More HD audio on BluRay — Marillion Live from Cadogan Hall

daveloc

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Following on from the Rush "Moving Pictures" on BD thread http://www.whathifi.com/forum/hi-fi/music-on-blu-ray-rush-moving-pictures, I've now picked up the above concert film, which also has both 24/96 stereo and DTS-HD MA 5.1 sound on the main feature. Even the 'bonus', the "Less is More" album on which the live show is based, is 24/96 stereo (only).

Although neither the band nor its catalogue are of the same status, everything positive I said about the lift that 24/96 gives the material on the Rush BD also applies here; the audio even sounds fine via HDMI from the notoriously audiophobe PS3 (which I had to use to check the bitrates) with decoding in my TV; I tried CD that way afterwards as a control, and it was awful!

The negatives — ill-considered static video elements on the audio-only sections, and bright fixed logos on the 'Marillion TV' items — also apply, but are less important given that the disc is primarily a movie rather a record; and at least my set has a "Display Off" mode...

This really ought to be the way forward for audio on physical media, and IMNSHO the record companies are (not for the first time) missing a trick in not making more use of the option. Even Marillion themselves have just re-released 'marbles' and 'somewhere else' as deluxe CD packages rather than as HD audio BluRay ;(

The questions from the original thread still stand, though, including whether this HiFi section should have a separate "HD audio" subsectionf...
 

daveloc

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AL13N said:
Came across this article yesterday that might be of interest:

High-resolution audio on Blu-ray Disc; AES-21id-2011

There's already one such system in use by classical labels like 2L and Naxos, which uses the colour keys on remotes to switch audio track, see ‘Pure Audio Creator’, but it's not, as far as I know, an AES standard.

The article you quote is very encouraging, though, as it cites the central issue: "...CD players ...method of operation has been consistent...put a disc in the tray; accept track 1 by default or select another; press Play. No other setup was expected or available"

As I explained in the Rush thread, this is what SACD got right and DVD-Audio got wrong and refused to fix despite it being technically possible to do so.
 

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