I agree with SH. I think data compression for audio/video is now a fact of life -- as well as a real world necessity. Larger storage media would allow somewhat higher bit rates; but, as SH says, we ain't gonna be seeing/hearing full bitrate A/V in a home format in the near future, if ever.

We can hope, also, that increasing (and increasingly affordable) computing power might inspire companies like Dolby and DTS to develop more sophisticated compression schemes that would reduce the audible degree of loss.

The artifacts that SH and I were hearing in the DD5.1 compression of his masters WAS NOT SUBTLE. In fact, to my ears, it betrayed a fairly primitive compression strategy.

While I'm not aware of the degree that Dolby has improved their compression algorythms over the ten years or so of DD5.1 (SH probably DOES know this), I suspect more could be done.