DVDa and DTS

Rob Franks wrote on 1/15/2010, 9:08 PM

With the conception of Blu Ray disk comes the ability to now be able to use such things as uncompressed 5.1 and DTS.

Of course I do enjoy my DVDa but it does not readily support these audio types as of yet. My hope is that Sony fixes this for the next version.

At any rate, are there any tricks in the book to get DTS to at least pass through DVDa? I can do this in Encore but I'd rather use DVDa.

Back to post

Comments

Rob Franks wrote on 1/26/2010, 3:58 AM

As for 7.1 sound.... it's not part of the DTS spec. It's OPTIONAL as part of DTS+ and DTS-HD spec... which is not mandatory.

In fact if I open my DTS encoder and choose plain DTS (as opposed to HD or +)... you will see by the screen shot that 7.1 is not even an option at that level:

LJA wrote on 1/26/2010, 8:19 AM

Point of clarification here. I have seen several major studio BDs whose only English audio track is DTS. Since they were rented from Netflix, I cannot remember nor can I check which movies they were, although I think maybe UP was the most recent example. As far as I can recall, the other language tracks were all Dolby.

[Note: just checked with Amazon; UP is indeed DTS only in English. The other tracks (French, Spanish) are DD.]

Rob Franks wrote on 1/26/2010, 1:27 PM

Yes, that's the way it usually is.

But what is or is not used on a BD is not really the debate here (as far as I can see anyway... I'm not quite sure what DJ is trying to say at this point)

The idea here is that because DTS is a mandatory part of the BD spec then in order to properly support BD, DVDa MUST be able to allow DTS. If it does not then it would not be fair to say that DVDa fully supports BD. At best you could say it has "limited" support.

The sad part about this is that BD's entire reason for living is to be so much better than DVD... and in fact it can be.... but DVDa is not letting us at this time. Meanwhile I can create and burn blu ray with my choice of dts, dts+(5.1 or 7.1), and dts-hd(5.1 or 7.1) with 2 totally free programs (tsmuxer and imageburn).

kmr wrote on 2/1/2010, 3:45 PM

As I understand it, DTS being a mandatory part of the Blu-ray spec means: 1) all Blu-ray players must support DTS, and 2) DTS *may* be used as the codec for an audio track on a BD-ROM disc.

Just because all players must be able to handle DTS does not mean that all BD-ROMs must *contain* DTS.

All that is required of a BD-ROM is that the primary audio track be in one of the mandatory audio codecs. AC-3 is one of those mandatory audio codecs, thus DVDA is fully in compliance with the spec because it can produce discs with AC-3 audio.

Now, whether or not it would be better for DVDA to offer support for DTS, the answer is "Yes, of course." But to claim DVDA is not in compliance is just wrong.

Rob Franks wrote on 2/1/2010, 5:30 PM

"All that is required of a BD-ROM is that the primary audio track be in one of the mandatory audio codecs. AC-3 is one of those mandatory audio codecs, thus DVDA is fully in compliance with the spec because it can produce discs with AC-3 audio."

Absolutely... but why stop there. We don't even need the AC3 because Blu Ray also supports PCM. So let's just trash the AC3 and go with PCM only... after all, it's not mandatory that DVDa support AC3 to be Blu Ray compliant. :)
(Joking of course)

DTS (AT MINIMUM) is now pretty much standard on all commercial Blu Ray disks. It USED to be a HUGE option on DVD and we are therefore trained to see it as a HUGE option carried over to Blu Ray.... even though it's not.

You have to remember that Blu Ray's sole purpose in life is to outshine DVD.... it can't do that completely without DTS.

IMO... if you can't meet ALL of Blu Ray's minimum specs then you're operating a few bricks short of a load, and DVDa operates at that level. It is NOT in full compliance.

kmr wrote on 2/2/2010, 2:29 PM

Rob Franks wrote: "IMO... if you can't meet ALL of Blu Ray's minimum specs then you're operating a few bricks short of a load, and DVDa operates at that level. It is NOT in full compliance."

Let's see: If the minimum spec (regarding audio) is that the primary audio track be AC-3, *or* DTS, *or* PCM, and if DVDA offers at least one of those, then it surely seems to me that DVDA is in full compliance. If a user is able of producing a fully-compliant BD-ROM by using DVDA, then DVDA is in full compliance. "Fully compliant" does not mean "includes all of the possibilities." If you don't agree, then we just have totally different ideas of what "full compliance" really means.

(Since the video content can be in either mpeg2, AVC, or VC-1, would you then say that a fully compliant BD-ROM would need to include its content in ALL of those codecs???)

Rob Franks wrote on 2/2/2010, 9:12 PM

"If you don't agree, then we just have totally different ideas of what "full compliance" really means."
I don't agree.

"(Since the video content can be in either mpeg2, AVC, or VC-1, would you then say that a fully compliant BD-ROM would need to include its content in ALL of those codecs???)"
Who said anything about having to use ALL of the various audio/video codecs on a single disk???? You're not reading things correctly here

The BD spec allows for certain choices. One of those choices could be mpeg with AC3 for a given disk and another disk could be AVC with PCM audio. Both of these disks fall into the spec and are compliant (given the proper resolution of course). And yes... if you REALLY wanted to, you could even create a compliant disk containing AVC, MPEG2, PCM, DTS, AC3... etc

But let's say I wanted a disk with AVC and DTS on it. That's clearly within the blu ray spec.
DVDa can't do it. It fails at creating a compliant Blu Ray disk. In order for me to continue to use DVDa I have no choice but to downgrade my audio choice.

Point blank... DVDa is not in full compliance of the Blu Ray spec.

I can not openly choose any of the codecs contained in the list of choices for "compliant" Blu Ray. I am instead forced to choose only what DVDa will allow because DVDa does not meet full compliance.

farss wrote on 2/2/2010, 11:30 PM

Sorry mate but I think your interpretation of the word "compliant" is wrong.
The playout device must be able to play all the permisable streams. There's no mandate that the authoring tools must be able to author all of them. The only way for DVDA to be non compliant is if it produced something that was not within specification and hence the players could not play it.

If your complaint was that DVDA does not support every option in the specification then, yes, you're correct.
To look at this another way, the specification for DV covers PAL and NTSC. A camera does not have to be able to record PAL to comply with the DV specification.

Bob.

Rob Franks wrote on 2/3/2010, 3:51 AM

Well I'm not sure that I agree with your example.... it might be more fitting if they only sold PAL cams in North America, and NTSC cams overseas..... but I do get your drift.

"If your complaint was that DVDA does not support every option in the specification then, yes, you're correct."
That's probably a better way of putting it, but let's not get too hung up on the word "option" because DTS in itself is a mandatory part of the spec. All Blu Ray players must be able to decode it.

So let's just say that DVDa does not have the capacity to meet the full Blu Ray spec.

Would that line make everybody happy?

kmr wrote on 2/3/2010, 9:42 AM

Bob wasn't getting "hung up on" words. His use of the word "option" is key. Makers of discs have options; they can use any ONE of the codecs and be fully compliant. Makers of players do not have options; they must be able to decode ALL of the codecs in order to be fully compliant. DVDA is of concern to the group "makers of discs", not "makers of players".