Blu ray audio

[admin_exported]

Hello all,

I had the 'This Is It' Michael Jackson blu ray land on my doormat courtsey of Love Film this week. I watched it last night and was quite surprised with the sound quality. The bass lines in particular had a weight and definition that my system does not often produce and the dynamics were very impressive. I did a bit of a google search this morning and it turns out that the disc audio is 24 bit.

I was watching the disc on my PS3 which is linked to my TV through the standard HDMI lead, the audio is fed from the TV via a set of interconnects to the line in on my Roksan Caspian. (Please do not start a discussion about HDMI leads.)

I think that what surprised me as much as anything else is that I have never really bothered too much with my 'home cinema' set up as I am far more interested in my hi-fi but this still sounded really good.

If this is what 24 bit audio does for a system then I am going to be downloading some HD audio and picking up an HD DAC for my hi fi.

My question (if I've really got one) is was I really listening to HD (24bit) audio or does the way my system is set up mean that I was listening to standard audio and there is some other explanation for the bass lines?

Thank you.

 

[The_Lhc]

If the audio was going via the TV then it's unlikely you were hearing the 24-bit audio track. Might help if you specified exactly what the soundtrack was, DTS-HD Master Audio? You might have been getting the core DTS track but even then I don't know of (m)any TVs that will handle that and none that will pass it through to an amp.

I'd guess you're getting a downmixed stereo track. You have no audio connection between the PS3 and the amp at all then?

 

[AlmaataKZ]

love film sends the disc without the box, so you cannot see what resolution/encoding the soundtrack is. If I remember correctly even the info printed on the disc is covered witha lovefilm sticker.

the info is not on the web-site either when you order the disk. I wish they could improve on that aspect.

 

[Anonymous]

No, the PS3 is only connected to the TV and then the TV feeds out to the amp via the analogue line out.

I have no idea what format the soundtrack was in.

If it helps the TV is a Panasonic V10 42 inch.

 

[The_Lhc]

it would help even more if we knew what the amp was...

 

[Anonymous]

Audio

English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1

http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Michael-Jacksons-This-is-It-Blu-ray/7924/

If that helps.

 

[Anonymous]

It is a Roksan caspian, standard 2 channel integrated amp.

 

[Anonymous]

Ok first of all the DTS-HD MA 5.1 mix on 'This Is It' is encoded at 24-bit. From my understanding, what you are likely getting is a downmixed version of this - 2 channels of 24bit at 48Khz. The metadata embedded in the DTS-HD MA track contains the information necessary for downmixing. This doesn't reduce either the bitrate or the sampling rate, but merely the amount of channels used.

Another reason why it sounds so good, is because the engineers at Sony did an extremely good job on this soundtrack. It rocks. The quality is up there with the best of any BD - perfect demo fodder.

BD Audio is still highly underrated I think. Check out the DTS-HD MA 5.1 mix on 'The Nordic Sound' audio only BD by 2L recordings encoded at 24/192. It's the epitome of engineering and production, and Blu-Ray is the perfect format for it. Multichannel music sounding better than Stereo ? Yes indeedy.

 

[Anonymous]

£27.39 at Amazon, I hope it's worth it...!

I've just ordered one, only 3 left.

 

[Anonymous]

John707:
£27.39 at Amazon, I hope it's worth it...!

I've just ordered one, only 3 left.

Oh dear - I hope you do like it ! It's too late now maybe (?) but it is region free, so you could have nabbed an import if it's cheaper ?

 

[Anonymous]

Another great example is The Police - Certifiable on bluray. Looks and sounds awesome, has the options of 5.1 or 2.0 Dolby TrueHD. I don't have a home cinema amp yet so I have this connected to my amp via the L&R S-video analogue out on my bluray player and even this sounds GREAT, although Police (Sting in particular) isn't everyone's cup of tea! Elderly they may be but boy they can still play, Stewart Copeland in particular, what a drummer!

 

[Anonymous]

THE_FORCE:John707:

£27.39 at Amazon, I hope it's worth it...!

I've just ordered one, only 3 left.

Oh dear - I hope you do like it !

 

[Anonymous]

You should do John, even if to appreciate the clarity in the recording. I'm gonna stick it on when I get home as I haven't listened to it for ages ! *puts classical music head on*