990 and uncompressed PCM

I just received my 990 as well as my high def TV and Sony Blue Ray Player. I've been researching about BR audio outputs and apparently PCM uncompressed is much better that DD or DTS because it's uncompressed. A situation analog to comparing CDs to MP3s.

However the Sony BR will only put PCM in 5.1 channels through the HDMI output and the 990, well you know, doesn't have HDMI inputs so no chance of using uncompressed audio UNLESS using the BR player DA converter and the loosing the 990 DA capabilities which are, supposedly, it's strong point.

Any comments,

xavier

Check out my HDMI FAQ - it has some information on the new audio formats offered by HD-DVD and Blu-ray. Multichannel PCM vs. DD/DTS is in some ways similar to CD vs. MP3, but it's not an exact comparison.

Multichannel PCM on Blu-ray discs was done initially because the early players didn't include decoders for the new audio formats. It is a significant disc space hog to use, and newer releases are using multichannel PCM less and less. Where nearly all releases used PCM at first, I'd guess that now fewer than 25% use it. There are even some Blu-ray releases that are only using Dolby Digital or DTS. Over the next year, I'd expect studios to move entirely to Dolby Digital Plus (which is just an advanced form of Dolby Digital, also using lossy compression), DTS-HD, or the two lossless compression options TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. The latter two can offer the benefits of PCM (no lossy compression) in much less disc space.

For now, the options for connecting a Blu-ray or HD-DVD player are much as you describe: HDMI v1.1 or higher (not available on the 990), multichannel analog (which relies on the player's DAC's, although the 990 can still provide you bass management), or coaxial/optical. The latter option which works fine for those Dolby Digital discs and for DTS-HD discs (even wtih the other two connections, no decoders yet exist in player or processor to decode DTS-HD, so we have to rely on the legacy DTS track embedded in DTS-HD no matter what we do) but will end up giving you audio encoded on-the-fly as high-bitrate DTS or Dolby Digital (Toshiba's HD-DVD players use DTS, but I think Sony and some other Blu-ray players use Dolby Digital).

Thanks Gonk,

I have twelve BR titles all purchased within the last 30 days. Eight of these have uncompressed PCM, two have DTS-HD and two DD only.

If it were not for my sample of BR discs I wouldn't even know about these newer formats. No matter how much you research, when you buy the equipment there's always surprises.

After reading your article and doing some more research my conclusions are very similar to yours.

I've already invested a fair amount of money in the 990 (including bringing it down to Mexico), the BR player (if I tell you how much these things cost down here you won't believe me!), the BR media and a pair of good quality HDMI to DVI cables. So maybe I should sit back and relax, enjoy my new HT with DD or DTS. Maybe in a couple of years I can upgrade the processor and the BR player. At sometime I expect you will be able to buy a truly universal player that does BR, HD DVD, SACD, Audio CD, etc, etc etc and that decodes Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD.

What do you think?

Does your current Blu-ray player offer multichannel analog output? If so, you could give that a try for the cost of just a few analog cables (assuming you don't already have then lying around).

I do expect that we will probably see a true universal player at some point - probably from somebody like Denon first, but eventually from others like OPPO Digital as well. That assumes that both HD formats remain in the marketplace for at least a couple years, which seems likely at this point.

It does and I will try.

This leads me to another question. Since the 990 does bass management and, I assume, other corrections such as delay and lip sync in the digital domain it must covert the analog signal first back to digital and the back again to analog. How much do I loose in the process?

This puppy looks interesting;

LG BH100 hybrid Blu-ray & HD DVD player

http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/07/lgs-bh100-hybrid-blu-ray-and-hd-dvd-player-1-199/

I've used the 990's multichannel analog input with two different universal DVD players, including one that I also used with my Model 950's multichannel analog input. In my case, I have not been able to hear any detrimental effects from the 990's A/D/A conversion of DVD-Audio and SACD. Granted, neither universal player was an extremely high-dollar unit (Yamaha DVD-S1500 and OPPO Digital DV-981HD), but both are solid players with reasonably good DAC's and analog sections.
I have high hopes for the BH100's successors (Samsung has said they'll have one this fall), but the HD-DVD section in the BH100 appears to be pretty significantly compromised and the reviews have been a bit underwhelming. Most folks seem to suggest that a PS3 and a Toshiba HD-A2 (or even an HD-A1) will give you better performance for lest total money, although of course both the PS3 and HD-A2 lack multichannel analog outputs.

Cool! You have solved my problems. For the time being I will add analog connections for my BRP to use it's capability of using uncompressed audio for the discs that have it and keep using DD or DTS for other discs. In the future, when available, buy a true universal player that does DVD upsampling and that does multiregion for the DVD. Am I asking too much?

All we can do is ask. Actually, if OPPO Digital sticks to their current formula, I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see a combo/universal that can be easily rendered multiregion, and I'd expect any such player to include some DVD upscaling capabilities (after all, most of the current crop of BR and HD players include something along those lines).

it took me two readings to figure that your post said crop and not crap!

- It's funny when a mid-read word sums up a format war so succinctly...

Samsung also has a new hybrid player and a standalone hd dvd player coming in a few months.

Yes - I too think the most reasonable position is the one from which one can mid-read different viewpoints. I hope potential buyers will refuse to buy any new disc player that won't play all formats, audio and video, that are available at the time - regardless of technical objections.

It's been a while since I posted this question. However two things that happened that make me retake it.

First, as opposed to gonk's comment:

I see that most BR titles are still released with uncompressed PCM as opposed to TrueHD. The same applies to those to be released soon. Even those that come with True HD also feature PCM.

Second, Sony has a firmware upgrade for the BD-1 that allows it to decode True HD so the discussion, on my side, is now futile

Just ordered a set of 5.1 interconnects to use uncompressed audio via the 990s analog inputs

I have a PS3 that has no analog out so I use coax for my audio out to the 990. I know TrueHD and DTS-HD cannot be passed over coax, but what about uncompressed PCM 5.1? If not, am I stuck with the lagacy formats until the 990's replacement comes along?

Thanks in advance. First Post. Love the forum.

Uncompressed PCM also cannot be passed via coaxial or optical.

To elaborate: the PS3 outputs TrueHD (and eventually DTS-HD MA, although I don't think that's working yet) over HDMI as multichannel PCM, at which point the data itself is identical to multichannel PCM straight from the disc. Coaxial and optical only have enough bandwidth for two-channel PCM.

Thanks Gonk. Looks like I'm out of luck with the new lossless formats till the next gen 990 comes out.

It sounds so good now that I sometimes wonder why I care (my dad calls it chasing the unicorn), but when you know a "better" format exists......

It reminds me of the early days of the DVD format. I had a DVD player for almost two years before getting a Dolby Digital receiver (my old Outlaw Model 1050), and during that time I used stereo analog outputs into a Yamaha Pro Logic receiver. I was quite happy with the sound quality compared to the other formats that I had available, even though I kept reading DVD reviews that talked about how much better Dolby Digital was. As with then, the time will come when I can really use these new audio formats, but at least this time I've got Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS, DVD-A, and SACD to occupy me while I wait.