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71.136.249.170
I've been watching my new blu-ray player which is not by any stretch a mega-bucks SOTA deck. But I swear the sound is better, especially dialogue level relative to background effects. On my old deck vocals were always down in level so that if the sound was turned up to hear dialogue better, when the special effects kicked in they were blasting way too loud. My blu-ray doesn't have that problem as the entire sound track is much more balanced.
maybe it is turned on by default.
supposedly it makes dialogue heard clearly over louder action sounds.
but it achieves this by compressing the entire sound track - that's why on your BD player, louder sounds are not that louder, and lower level details are heard more easily.
there's a catch of course. poorer sound fidelity overall....
You probably meant Dynamic Range Control , but just in case, Dolby's license now forbits all CE equipment from having access to altering the Dialog Normalization feature. Most soundtracks on DVD and Blu-ray use about 4dB of normalization (should show up as -4dB) when a Dolby soundtrack is being played. This is the default setting for the Dolby encoder: the audio engineer has to program the encoder to disable normalization if he doesn't want to use it. Dolby's implementation is ass-backwards.
Years ago, a few manufacturers actually had receivers/processors that allowed an adjustment to be made to Dialog Normalization. Dolby didn't appreciate this work-around and added the clause that, to be certified by Dolby and obtain a license, CE products must not alter Dialog Normalization coefficients. The normalization data presides in the metadata of the stream. There is a member at AVS Forum who states that his computer software player allows him to disable Dialog Normalization, so perhaps there is a work-around for this unneeded feature that Dolby has dumped on consumers.
nt
Although even the DD tracks on BD players should sound better because of improved processing. But nowhere near as good as high bitrate DTS-HD MA, Dolby TrueHD or LPCM.
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We must be the change we wish to see in the world. -Gandhi
Edits: 01/13/10 01/13/10
I have a choice of bitstream or PCM. I'm using bitstream.
I can't find any info on that in the Oppo's BDP-83 manual.
nt
I was reading the facts on the lossless d,d,& dts sound.analog will do it.hdm.1 will output the pcm. hdmi.3 gives the original lossless audio.I dont have the newer rec but if I had the hdmi.1 I guess the players setting would be pcm?hdmi.3 bitstream.they did not say how the player should be set up.interesting facts on lossless dolby digital is it can decode 14 channels.I think thats what it said,pretty strange.regular digital out puts will only give the regular d.d & dts.sound
mch dvd-a mch sacd & blu-ray concerts rule.
Bitstream is a digital format. It has to be passed via a digital connection. A digital connection can be HDMI or via one of the other digital outputs on your player. You can only pass analog via analog connections.
Bitstream is basically kind of like a zip file—you can't use a bitstream signal directly. First the bitstream signal has to be decoded to PCM, then go through a digital to analog conversion and then you have something that can be played back.
You can choose to have either your player or your receiver decode the bitstream signal on the disc, but whichever component you choose has to have the capacity to decode the particular bitstream the soundtrack is encoded in. Any BD player can decode the older Dolby and DTS bitstreams that DVDs used but not all BD players can decode the Dolby True HD or DTS HD Master Audio soundtracks that many BD discs use. Early BD players didn't though some like the Sony PS3 have received firmware updates that now enable them to do so. Most recent players can decode these newer bitstreams. When it comes to receivers, older receivers won't be able to do so but many recent receivers can. You need to check the capabilities of your particular player and receiver.
If you're outputting a Dolby True HD or DTS HD Master Audio bitstream signal to your receiver and you can hear the soundtrack, then it means that your receiver is capable of decoding them but it doesn't mean that your player can. You'd need to check the player's specification.
Theoretically there should be no audible difference between having the player do the decoding or having the receiver do the decoding. There is one exception, however. If you want to watch the movie with some special features, say a commentary by the director and/or actors, and a second soundtrack has to be mixed with the movie soundtrack in order to do so, you need to have the player do the decoding, mix the 2 soundtracks, and then either send that signal to your receiver in PCM form or do the digital to analog conversion and use the player's analog outputs. Players can't mix and output 2 bitstream tracks simultaneously—each bitstream track has to be converted to PCM and the PCM signals mixed.
So, if you never use that kind of special feature and you're only interested in the movie soundtrack when the movie is playing you can take your pick of having the player output bitstream, PCM, or analog to your receiver depending on the player's capabilities and whether your receiver can handle the new high def bitstream audio formats. If you're interested in that kind of special feature, you only have the choice of PCM or analog output from the player since the player is going to have to decode and mix the 2 separate bitstream soundtracks.
And which option you use is going to depend on whether or not your player can decode all of the bitstream formats now in use and whether or not your receiver can also decode them. If either the player or the receiver can't decode all of the different bitstream formats, you're going to have to have the decoding done by whichever of them can do the decoding if you want the full benefit of the newer high def audio formats.
David Aiken
My Samsung Bluray sounds wonderful with some high end interconnects. Way better than DVD, which always disappointed me, even vs Laserdisc.
Through the toslink, it sounds like crap, though.
You probably have a plastic Toslink. The glass Toslinks are so much better than glass that it's almost amazing. Glass Toslinks rival, or even exceed, coax (yes, it's true). I didn' believe it until I tried one myself. There was a recent post (maybe 3 weeks ago) on this subject on Audiogon digital, and on that basis I bought one - glad I did.
The problem is most people have plastic and don't know it. If the information with the cable doesn't specify it's glass, then it's almost certainly plastic.
I tried a glass Toslink for a big $19 for 6 feet from uniqueproductsonline.com Really well made and just great. What do you have to lose?
Just a note of thanks. In the past I have been disillusioned seeing the range of toslink cable pricing then after using them thinking I was nuts because it just did not sound as I would expect. Some years back I had a Elite DVD player that just sounded wonderful. I'm betting it was delivered with glass and through system changes and a replaced bad cable I put plastic into the system not knowing better.
I am sure what I've used is low end plastic based on price and the store I bought it from. I just ordered some glass cables from the source you list here. Their pricing is good. I'm looking forward to hearing if this is what makes the difference.
I'm replacing all my optical cables for glass. Not only will I get to use my current Blu-ray player for reference but will get to compare my Squeezebox when streaming higher bandwidth audio into my Marantz & Magnapan system. This will be real interesting comparing plastic verses glass verses the digital connection on the Squeezebox.
Thanks again.
:-)
it may sound better but its the manatory sound codec your hearing.you can try the analog audio cable with the digital to see if it sounds better.I have not messed with mine enough though both are hooked up to hear the difference.I just read the lossless codec today that can only be heard analog or hdmi so I will see if
theres a sound difference
mch dvd-a mch sacd & blu-ray concerts rule.
nt
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