Hi everybody. I am new to this forum. I have been an avid AV man for years and the outlaw products have enticed me for an upgrade. Yet I hesitate because I am not clear about Blu-ray/HD DVD and outlaw's 1070 and pre/pros. It appears that these formats have decided to go with HDMI. But Outlaw has DVI connections. This may solve the video component but to achieve HD audio(8 channel PCM lossless) you need an HDMI connection. It is my understanding DVi does not carry audio only video. Is this problem solved with adapters or would I have to upgrade to an outlaw pre/pro with HDMI. Which does not currently exist. Please help!!!

To my knowledge there are no products out there currently that will support the new HD Audio Formats (DD-HD and DTS+) over HDMI (v1.3 I believe). There is supposedly some backwards compatibility over HDMI (v1.1), but that will just be a standard DD or DTS string.

Most HD-DVD and Blue-Ray players will have 7.1 abalog outputs for Audio. The 1070, 970 and 990 all have a 7.1 Analog Input for this reason. (the notable exception for 7.1 Analog Outpus being the PS3)

The video portion of HDMI is compatible with DVI. My guess is a good 3 to 4 years before you will see HDMI products that will be affordable and carry these HD Audio signals from BluRay and HD-DVD. That is if BluRay and HD-DVD still exist in 4 years. That of coarse is a whole other conversation.

Hope this was helpful

Regards,

Charlie

PS- If you are confused about the different versions of HDMI then you understand why Outlaw went with DVI only now. HDMI is still evolving.

Being unclear about Blu-ray and HD-DVD is very much a normal condition - it's been extremely confusing for a very long time.

Both formats use HDMI for both HD video and digital high-res audio. As brubacca points out, aside from the PS3 (and the Xbox 360, assuming MS comes out with the HD-DVD add-on drive) you should expect all players to include DACs and a 7.1 analog output. Those outputs will match up just fine with the 7.1 analog input on the 1070, 970, and 990. There is also the ability to generate a standard Dolby Digital or DTS track that can be carried on a coaxial or optical output.

Just to keep things interesting, we can dig a little deeper into these two formats. Both will offer a few new audio formats: Dolby Digital Plus, DTS-HD, and Dolby True HD (which is based on the MLP lossless audio compression used on DVD-Audio). None of these audio formats currently allow the digital bitstream to leave the player (like the original restrictions on SACD and DVD-Audio). In theory, HDMI v1.3 will allow those bitstreams to pass, when and if it is introduced. In the meanwhile, HDMI v1.1 and the newer v1.2 (which came out late last year and is not yet supported by any hardware I'm aware of) will allow the player to decode the bitstream to eight separate channels of PCM digital audio that can then pass over HDMI's audio side to a receiver or processor. One thing this means is that no receiver or processor will be decoding the original bitstream for the foreseeable future - the player will be responsible for it at least until HDMI 1.3 and will need to provide the capability for it for well after that to support the already massive and continually growing user base of non-HDMI 1.3 hardware.

Based on the above information, if a person had a HD-DVD / Blu-Ray player which needs to use analog 7.1 audio AND they had a universal player (SACD/DVD-A), which I believe needs a 7.1 analog input(for SACD), wouldn't they be short one set of 7.1 analog inputs? Is there some way around this?

A universal player would need a 5.1 input (which in the case of the 1070 means the 7.1 input), and I've been wondering what will happen with this. One scenario is for an HD player to offer support for DVD-A and/or SACD, letting the HD player replace the universal player. We'll have to see what the manufacturers come up with on these new HD players.

The short answer is that since neither Blu-Ray or HD-DVD have been released yet we just don't know. Until we get the first players and software we won't be able to definitively say how it's going to work.

I'm willing to believe that by the time the technology exists and has matured to the point that it's a viable option offered at a reasonable price we'll be a good 4-5 years into the future. This is ignoring the potential format war as well as the level of acceptance of the technology.

Personally I wouldn't worry excessively (though I am personally holding off on purchasing a universal SACD/DVD-A player until the new formats arrive) as it's almost certain that they'll be backwards compatible to a certain degree (e.g. 7.1 analog out) just like how current generation DVD players still include analog audio out even though digital output through either coaxial or optical is the standard.

I would have thought of the outlaw new amps/pre ams as being perfect if they had included two sets of 7.1 inputs for those who have either separate DVD audio or SACD players or one player leaving an extra set for Blu Ray/HDVD. DVI switching is a good choice at present due to current problems with HDMI.