oh shits1 PS3 gains DTS-HD decoding - best Blu-ray player evar?

Deusfaux

APRIL 15TH FIRMWARE:

http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/04/09/ps3-firmware-engineers-interviewed-dts-hd-ma-support-on-the-way/

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1017682

Prior to this, the PS3 was criticized for lacking that one important feature other Blu-ray players have, but with this edition, the PS3 can essentially do everything Blu-ray players that cost $1000 can do, and MORE.

There might be some things it can't do I'm not aware of, but for now, it looks like anyone looking to purchase a Blu-ray player would be stupid not to get the PS3.

"I have more good news to report today – the system software update (2.30) will also add DTS-HD Master Audio output for Blu-ray videos, which means the high-definition visuals of Blu-ray will now be matched with the highest quality audio for the ultimate movie-watching experience on PS3.

DTS-HD Master Audio is literally bit-for-bit identical to the studio master recording and makes movie soundtracks and sound effects truly come to life. The technology delivers audio at the incredibly high rate of 24.5 mega-bits per second (Mbps) on Blu-ray disc, which is significantly higher than standard DVDs. DTS-HD Master Audio also offers 7.1 audio channels at 96k sampling frequency/24 bit depths, so you’ll be totally immersed in the sound. The firmware update will add DTS-HD High Resolution Audio as well, which is a similar output technology that requires less disc space. You can read more about both codecs here. "

- Posted by Eric Lempel // Director, PlayStation Network Operations
- Playstation Blog

http://www.dtsonline.com/company/press/press-article.php?ID=1601180336&cID=1&yID=2008

Milky28

AWESOME. I've been hoping they would be able to add support for this, either bitstream or LPCM, don't matter.

Deusfaux

early morning

ToyD

Yes my precious. Now for the purchasing of a new Yamaha RX 663 to take advantage... precious...

The Dude With Herpes

This is semi-related and something I've always wondered about HDMI.

How do you get the audio to your receiver? I assume the HDMI goes from the PS3 (or 360 I suppose) directly into the TV, which afaik don't have integrated surround receivers in them. Do you then have to plug a digital audio cable from the TV to your receiver? Because that really makes the audio portion of HDMI seem pretty pointless.

I've never really understood how the whole thing works. I'm fairly behind in this HD era.

Zeon

HDMI can be used to transfer the sound, but in my experience, and maybe its just my TV, it isnt that great. With the PS3 though, you can designate the HDMI for video and any other output for audio, such as the optical out, or the RCA cables it comes with. Youd then send that to the receiver. If you didnt have those, then yeah, you could run the PS3 to the TV with the hdmi cable, and then use one of your tvs output ports to send that to the receiver. I imagine it would degrade the quality by some almost immeasurable amount though.

Interpreter

The Dude With Herpes wrote: »

This is semi-related and something I've always wondered about HDMI.

How do you get the audio to your receiver? I assume the HDMI goes from the PS3 (or 360 I suppose) directly into the TV, which afaik don't have integrated surround receivers in them. Do you then have to plug a digital audio cable from the TV to your receiver? Because that really makes the audio portion of HDMI seem pretty pointless.

I've never really understood how the whole thing works. I'm fairly behind in this HD era.

You need a receiver that can take an HDMI cable. Then you would plug the PS3 directly to the receiver with the HDMI cable, and plug another HDMI cable from the receiver to the TV.

*edit* Never mind. To early in the morning. You can plug a digital optical cable directly from the PS3 to the receiver.

The Dude With Herpes

Whats the quality comparison for audio for HDMI vs optical then? I would imagine HDMI would be higher, for the sake of this topic in general. If that sort of studio perfect lossless sound was feasible on optical/digital they would have done it before.

The HDMI -> receiver -> TV makes sense I guess. Are receivers with HDMI and/or multiple HDMI jacks that common?

FaceballMcDougal

Neat... I like DTS.

Only it's fucking stupid that you have to select optical OR HDMI for audio output. Sometimes I just want the sound to come out of the TV.

ToyD

Some answers.

Optical audio is just fine quality on Dolby Digital or DTS. If you want the true HD sound then you'll probably need HDMI. I am not certain if that will be supported over optical TOSLink cables.

HDMI was envisioned as the "one-cable" solution, unfortunately with copy protection built-in. You can easily find home theater receivers with multiple HDMI inputs.

The Yamaha RX-663 I mentioned above is brand new and offers a LOT of features for it's price point. The down-side is that it only has 2 HDMI inputs. However monoprice offers a very nice 4-1 HDMI v1.3b switch that is remote controlled and is like $35.

Deusfaux

"Only it's fucking stupid that you have to select optical OR HDMI for audio output. Sometimes I just want the sound to come out of the T"

what are you saying there?


And optical is only capable of 5.1 - HDMI can do the 7.1 HD audio stuff we're talking about here - so that makes it better.


And if you were using HDMI to carry audio, you'd run the whole thing through the reciever first, and have another HDMI coming back out of it into the TV for video

ToyD

Sorry if I was unclear, yes I was talking about PS3->receiver->TV solutions. Is that what you were asking Deus?

The Dude With Herpes

But is there any quality degradation with those HDMI switches? From what I understand HDMI, because it's completely digital doesn't really degrade. Well, it does, obviously, because all signals degrade over a long enough distance without amplification, but short of you running 100ft HDMI cables to your electronics it shouldn't.

Anyhow, I always stayed away from switches for Component/Composite/S-Video because they typically degraded the quality very significantly unless you shelled out for a very expensive box. Is this not the case with HDMI?

ToyD

There is no degradation of HDMI information. The information is digital. The degradation is transmitting the pieces of that digital signal to the destination. Too long of cable and the device at the end can't make out the 1s and 0s. But if the device at the end can read the 1s and 0s ok, there will be no quality loss.

Edit: Also, powered switches > unpowered or passive switches. The monoprice one I mentioned is powered of course since it has the remote. It also has some built-in equalization features to help in the problems you mentioned.

The Dude With Herpes

Man holy crap receivers are expensive.

I bought a Sony off a friend a looooooong time ago and it's served me well. I paid little and have gotten much from it.

I've been thinking of saving up for a new one as of late, considering mine can't even do Pro-Logic II, and I wanted to future proof it a bit. But for ~$500 for a good one, it'd have to last me longer than this one to be worth anywhere near that price.

Deusfaux

ToyD wrote: »

Sorry if I was unclear, yes I was talking about PS3->receiver->TV solutions. Is that what you were asking Deus?

So you want the audio to come out of just the TV's, and not the receiver's speakers?

I am trying to understand the problem so I can suggest a solution.

ToyD

That wasn't my question, that was someone else. My setup goes PS3->Monoprice Switch->Receiver->TV using only HDMI.

JimJimBinks

What's the difference between Bitstream & PCM? Right now I have my PS3 hooked into my TV through HDMI, and my TV plugged into my receiver through the Toslink connection. There are no HDMI Ports on my receiver.
The PS3 gave me a warning when I tried to switch it to bitstream that I might not get all the audio out of Blu-Ray movies so I currently have it on PCM. What are the advantages of each?

greeble

The Dude With Herpes wrote: »

Man holy crap receivers are expensive.

I bought a Sony off a friend a looooooong time ago and it's served me well. I paid little and have gotten much from it.

I've been thinking of saving up for a new one as of late, considering mine can't even do Pro-Logic II, and I wanted to future proof it a bit. But for ~$500 for a good one, it'd have to last me longer than this one to be worth anywhere near that price.

Yes they are expensive, which is why I decided to go with a $100 Onkyo refurb that maxes out at 5.1 DTS/DSD sound. I'll upgrade to 7.1 when it becomes more affordable and use the $100 amp in my rec room.

ToyD

JimJimBinks wrote: »

What's the difference between Bitstream & PCM?

I'll direct you Here for a more lengthy discussion, but it boils down to:

Bitstream- the player sends the audio track exactly on the disc to the receiver with 0 processing of the signal. Currently the PS3 cannot send full HD sound this way, hopefully the 4/15 update will fix this, I believe it will.

PCM-Pulse Code Modulation-the player does some software processing on the signal and then transmits it to the player and you should be able to get full HD sound through this. Usually this means it takes the audio track, compresses it, and sends it to the receiver, which then decodes it and does additional processing to play it back in surround or whatever.

Now, having said this, if the audio track on the disc is encoded in PCM already, the setting won't make any difference at all.

Dirty

Deusfaux wrote: »

ToyD wrote: »

Sorry if I was unclear, yes I was talking about PS3->receiver->TV solutions. Is that what you were asking Deus?

So you want the audio to come out of just the TV's, and not the receiver's speakers?

I am trying to understand the problem so I can suggest a solution.

I connect my PS3 to my TV via HDMI, since I have enough HDMI ports on my TV, and don't need my receiver to handle HDMI-switching. However, I have a second connection from the PS3 to the receiver via optical cable. That way, I have all the benefits of surround sound for PlayStation games and movies, but I can easily go to the XMB and switch the audio to output through HDMI and use the TV speakers instead, if I needed to.

This especially comes in handy if I'm playing Uncharted while the woman is trying to read a book. With all that directional gunfire sound, its like being in the middle of a war zone.


If you do plug the HDMI into the receiver, keep in mind that a lot of receivers with HDMI pass-through only passes video, meaning you will only get audio from your surround speakers unless you rig some kind of work-around.

chasm

FaceballMcDougal wrote: »

Neat... I like DTS.

Only it's fucking stupid that you have to select optical OR HDMI for audio output. Sometimes I just want the sound to come out of the TV.

Yeah. I like that I don't have to go to a menu for that with my 360. Having to switch it on my PS3 every fucking time I want to use my surround system instead is annoying.

Threepio

To answer the question in the thread title:

Yes.

AbsoluteZero

Man this makes me want a PS3. But I'd feel stupid paying so much just for a blu-ray player... grah...even though it is a really kickass blu-ray player.

Dashui

AbsoluteZero wrote: »

Man this makes me want a PS3. But I'd feel stupid paying so much just for a blu-ray player... grah...even though it is a really kickass blu-ray player.

I hear it even plays games, but that may just be a rumor.

(I can see where this would go, though. "But there are no games for it that are good rah rah rah!")

ToyD

AbsoluteZero wrote: »

Man this makes me want a PS3. But I'd feel stupid paying so much just for a blu-ray player... grah...even though it is a really kickass blu-ray player.

The cheapest PS3, at $399 is the exact same price (minus a sale price) of the cheapest Blu-Ray player. Sooooo, as long as you might want ANY blu-ray player, make it a PS3.

FaceballMcDougal

Deusfaux wrote: »

"Only it's fucking stupid that you have to select optical OR HDMI for audio output. Sometimes I just want the sound to come out of the T"

what are you saying there?


And optical is only capable of 5.1 - HDMI can do the 7.1 HD audio stuff we're talking about here - so that makes it better.


And if you were using HDMI to carry audio, you'd run the whole thing through the reciever first, and have another HDMI coming back out of it into the TV for video

What I'm saying is that other consoles and players let you go ahead and hook up multiple connections for sound.. and they all work at once.

I don't care which is better, my TV has HDMI inputs, my receiver does not. I don't care for 7.1 because 5.1 is all we have right now.

All my other devices output all at once... my cheap Sony DVD player will do optical, s/pdif, and stereo all at once if I wanted. It's just nice to have options.

Currently if I want to listen to just the TV audio the PS3 has to be set to output through HDMI, and even though the optical is connected... I have to go into system options to listen to surround sound.

There are probably technical reasons for this surrounding supporting multiple audio formats... but it sucks to have to do this special thing for this "high tech" device that is the best BR player 'evar'.

Deusfaux

can the PS2 spit out analog audio at the same time as digital?

FaceballMcDougal

Deusfaux wrote: »

can the PS2 spit out analog audio at the same time as digital?

yep

JimJimBinks

Last night I picked up the new Sony STR-DG720 for $299 at Circuit City. It'll do 8 uncompressed PCM channels over HDMI. So I'm really looking forward to the update now.
I popped in Pirates of the Caribbean 3, and the uncompressed audio makes a HUGE Difference.
It also came with the auto calibration Microphone, my surround sound has never sounded so good.

tetsuoZshima

FaceballMcDougal wrote: »

Deusfaux wrote: »

"Only it's fucking stupid that you have to select optical OR HDMI for audio output. Sometimes I just want the sound to come out of the T"

what are you saying there?


And optical is only capable of 5.1 - HDMI can do the 7.1 HD audio stuff we're talking about here - so that makes it better.


And if you were using HDMI to carry audio, you'd run the whole thing through the reciever first, and have another HDMI coming back out of it into the TV for video

What I'm saying is that other consoles and players let you go ahead and hook up multiple connections for sound.. and they all work at once.

I don't care which is better, my TV has HDMI inputs, my receiver does not. I don't care for 7.1 because 5.1 is all we have right now.

All my other devices output all at once... my cheap Sony DVD player will do optical, s/pdif, and stereo all at once if I wanted. It's just nice to have options.

Currently if I want to listen to just the TV audio the PS3 has to be set to output through HDMI, and even though the optical is connected... I have to go into system options to listen to surround sound.

There are probably technical reasons for this surrounding supporting multiple audio formats... but it sucks to have to do this special thing for this "high tech" device that is the best BR player 'evar'.

this annoys the crap out of me also, because I have my ps3's hdmi to the tv, and optical to my htiab; I don't actually care about sound from the tv, but i have a pair of ax360 headphones that have digital input as well. now I don't only have to change a cable, but the stupid setting in the menus as well, such a pita. (my tv and htiab don't have any digital sound out). not to derail, but does anyone know of an optical splitter that actually works, other than those complete boxes that are over 100 bucks? I tried a splitter I see on amazon and tons of cables sites + a powered optical amplifier from radio shack, but I still can't get enough signal for it to work (optical out on my cable box is strong enough, but neither my 360 nor ps3's are ;/)

Phoenix-D

ToyD wrote: »

There is no degradation of HDMI information. The information is digital. The degradation is transmitting the pieces of that digital signal to the destination. Too long of cable and the device at the end can't make out the 1s and 0s. But if the device at the end can read the 1s and 0s ok, there will be no quality loss.

Edit: Also, powered switches > unpowered or passive switches. The monoprice one I mentioned is powered of course since it has the remote. It also has some built-in equalization features to help in the problems you mentioned.

Digital CAN degrade, it just does it in a different fashion than analog. What happens is you have information one second, then the next you don't, resulting in stuttering or pausing or sometimes black screens.

AbsoluteZero

JimJimBinks wrote: »

Last night I picked up the new Sony STR-DG720 for $299 at Circuit City. It'll do 8 uncompressed PCM channels over HDMI. So I'm really looking forward to the update now.
I popped in Pirates of the Caribbean 3, and the uncompressed audio makes a HUGE Difference.
It also came with the auto calibration Microphone, my surround sound has never sounded so good.

That is one helluva nice receiver. If there's one product Sony has always done well, its theatre receivers.

ToyD

Phoenix-D wrote: »

ToyD wrote: »

There is no degradation of HDMI information. The information is digital. The degradation is transmitting the pieces of that digital signal to the destination. Too long of cable and the device at the end can't make out the 1s and 0s. But if the device at the end can read the 1s and 0s ok, there will be no quality loss.

Edit: Also, powered switches > unpowered or passive switches. The monoprice one I mentioned is powered of course since it has the remote. It also has some built-in equalization features to help in the problems you mentioned.

Digital CAN degrade, it just does it in a different fashion than analog. What happens is you have information one second, then the next you don't, resulting in stuttering or pausing or sometimes black screens.

I think that's what I said, just not as well as you did I think. I guess I meant that as long as you can get the 1s and 0s, the signal will be the exact same everywhere.

JimJimBinks

AbsoluteZero wrote: »

JimJimBinks wrote: »

Last night I picked up the new Sony STR-DG720 for $299 at Circuit City. It'll do 8 uncompressed PCM channels over HDMI. So I'm really looking forward to the update now.
I popped in Pirates of the Caribbean 3, and the uncompressed audio makes a HUGE Difference.
It also came with the auto calibration Microphone, my surround sound has never sounded so good.

That is one helluva nice receiver. If there's one product Sony has always done well, its theatre receivers.

That's true. My last 3 receivers have been Sony and I've had no complaints. Right now I've got a Sony TV, a Sony Receiver, and a PS3. So if discs come out supporting x.v. color in the future I'll be set. And the theatersync works nice.

AbsoluteZero

ToyD wrote: »

AbsoluteZero wrote: »

Man this makes me want a PS3. But I'd feel stupid paying so much just for a blu-ray player... grah...even though it is a really kickass blu-ray player.

The cheapest PS3, at $399 is the exact same price (minus a sale price) of the cheapest Blu-Ray player. Sooooo, as long as you might want ANY blu-ray player, make it a PS3.

I guess my problem is with blu-ray players costing $399+ more than anything. I really wish those prices would come down...