£300 Blu-ray Test - Dolby Interview

tech: £300 Blu-ray Test - Dolby Interview

July 7 2008 | WilHarris

In this episode of ChannelFlip Tech, I’m talking to Andy Dowell, one of the head honchos at Dolby in the UK.

When putting together the group test, one of the things I found the most complicated was the myriad of different audio formats that Blu-ray supports, and trying to work out which ones were worth looking out for. There’s Dolby Digital, Dolby True HD, DTS HD, DTS Master Audio, Linear PCM… the list seems to go on.

So I thought I’d check in with Andy and see what advantages the different formats have. Check out the video for his advice.

comments

Jim

July 7th, 2008 - 12:58pm

I think the Dolby guy summed it up when he said “most people couldn’t tell the difference”. Blu-ray will be the preserve of audio/videophiles while the rest of us will be quite happy with SD.

Jim

July 7th, 2008 - 1:33pm

SD DVD’s that is.

Norbit

July 7th, 2008 - 1:53pm

@ Jim

I suggest you watch the video again because that line you quoted was taken completely out of context. He was talking about how on DVD many people couldn’t tell the difference because of all of the compression the audio had to go through but on Blu-ray there is a difference.

You are basically agreeing with his reason why people SHOULD upgrade to Blu-ray lol

I read your comment on the other page that its the content that’s important to you not the quality. Of course the content is the most important thing but the better the quality the more likely you are to be receiving the content in the manner you were intended to thereby increasing the quality of the content even further.

Jim

July 7th, 2008 - 2:11pm

No, I’m happy that I have quoted him fairly. He is saying DVD audio is compressed in a way that people wouldn’t hear the difference from the source material. So in other words, most people could not tell the difference between a Blu-ray film and a DVD in terms of audio.

Greg

July 7th, 2008 - 6:30pm

No Jim. that’s not what the guy is saying.
At all.
He was saying that Dolby or DTS on DVD was moot.
The new uncrompressed (PCM) or lossless formats (DTS-HD MA or TrueHD) on Blu Ray is where it’s at, is hwat he is saying.

In other words, for an audible difference in audio quality, get Blu Ray, as the formats on DVD do not matter.

Jim

July 7th, 2008 - 8:19pm

I heard it with my own ears and I quote:

“…some of the quality is disregarded, albeit very intelligently and a lot of people would struggle to tell the difference.”

If that isn’t saying that it sounds pretty much the same then please explain to me what he IS saying.

BTW he should have used the word “data” instead of “quality” as the point of compression is to reduce the size without much degradation the quality.

mike Sadler

July 7th, 2008 - 9:09pm

I’m with you Jim - that’s what I thought, when I heard that quote.

If most people are struggling to tell the difference, is there any value in DTS-HD? Clearly for most people, no - but for some it will make clearly make a difference. I’ll guess that I will have to try it to see whether I am a lot of people” and make up my own mind.

Thinking out loud: Given the DTS-HD can support 7.1, it will be interested to see if movie makers will employ that to make a better movie going experience, in terms of where the sound comes from, and how it could immerse the viewer.

Norbit

July 7th, 2008 - 10:28pm

@ jim

He is talking about DVD when he says that. Cant you understand that?

He is talking about people not really being able to tell the difference on DVD.

He then says that they can on Blu-Ray because the sound isnt compressed.

Norbit

July 8th, 2008 - 1:23am

@ Jim

Sorry my mistake. I see what you are getting at now. When he is attacking the lossy audio on DVD’s he quickly backtracks and says that the lossy audio was done so well that most people wouldn’t notice the difference. That’s nonsense because there was no lossless audio on DVD to compare it to so there is no way of them knowing if customers could tell the difference or not.

He clearly only said that beause he realised he was putting down a product and quickly backtracked.

Jim

July 8th, 2008 - 9:22am

“He clearly only said that beause he realised he was putting down a product and quickly backtracked.”

He also said it because it is true.

Norbit

July 8th, 2008 - 11:47am

@ Jim

Because its true? How can it be? How can customers not tell the difference between lossless and lossy audio on DVD when there has never been a DVD released with lossless audio?

How can they not tell the difference between the two when they have never heard both of them?

You are obviously trying to push some kind of luddite agenda in an attempt to stop all progress but you are now simply ignoring facts and making things up.

Jim

July 8th, 2008 - 12:25pm

Lossless audio on a DVD is the same as lossless audio on any other format so it doesn’t matter if it never existed on DVD. Forget the DVD. In a straight comparison between the lossy and lossless audio a lot of people would struggle to tell the difference.

I’m not trying to stop all progress, in fact I’m all for it, but it usually comes at a price. Blu-ray and HD in general is only a small progress which for me isn’t worth the extra cost. In the future that will change as prices come down and technology improves and at some point my DVD player will pack in and I’ll get a Blu-ray (if they still exist).

hugh

July 9th, 2008 - 9:33pm

tbh, this fella didn’t sound too technical at all. This was all very dumbed down.
I can certainly tell the difference between Pro Logic, Dolby and DTS. Yes DTS isn’t a big jump, but all those steps add up.

Blueray is more about picture HD than a giant leap in audio anyway. And as this chap suggests, studios / mixing and the disc creators need to ring the most out of these formats before we see what it can really do.

Whether its value is a personal matter, not a hard fact.
For me, 300 quid for a PS3 is chump change, but I have an Xbox 360 and smallish 42inch panel and not a greater lover of watching movies. But if I was in the market for a disc player, i’d get a PS3 or a Blueray player as Blueray is the current and best.

No point posting glib one liners like “sd it is then” as we don’t care about your choices.
I also don’t think I want to be in Jim’s “rest of us” gang, they sound like pikey cheapskates

Jim

July 10th, 2008 - 11:05am

@ Hugh

You’re right, it is a personal matter and I regret using the term “rest of us”. It’s sometimes used, particularly by Apple, when describing products or software that are simple to use or for non-technical people e.g. “Time Machine, backups for the rest of us”. Those kinds of people, that wouldn’t appreciate the subtleties of lossless audio, would be happy with DVD’s. I didn’t intend to lump everyone together and I’m not trying to deter anyone else from buying Blu-ray. It’s your choice.

It just seems to me that because there is a new format that is technically superior, DVD’s are suddenly crap and to quote Greg “moot”, which I don’t believe to be true at all. CD’s didn’t suddenly become insignificant when SACD’s or HDCD’s came about so why should DVD’s?

Just because some people don’t buy into marketing hype and and don’t consider £300 to be “chump change” doesn’t make them “pikey cheapskates”.