDTrueHD, DTS-HD). Right now, none of the HD DVD players have 7.1 analog outs (only 5.1 analog outs) and maybe 1 BD player has 7.1 outs. So unless the info is passed via HDMI to a compatible receiver you cannot enjoy the entire 7.1 or 6.1 soundtrack. There are VERY few titles with 6.1 and none with 7.1 YET, but they are coming.

Simply using Coax/Toslink only partially solves the problem. You would get the 6.1 or 7.1 info, but it would be in downconverted to legacy DD or DTS b/c the new codecs can't be sent over Coax/Toslink.

So there are 2 advantages to the Receiver having the decoding capabilities. They aren't huge, but they are there. I'm surprised the Dolby guy didn't mention them at all.

Number 2 would go away if more players added 7.1 analog outs (or enabled a way to remap exhisting 5.1 analog outs and the 2.0 stereo outs via fw upgrades). I do think this is possible, but possibly unlikely.

Number 1 would go away only if the above was done AND the players added DDPLIIx decoding, DD-EX decoding, DTS-ES decoding, DTS NEO:6 decoding...I don't see that happening. I don't believe any regular DVD players did any of these, so I don't see why HD DVD nor BD players would take on the cost of adding them.

 

[westcott]

Up until now, no one really panicked if they did not have a receiver with the latest video connections. As we all know, standards change and as long as we could pass audio signals, most people did not care.

But, it seems that HD audio is following the same copy protection scheme of video, and that is very disconcerting.

I would be perfectly happy buying an HDMI switcher for video and never have to worry about whether or not my AV reciever is compatible.

Well, it seems that in their infinite wisdom, HD DVD and BR have decided that we will not be getting our HD audio any other way.

I think this is a terrible decision and is going to force many people to upgrade receivers far more frequently or not al all!!! This last scenario could kill any potentional HD audio may have had of coming back to life, IMO.

The industry has always managed to ignore the past and continue to enjoy shooting themselves in the foot. No wonder the music industry is losing billions of dollars.

P.S. Analog connections do not count. We are in the 21 century, aren't we?

 

[Chuck V]

FoolintheRain.

There are disadvantages having the receiver doing the decoding. For instance, if the playes does not do the decoding, then you won't be able to enyoj the "advanced" HD-DVD discs out there to a full degree. And the BluRay discs will probably get "advanced" soon and then the BR players have to do the decoding as well.

The playes as far as I know has to do the decoding, then sending via HDMI (1.3) to the receiver in PCM.

/Chuck

 

[FoolintheRain]

I'm not saying you are wrong, but what "advanced" features are you talking about that would affect sound??? And to clarify, I'm not rushing out to buy a new receiver. I was simply listing 2 advantages to having audio sent to the receiver via HDMI and letting the receiver decode, that's all.

I personally could care less about extra features. I just want a movie that looks and sounds great. Can you prove either of my 2 advantages wrong?

I currently have Denon 3805, Denon 3910, Tosh XA1. I use DenonLink from the 3910 to the 3805 for CD, DVD, DVD-A, SACD. I use analog 5.1 outs from XA1 to the 3805. I am completely happy with this setup. For video I have the 3910 going to my projector via DVI and I have the XA1 going to my projector via componant (thru receiver b./c have HD OTA box and Nintendo Wii also via componant).

Perhaps if I have the player decode the audio and then send it over HDMI to the receiver it would take care of both of my listed advantages (I could add DDPLIIx or NEO:6 and I could enjoy 6.1 and 7.1 HiDef audio), but since I don't have an HDMI receiver, I can't test that theory out. If that IS the case, then yeah, there is no reason to have the decoding done in the receiver.

My personal opinion is it was a very good idea to include decoding as mandatory on the HD DVD players as all anyone needs to enjoy is 5.1 analog ins on their receiver. HDMI is an added bonus.

I'm just saying in my 2 examples I could see the benefit (icing on the cake if you will). I miss my rear speakers when watching my HD DVD collection. I don't really want a new receiver but that's really the only way I could utilize my rear speakers for 5.1 discs (unless I want downrezzed audio over toslink/coax). Perhaps Tosh will remap my analog outs/stereo outs for 6.1 and 7.1 discs, who knows.

 

[gene]

1) The ability to take a 5.1 soundtrack in any of the new codecs (DD+, DDTrueHD, DTS-HD) and apply DDPLIIx or DTS NEO:6 to expand it to a 7.1 speaker setup. I do this with all my regular DVDs that are 5.1 right now so I can enjoy a more immersive soundfield. I know its not true 7.1, its matrixed (please don't start that argument), but it is an advantage to me to use all my speakers.

You can do that now with the multi channel PCM signal via HDMI to the receiver as I did in my Yamaha RX-V2700 review.

 

[MACCA350]

Just to add to what Gene said, here is an excerpt from the HDMI FAQ's:

Q: Do I need v1.3 HDMI to hear the new Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master HD audio content on HD-DVD or BluRay players?

No. The Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digita Plus, and DTS-HS Master Audio can be decoded by the playback device into multi-channel Pulse Code Modulation (PCM) digital audio streams, which is an audio format standard that can be sent over any version of HDMI. In fact, all versions of HDMI can support up to 8 channels of PCM audio at 192kHz, 24 bits per samples.

Now to the 'Advanced content' thing.
All HD-DVD discs that are produced are mastered as 'advanced content'(HDI)

Many Blu-ray discs that are produced now(it is believed this will increase to ALL once the Java profile comes online) are mastered as 'profile 1.1'(or higher)

What are they:
Here is a breif summery of HD-DVD's 'advanced content'(HDI)

High Definition Advanced Content is where the difference really lies. HD DVD Advanced Content is no more DVD than VHS is to DVD. It is a totally new and a very complex ball game. First is its ability to interact on many different levels.

The authoring platform is called HDI for High Definition Interactivity. Invented by the Disney studios and Microsoft it is more akin to the HTML environment for web development. It is really a whole new way of writing code and code writing is what the game is all about.

Whether it is picture in picture or “floating” popup menus the authoring process begins with the writing of a computer program that’s one purpose is to play your HD video on a DVD disc. This is where the majority of the “authoring” cost lie. Until you see it, you won’t understand how the new features of HD DVD really make a DVD presentation shine like never before. It is simply beautiful, albeit somewhat expensive.

Here is a summery of Blu-ray's profiles:

The BD-ROM specification defines four profiles of Blu-ray players. All video-based profiles are required to have a full implementation of BD-J.

1.0

This is the basic profile that all current Blu-ray players (as of March 2007) are based on. Players based on this profile are only required to have 64 KBof application data area storage, which is typically used for bookmarks and other preference storage[2]. Most players have more than the minimum required 64KB.

1.1 (mandatory November 2007)

Profile 1.1 adds a secondary video decoder (for PIP), secondary audio (for commentary) and local storage (for storing audio/video and title updates) of 256 MB. Compliance with this profile will be mandatory for player models introduced to the market after October 31, 2007[3], 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. 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 (i.e. director commentary may provide only audio rather than audio and video). Profile 1.0 players will still be able to play the main feature of the disc, however.

2.0 (BD-Live)

Profile 2, also known as BD-Live, adds network connectivity to the list of mandatory functions and increases mandatory local storage capability to one GB. No released players have been announced as compatible with this profile. However it has been speculated that the PS3 will be upgradeable to this profile.

All this Advanced Content stuff is what the high definition formats are all about. In addition to the HD picture and the lossless sound you get a plethora of interactive options.

cheers

 

[Chuck V]

I'm not saying you are wrong, but what "advanced" features are you talking about that would affect sound??? And to clarify, I'm not rushing out to buy a new receiver. I was simply listing 2 advantages to having audio sent to the receiver via HDMI and letting the receiver decode, that's all.

With that approach you won't get any HD-sound at all as I see it, because all the HD-DVD's as "advanced content" (and probably all BR-discs soon) as the above poster nicely wrote.

Sending the uncoded signal ("HD-sound") to the receiver is a bad thing from my view,

/Chuck

 

[FoolintheRain]

Well, I didn't see anything in the above post (that explains what interactive features are) that would make me think the receiver couldn't decode audio on discs with interactive features. I have plenty of discs with UControl, IME, iHD, etc in my HD DVD collection (as a matter of fact ALL HD DVD have iHD...its the menu system as well as all the interactive features). How that automatically means a receiver can't decode a digital audio stream is lost on me, sorry.

All the post shows is that there are different levels of interactivity going on. Again, audio is packaged the same way or it wouldn't have legacy cores in all the advanced codecs. There are plenty of people that are sending the audio over coax/optical right now and seem to get audio just fine with the IME, UControl and iHD. So why wouldn't they in the future? I think you are making things a little too complicated. We all know these discs have much more advanced interactive features, but audio can still be sent the same old ways regardless of the "interactive features" being used...analog (decoded in player), digital out (decoded by receiver), or HDMI (decoded in player OR receiver).

Maybe we should get the Dolby guy to answer this question, since he would know better than any of us. I still say my 2 advantages hold. Like I said, it doesn't matter, I'm not getting a new receiver anyway. I'll just wait until the 3806 is reduced in price b/c its successor comes out. That way I can send decoded audio from my player to the receiver and add on the other sound processing as I see fit.

 

[MACCA350]

Well, I didn't see anything in the above post (that explains what interactive features are) that would make me think the receiver couldn't decode audio on discs with interactive features. I have plenty of discs with UControl, IME, iHD, etc in my HD DVD collection (as a matter of fact ALL HD DVD have iHD...its the menu system as well as all the interactive features). How that automatically means a receiver can't decode a digital audio stream is lost on me, sorry.

What actual interactive features are present on the disc is irrelevant, what makes an 'advanced content' or 'profile 1.1'(or higher) disc is simply an encoding platform which adds support for these advanced features on both HD-DVD and Blu-ray. The reason this automatically means that the players won't output the RAW bitstream is because this encoding tells the player that the disc(along with internet content) could have multiple audio tracks and button sounds that need to be mixed within the player and output as a single audio stream to comply with the producers intent.

All the post shows is that there are different levels of interactivity going on. Again, audio is packaged the same way or it wouldn't have legacy cores in all the advanced codecs. There are plenty of people that are sending the audio over coax/optical right now and seem to get audio just fine with the IME, UControl and iHD. So why wouldn't they in the future? I think you are making things a little too complicated. We all know these discs have much more advanced interactive features, but audio can still be sent the same old ways regardless of the "interactive features" being used...analog (decoded in player), digital out (decoded by receiver), or HDMI (decoded in player OR receiver).

Yes it as simple as that, unless you want to know what is actually going on in the background.

First off there are only two ways to get high resolution audio out of the player, HDMI or Analogue connections(all this has been covered before).

Contrary to DVD players the lowest quality audio connection now is the SPDIF optical/coax connection. This is simply because the high resolution audio formats and the resulting multichannel LPCM use more bandwidth then SPDIF can handle. So why do you still get sound over the SPDIF connection when playing DD+, TrueHD, DTS-HDMA or Multichannel LPCM? Simple, the player is doing the decoding to PCM then mixing and then re-encoding the resulting audio to either DD at 640kbps or DTS at 1.5Mbps

Maybe we should get the Dolby guy to answer this question, since he would know better than any of us.

Straight from Dolby

The Next Generation of Optical Disc Players

As a result of advances in coding systems and disc storage capacities and the commercial development of blue-laser technologies, next-generation optical formats are poised to deliver high-definition video quality. New audio codecs including Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby TrueHD will also bring high-resolution audio performance to the entertainment experience.

Next-generation optical formats will bring a new level of audio interactivity to the playback experience. For example, home theater enthusiasts may watch a high-definition video while listening to an audio track mastered on the disc that is simultaneously mixed with director's commentary streamed from a studio website. With each feature or program selection from your remote control, you may experience unique sounds created within the player.

The most practical way that the next-generation disc players achieve these new interactive features is by processing all of the related audio elements in the player. This is the same model that has been used for video on DVDs: the main video is decoded, then overlaid with subtitles or menus, and output as a complete video presentation, either as analog (composite, component) or digital (DVI, HDMI) baseband signals.

In HD disc players, the audio will be handled in the same fashion. Soundtracks decoded from the disc, as well as audio elements streamed or downloaded from an Internet connection or generated internally in the player, will be decoded in the player as digital PCM signals. PCM is the format players use to perform all internal audio processing operations, including mixing. In the mixing stage, streaming commentary, button sounds, and other non-disc-audio will be mixed with the native 5.1 or 7.1 soundtrack from the disc. The result will be the complete audio presentation as intended by the content maker.

The implications of this decoding within the player are significant. New features can be created for a given title long after the discs have shipped. More importantly, the fact that players will be mixing the audio internally means that it will no longer be possible (or necessary) to output raw audio bitstreams from the player as is typical with DVD-Video. As a result, consumers can no longer assume that every player will work with every A/V receiver.

I still say my 2 advantages hold. Like I said, it doesn't matter, I'm not getting a new receiver anyway. I'll just wait until the 3806 is reduced in price b/c its successor comes out. That way I can send decoded audio from my player to the receiver and add on the other sound processing as I see fit.

Those 2 advantages don't need the receiver to decode the RAW stream. People are already applying DSP processing, bass management, room eq etc with the resulting multichannel LPCM over (pre 1.3)HDMI as Gene is. So where is the advantage of 1.3? In fact even if you had a HDMI1.3 player and receiver you still cant get the RAW data because the player won't send it.

So yes it is simply a matter of hooking up any way you want and it will work. Not so simple if you want to understand whats going on in the background.

cheers

 

[SDDSfan]

HDMI vs Optical quality sound difference

Hello, I'm new to this forum.

I have a similiar question.

Is there a distinct sound difference between outputing 5.1 HDMI from an HD player vs using optical.

I 'm curious about the sound impression one gets with HDMI with basic 5.1.

I'm about to either buy Yamaha RX-V659 from an authorized dealer or RX-V661 from bestbuy.

Some of the saleman I talked to said that by outputing 5.1 from HD player that optical is better.

I think HDMI drops in volume and this how they equate which format is better.

 

[no. 5]

Hello, I'm new to this forum.

I have a similiar question.

Is there a distinct sound difference between outputing 5.1 HDMI from an HD player vs using optical.

I 'm curious about the sound impression one gets with HDMI with basic 5.1.

I'm about to either buy Yamaha RX-V659 from an authorized dealer or RX-V661 from bestbuy.

Some of the saleman I talked to said that by outputing 5.1 from HD player that optical is better.

I think HDMI drops in volume and this how they equate which format is better.

That’s quite possible; the human brain will almost always think that the louder sound is better.

But for a HD DVD player, optical is not better; the audio signal that is sent out from the optical connection is essentially a down-conversion of the high resolution audio from the HD DVD disc.
The HDMI connection will let you hear the high resolution audio tracks.

 

[SDDSfan]

The only advantage with HDMI is HDMI 1.3as and it will be available on the newer recievers by Onkyo.

While 1.2a presents a solution to sophisticated hook up.

You can only access lossy inforamtion from pcm.

The Lossless information from dolby digial bitstream on disc can only be decoded and sent by HDMI 1.3 only.

using a HD player with 7.1 channel output jacks plugged into 7.1 input jack on receiver inorder to decode True HD, DTS MA

 

[Seth=L]

The only advantage with HDMI is HDMI 1.3as and it will be available on the newer recievers by Onkyo.

While 1.2a presents a solution to sophisticated hook up.

You can only access lossy inforamtion from pcm.

The Lossless information from dolby digial bitstream on disc can only be decoded and sent by HDMI 1.3 only.

using a HD player with 7.1 channel output jacks plugged into 7.1 input jack on receiver inorder to decode True HD, DTS MA

I have learned a few things about the differences between HDMI 1.2 and 1.3 over the past week or so.

HDMI 1.2 does do lossless with PCM, but only up to 5.1.
HDMI 1.3 does do lossless with PCM, Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD (master audio) up to 7.1 currently (could expand in the future)

HDMI 1.2 does not do True deep color 32 Bit
HDMI 1.3 does do True Deep Color 32 Bit

I believe the only HD-type players that support 1.3 are the Playstation 3 and the Toshiba HD-XA2. There may be more that are fully compatible with 1.3, but I haven't searched for such featured players for a month or more.

Lastly, I have yet to see any HD-DVD or Blu-Ray player that has 7.1 analog output, that doesn't mean it doesn't exhist, just that I have not seen one.

 

[no. 5]

HDMI 1.2 does do lossless with PCM, but only up to 5.1.

I believe that all versions of HDMI will do eight channel lossles PCM, however, not every receiver will do eight channel PCM. For instance, the Onkyo TX-SR674/604 (HDMI v1.1) only supports six channel PCM over HDMI, but the Yamaha RX-V661 (HDMI v1.2a) will do eight channel PCM over HDMI.

Lastly, I have yet to see any HD-DVD or Blu-Ray player that has 7.1 analog output, that doesn't mean it doesn't exhist, just that I have not seen one.

The Panasonic DMP-BD10 has an eight channel analog out (found out about that a day or two ago).

 

[MACCA350]

As No.5 has said, All versions of HDMI support the transmission of 8 channel PCM 24/192kHz. The limiting factors to this is in the player or receiver and not related to the HDMI version.

From HDMI FAQ's

Q. Do I need v1.3 HDMI to hear the new Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master HD audio content on HD-DVD or Blu-ray players?

No. The Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital Plus, and DTS-HD Master Audio can be decoded by the playback device into multi-channel Pulse Code Modulation (PCM) digital audio streams, which is an audio format standard that can be sent over any version of HDMI. In fact, all versions of HDMI can support up to 8 channels of PCM audio at 192kHz, 24 bits per sample.

I thought we covered this already.

cheers

 

[MACCA350]

The only advantage with HDMI is HDMI 1.3as and it will be available on the newer recievers by Onkyo.

While 1.2a presents a solution to sophisticated hook up.

You can only access lossy inforamtion from pcm.

PCM is LOSSLESS

The Lossless information from dolby digial bitstream on disc can only be decoded and sent by HDMI 1.3 only.

Dolby Digital is LOSSY(Dolby TrueHD is LOSSLESS) and can be 'decoded' and sent over any version of HDMI as PCM

cheers

 

[Seth=L]

I believe that all versions of HDMI will do eight channel lossles PCM, however, not every receiver will do eight channel PCM. For instance, the Onkyo TX-SR674/604 (HDMI v1.1) only supports six channel PCM over HDMI, but the Yamaha RX-V661 (HDMI v1.2a) will do eight channel PCM over HDMI.

After hearing from another member that spoke with a rep from Yamaha, the RX-V661 does not do 7.1 LPCM with Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD, and I don't know of any other LPCM tracks extending over 5.1 on any format other than Blu-ray or HD-DVD.

The Panasonic DMP-BD10 has an eight channel analog out (found out about that a day or two ago).

I now recall there was something special about that unit.