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Sony, Fox, and Disney have no issues putting lossless audio on their disks.

69.3.11.221

In Reply to: RE: Oh, I agree that there is constraint relative to Blu-ray posted by racerguy on October 20, 2007 at 09:13:24

If anything uncompressed PCM saves them the royalty costs of TrueHD and DTS HD MA. And it certainly helps that 8 Mbps available for audio is a "freebie" which has no impact on the available video bitrate for Blu-ray disks (up to 40 mbps). In contrast, HD DVD has to live within 30 mbps which has to be allocated between audio and video. And the lower the allocated video bitrate, the more likely the studio has to put more TLC into the encoding; so guess what ? the studios will opt for a lossy audio track to save on the costs of encodes and maintain video bitrates to minimize compression artifacts. I point to the pitiful percentage of HD DVDs with lossless audio (<15%) as evidence.
The compressionists job becomes much easier when afforded the greater bandwidth/storage available to Blu-ray. I think the studios will eventually figure out this will save them money in the long run.
The sample size is still too small but I expect 24 bit lossless audio for music videos will be more prevalent for Blu-ray than for HD DVD. I also expect only Blu-ray will be able to support 5.1 24/96 for music videos with any kind of decent high def video (re: bandwidth/storage).

Edits: 10/20/07

Follow Ups:

These are the same studios... - racerguy 09:17:28 10/21/07 (2)
...that, when they had the opportunity to put better-quality audio and video on DVDs, frequently chose not to, or charged extra for what they should have done in the first place (i.e. Superbit). Instead, they went with the least-common denominator.

They didn't maximize their utilization of DVD capabilities, because they didn't have to. What makes you think they'll consistently utilize the capabilities of Blu-ray (or even HD DVD)? Again, history shows a clear precedent.

Contrary to the desperate nonsense spouted about me by the resident forum buffoon, I've never denied that Blu-ray has more impressive technical specs, and I agree that the BDA's slideware is way more spectacular than the HD DVD consortium's. Unfortunately, the reality (i.e. the actual products) don't quite match up to the hype yet.
- "Unfortunately, the reality (i.e. the actual products) don't quite match up to the hype yet." - oscar 14:43:37 10/21/07 (1)
  That statement applies more for HD DVD then it does for Blu-Ray. Blu-Ray is delivering on PQ/SQ. HD DVD is NOT delivering on the lossless audio for the most part. What's more, lossless audio is a freebie, I don't expect Sony, Disney or Fox to stop delivering stellar PQ/SQ because the format makes it easy to do it. And just as easy than Universal and Warner's indifferent non-efforts to put lossy audio and indifferent video encodes on HD DVD releases.
  
  Edits: 10/21/07
  - Well, I think we've reached a bit of an impasse... - racerguy 15:08:45 10/21/07 (0)
    > > That statement applies more for HD DVD then it does for Blu-Ray. < <
    
    ...and this is it. As I've said previously, it's clear to me that HD DVD is much more "baked" than Blu-ray. I don't believe that HD DVD delivers as much as Blu-ray is potentially capable of delivering, but HD DVD works quite well and has fewer issues. That makes it a better consumer format, for now.
    
    > > Blu-Ray is delivering on PQ/SQ. HD DVD is NOT delivering on the lossless audio for the most part. < <
    
    Yes, there are fewer releases on HD DVD with lossless audio tracks, and that may always be the case, given the space and bandwidth constraints relative to Blu-ray. The thing is, I don't listen to or watch specifications - I'm interested in the movie experience. Overall I have not been disappointed with PQ or SQ on HD DVD, and for the most part, neither has anyone else who's tried it.
    
    Yes, HD DVD has a list of negatives, but so does Blu-ray. Again, I'll state that neither is "better," and impressive spec sheets and promises of future greatness won't change that.
    
    Eventually the dust will settle, and one or the other will end up as the niche format of choice. At that point, will any of our posturing really matter? :-)

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