Will there be any 7.1 true hd or DDhd hd dvd's

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I am wondering if there will ever be any 7.1 lossless hd dvds or blue Rays in the near future if any at all. All of the research I do points to only 5.1 audio. The reason I ask is that I just bought two more surrounds for my theater for this prospect, but the more I look around I only see blue ray and hd dvds with just 5.1 What's the deal? Can anyone give me some insight into this problem? I keep seeing "up too 7.1 audio", but no mentioning of this actually occuring on any dvds. I have not yet bought an Hd Dvd or blue ray #1 because they are expensive, but mostly becuase none have hdmi 1.3 and I will need another reciever to for this later down the road, but can anyone tell me if blue ray or hd dvd is planing on using 7.1 or should I just have keep my 5.1 setup?

Even 5.1 encoded movies should sound better with a 7.1 speaker/receiver combo. The reason is that you get a much larger surround sound field to really put you into the middle of the action. Of course, this is coming from a guy with a 5.1 setup, but mine is due to space limitations. If I could, I would have gone 7.1.

I'm sure that 7.1 will eventually show up, there are also some good movies out now with 6.1 in DTS.

I am concerned about this because of the failure of sacd and dvd audio. People seem to be happy with crappy mp3 sound and I wonder if the studios will actually do this. Is there anyone out there who has evidence of this coming to pass? Alan??? anyone???? has anybody seen or heard of future disks being created in these formats? I would think that a 5.1 lossless with two back that are not would not sound right? Am I just making this up or not? Would it detract from the experience or still be worth while to use the back speakers? I keep hearing about how awesome the sound is with these new codecs and I am excited to hear them whenever I get the funds to do this, but I would be kinda bummed if the disks are not using their full capabilites (7 full lossless chanells of audio.)Does anyone know where I could go to get the truth from the horses mouth? Thanks, It would be greatly appreciated

Not meaning to stray from the topic, but it DOES amaze me that people think that MP3 audio is "so good". It is good. Good at being a compressed format, that is. Like satellite radio. Talk about a throwback to sounding like AM radio. There are receiver (and stereo) manufacturers that allow for compensation for compressed audio, but it is just "making it up" as it goes. A lot better than regular compressed audio, but still not the same as lossless. Which is also like regular definition DVDs on an upconverting DVD player. It is a lot better (in my opinion on my 104" HDTV projector) than non-upconverted, but still not the same as film quality or even hi-def.

They just announced the first 50 GB Blu-Ray movie is comeing out, of course the space will be for hi-def extras, and no better picture or sound, but at least it using the space, and people will start to put higher quality audio in more channels at some point.

When I read the Sony press release about the new BluRay titles one of the points was that they would be using uncompressed PCM audio.

Hi Jhunt17,

It's too early in the game to expect movie releases to be mixed in a multichannel lossless format. Dolby Digital 5.1 is a worldwide standard and will remain so until the quagmire of Blu-Ray and HD-DVD is settled.

It costs plenty in extra time with the mixing engineers to add additional discreet channels as well as adapt the mixing studios to operate in new Dolby formats.

This also gets into a philosophical question of how small nuances in audio improvement may come at too great a cost in the production budget of movies. Put another way, Dolby Digital 5.1 is an extremely transparent, albeit, "lossy" format. My experience testing lossy algorithms vs lossless formats is such that it takes concentrated listening on high-quality earphones with very particular groups of instruments or vocals to detect any difference between the most transparent lossy formats and their lossless equivalents.

As you know, DVD-Audio and SACD can sound wonderful, but it's clear that the slight audible improvements offered by those formats were not sufficient to persuade consumers to adopt them.

So part of me believes that discreet 8-channel lossless soundtracks will come eventually, but don't hold your breath for immediate changes.

Thanks Alan, from what I was looking at that is what I was begining to figure. I hope that they do come around with these, but I am not going to hold my breath. Is there anyone out there with a blue ray or hd dvd player that has heard the tracks and can give an idea of the difference in sound between dolby true hd and the regular 5.1 dolby digital?

Quote:

As you know, DVD-Audio and SACD can sound wonderful, but it's clear that the slight audible improvements offered by those formats were not sufficient to persuade consumers to adopt them.

Since I am one who feels the improvement provided by these formats is profound rather than slight, I can't tell you how disappointed I am that so many consumers don't "get it."

And, I don't understand why they don't get it. I have done multiple demos in my home where I go from stereo, to PLII, to SACD. The change to SACD has never failed to draw strong positive reactions. Many have gasped at the difference.

Jack, I have to agree with you 100%, to me, going from regular cd's to SACD is like going from regular TV to HDTV. I'm baffled as to why SACD and DVDA's have not gained more popularity.

Great analogy, Michael. I feel exactly the same. Well said!

JH, in addition to the points Alan made, keep in mind that even present 5.1 DVDs can usefully be played on a 7.1 speaker setup. Applying DPLIIx or Logic 7 to the surround channels in 5.1(the front three channels aren't affected)extracts material which should be imaged in the back and steers it as stereo material to the back speakers.

>>I'm baffled as to why SACD and DVDA's have not gained more popularity.

Because so many of us are too lazy to hook up the extra connections or fiddle with the player to output SACD over the stereo connection rather than the compatibility tracks. We listen to the CD-compatible tracks and say "sure, it sounds a bit better, but not profoundly better"

At least that's my excuse.

Quote:

At least that's my excuse.

And you're sticking to it.

So, Johns the guy thats been holding up the advancement of SACD/DVDA

Hey Ajax,

You're comparing apples to oranges. Of course any multi-channel four-, five, or six-channel recording of music, be it DVD-Audio, SACD, Dolby Digital 5.1, DPLII(x), dts, or Logic7 will, in most cases, sound much more realistic than 2-channel stereo (see my article on the inherent limitations of 2-channel stereo in the Axiom newsletter archives)
http://www.axiomaudio.com/stereoflaw.html

The real test is a careful comparison between a discreet multichannel format like Dolby Digital 5.1 and DVD-Audio/SACD, using the same music. When the channel levels are identical, and the same mix is used, the audible improvements are very subtle, in many instances inaudible.

The reasons for the commercial failure of DVD-A and SACD are many and complex, not the least of which is their incompatibility with most DVD players.

Hi Alan,

Just my opinion, but I think the apples to oranges comparison is the correct one. My comments about my demo were in response to a comment that “it's clear that the slight audible improvements offered by [SACD and DVD-A] were not sufficient to persuade consumers to adopt them [in preference to the 2 channel CD].” The point I was trying to make with my demo is that SACD and DVD-A do "sound much more realistic" than a standard CD, hence, my chagrin at the lack of success of the multichannel formats.

However, I did say that my demo included comparing PLII to SACD. And the gasps I elicited occurred when I changed from PLII to SACD using the same music from the same disc. I will admit that the volumes were probably not quite identical, but close. I’m willing to consider that the volume difference and/or the placebo affect may have something to do with the difference I hear, but, at this point, I remain skeptical that those factors explain all the difference.

I'm getting way past my level of expertise, but isn't there a bit rate difference, or some recording quality difference, between a redbook 2 channel CD, and a(n) SACD/DVD-A which would provide an improvement in sound quality, regardless of the number of channels? Does a 2 channel SACD offer improvement over a 2 channel redbook SACD? Would laying PLII(x)over the redbook CD compensate for that difference and make it equal in quality to a 2 channel SACD?

I agree completely that DD 5.1, DTS, are as big an improvement over stereo as SACD and DVD-A.

DISCLAIMER: I mean no disrespect to those who are dedicated 2 channel fans. I firmly believe that people should listen to music the way that gives them the most pleasure.

I am a HD DVD owner and I can tell you that you can have 5.1 truehd now and it is better than DD or DTS.I just watched Batman Begins and my jaw is still on the floor.7.1 will come to HD DVD at some point just dont know when.The only problem is it will have to be thru HDMI as there is no 7.1 analog outputs on the toshiba.The guy who said that bluray has the bd50 it is still to early to count on bluray to do anything because they dont even have a player that works right yet.

oh and truehd is lossless

Jack, on the part of your reply where you ask about possible bit rate(sampling rate is also another difference)differences making a difference in sound quality even where multi-channel isn't a factor, yes that's often claimed. This hasn't come up much recently and one of my replies from three years ago still has some active links to good info. The poster "soundhound"(shown in his replies by his later boardname of "HAL 9000")explained how better recording, mixing and mastering made the difference that was often heard, not higher sampling and bit rates. He also pointed out that even on the same disc different mastering was often applied to CD and SACD layers, which could account for a difference.

When Sony and Philips were co-developing the CD format around 1980 they agreed to use a 44.1KHz sampling rate and 16 bits(Philips originally proposed that 14 bits were enough)as being more than sufficient for the frequency range of human ears and the dynamic range of the material that would be recorded. Since two digital samples exactly reproduce an analog waveform, 44.1KHz sampling exactly reproduces frequencies up to 22,050Hz, beyond audibility. Likewise, 16 bits provide for a theoretical maximum dynamic range of about 98dB(6.02n + 1.76dB), and actual recordings have at most 80dB of range(many almost uniformly loud pop recordings have a dynamic range on the order of 10dB).

So, while DVD-As/SACDs can sometimes sound better than CDs of the same performance, higher sampling and/or bits is unlikely to be a significant factor. Of course when the DVD-A/SACD has discrete multi-channel placement of performers in surround channels, this sounds different and hopefully better. On the other hand, where the surround channels contain only ambience information(most classical DVD-As/SACDs)rather than discrete performers, applying processing such as DPLII, Logic 7, Neo:6, etc. to CDs can provide a very similar result. I own one SACD and likely won't be getting any more.

Thanks John. That helps.