Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Toshiba A30 and A35 HD player...differences?

I think what EFalardeau said about that a littler earlier is accurate.

If the player decodes the audio it is limited to 5.1. By sending it high bit rate audio via HDMI. the reciever can decode the HD audio to its native 7.1.

No players can decode all 7.1 channels yet? I haven't really kept up on that. Also, what discs actually have more than 5.1 at this point? I haven't seen any in all of the HD discs I've bought.

I checked all my HD-DVD and BD discs and they are all in 5.1 but Dolby TruHD and DTSHD support 8 channels. It is my understanding that we will soon see HD discs with this feature now that the receivers able to decode the audio are readily available.

I sure hope so, as I still plan on getting the two rear surround speakers when budget allows (and when I move my system into a room where I can actually use them).

I remember when Dolby was first showing off Dolby Digital Plus that they were bragging about having up to 14.1 channels. I imagine this was nixed before getting to HD DVD and Blu-ray because of the space requirements as well as the fact that such a small small percentage of people would actually invest the money in a home theater of that magnitude. How many discrete channels do commercial movie theaters get to play with? Are they taking advantage of more channels, or is it gone from the specs completely?

Movie theaters are usually 5.1, sometimes 6.1.

There are a couple HD-DVD's with 6.1, but the first to have 7.1 will be Pan's Labyrinth which will be released in a couple months.

I've been playing with my HD-A35 and Denon AVR-3808 and have found that by letting the superior audio decoders in the receiver do the work, the sound is WAAAAY better. Think about it... $499.00 HD-DVD player vs $1599.00 receiver. What one would you think would do a better job decoding HD audio? But that's just my experience.

That's good to know about the decoding.

I'll have to pick up an HD player just to listen to my rears.

This argument over where it is preferable to have the decoding done (source or audio processor) gets beat to death at AVS all the time. I’ve seen enough points from both sides to continue sitting with my but firmly planted on the fence. There is some evidence to support the processor group’s position, but I’m not sure if a human being could actually hear the difference, and that is in regards to PCM being sent over HDMI. It appears that it may be prone to jitter, but who knows if anyone could detect that??? At any rate, I don’t think anyone can make the claim that one way of decoding or the other is definitely better than the other.

I’m also not so sure about being limited to 5.1 PCM output from DTS-M or DD TruHD if decoded at the source. I have not seen anything concrete in that regards. Where is this sighted at a known fact?? I’d like to read that.

Regardless of all this conjecture, I believe that if someone either has, or plans to buy a HDMI 1.3 audio processor, they would be doing themselves an injustice by purchasing a source that will not output all the formats as bitstream. I am seeing a trend with the new HD and BR players to intentionally omit one format or the other, or both from internal decoding. I am also seeing a trend with BR and HD disks to include DTS-HD:M and / or DD TreHD, but not include a LPCM track. I think it is only a matter of time before the only format on the disks are DTS-HD:M and / or DD TruHD. It is for that reason that I bought the A35 and will most likely buy this new Panasonic BD30. They both output all the formats as bitstream.

Just as a sidenote, I really like the word "bitstream."