Blu - Ray v. digital - what is the future

DTS HD MA and DolbyTrueHD are lossless. Just like FLAC is lossless. Have you ever ripped some tracks from a CD, compressed them to FLAC and then compared the original PCM files (from the rip) to the FLAC ones? Try it.

GlassDream


I'm working in the movie field, I talk to sound and mixing engineers quite often, and rarely does stuff get a remix because no one simply cares enough to do it. They just use what was originally done from the master tracks (PCM originals), and just compress those. From there they decide how much to elevate ground noise on ALL channels to compensate on limited Mbps compared to the PCM.

It costs more to do, so they do it to save space for bonus content to ensure the costs of using DTS/Dolby to make the Bluray more appealing to sell.

Why do you think early Blurays all came mostly in PCM 5.1? Becuase it offered THE BEST in sound, but after a while with consumers demanding more special features, something had to give relief, and PCM surround didn't justify all the space used on the disc if most customers couldn't really tell a difference....... so NOW they opt for the new DTS Master and Dolby TruHD.

As for being bit for bit identical......when you're used to hearing PCM 5.1 with every speaker in the room sounding transparent to where it feels like your IN the film, that's one thing.
Then a DTS master/Dolby TruHD that makes every track sound like a speaker box sound..... then you catch on that something isn't as identical as claimed.

The worst is hearing the LFE track bottom out from an over abundance of activity and the compression codec doesn't leave enough information to represent the audio correctly. I have yet to hear a PCM track bottom out, and I own a lot of PCM films/concerts. I hear DTS Master/Dolby TruHD tracks bottom out too often

I guess we're going to have to agree to disagree?  I'm not sure where you're getting your information from, but at least the first part of your post is not my personal experience WHAT soever.  I'm sure it happens in less expensive productions that there's only a single master mix, but it's extremely INexpensive to do a second/third mix, especially when you're using a programmable board like an 88RS or whatever.  
I don't understand your point about the switch from PCM 5.1 to TrueHD and DTS-HD?  I think you're saying that studios opted to switch out from PCM 5.1 to TrueHD and DTSHD because they wanted to save space on the disks and why bother if the consumer "can't tell the difference"?  I
 
n the transition period in the earliest years when BR came out, NO ONE had a player that could decode 7.1 audio - be it LPCM, Dolby or DTS.  So there were actually very few 8 channel LPCM disks made.  Fast forward a few years, TrueHD and DTSHD become more common in receivers, so they become the perceived more compatible - i.e. marketable - therefore more dominant  feature.  To the consumer, it is perceived that those formats upped the surround spectrum to 7.1/7.2 channels, which was easier to sell as a consumer 'upgrade', and a reason to buy bluray.  In general, people were marketed an otherwise non-lossy, identical audio signal with 2 whole extra channels.  
 
Also, you may be interested to know that a lot of the time the TrueHD and DTS masters are made from HIGHER resolution (i.e. say 24-bit or 20-bit) masters than the LPCM mix tends to be, which is usually 16-bit except for music disks.  Mathematically compressing TrueHD and DTSHD tracks allow them to take us less space than LPCM even when starting from a higher-res master.  
 

Also, by the way PCM is mandatory for blurays to meet the specification, which is why all early blurays (and all subsequent, even if it's not on the box) had LPCM tracks.  they are not mandatory to be 5.1 or 7.1 but they are required to carry at least a wholly uncompressed stereo track. 

I just bought "The Adjustment Bureau" on Blu-Ray and it comes with a data package so you can have the HD movie file on your computer, player, iphone etc...
 
I love this idea and way of providing both. I love to have the movies in a physical form standing in my shelf but to have all of my movies stored on an external harddrive that is connected to my television is just amazing...

With 3 MB/s DSL, I'm not streaming anything. I buy.
 
The other problem, as previously mentioned, is that I see all internet providers eventually capping usage just like cell phones.
 
I did replace my VHS with DVD but I am only replacing a select few DVD's with Blu-Ray. Occasionally I will splurge if I see a BD for $8 or something like that for a movie I had not intended on replacing/upgrading.

the biggest thing I've noticed is a LOT of sales happening everywhere for batches of bluray films that stores seem to want to get rid of:  this encourages me to pick stuff up when it's anywhere from $8 to $15 a blu, especially for films I've always loved and seeing them that cheap makes it easy to pick up.
 
If anything, I've spent less on blurays than I've spent on most of my DVD's.
 
The limited bandwidth available makes me avoid netflix and online streaming since they only offer Dolby Digital 5.1 (DVD quality), and less than 1080p (as already mentioned I believe).

Bad Magick


Buying movies on BluRay is a waste.  In ten years, they'll be about as useful as a DVD.  All you'll have will be nothing but some expensive coasters.  I wouldn't buy anything.  You'd be better off streaming from Netflix. 

Totally disagree. I just bought a 400 disc bluray player and I never even have to leave the couch to pick which movie I want to watch anymore. 

I'm not going to wait 10 years without seeing all of my favorite movies so I can watch them on Netflix in 10 years life is too short.  I'm going to buy the movies I want to buy, and if BluRay becomes obsolete I will move on.  I already have gotten rid of all of my DVD's and switched over to BluRay
1) The quality of Netflix is very good but not quite BluRay quality. I would say it's DVD quality or slightly above DVD quality but it's not even close to BluRay quality.

2) I have yet to watch one movie on Netflix streaming that is 5.1.  Every movie I've watched is in Dolby Digital 2.0.  I even watched a movie on Amazon On Demand that was in "5.1" yet sound was only coming out of my left and right speakers, on BluRay I never have this problem.

3)  Netflix has a very poor selection. There's a ton of movies but of my 200 BluRay's only about 10% of them are streamable on netflix. If Netflix can get virtually every movie ever made on their streaming service and keep the price under 10 bucks then BluRay is in trouble because as we learned from the napster debacle, people are willing to listen to music at lower quality than pay for something with better quality. 

I personally would rather buy a movie on BluRay that looks incredible and is in 5.1 over being able to see it for free on Netflix streamed but I recognize I am definitely in the minority on this one. 

I do believe the day will come where your entire movie collection will be on a cloud but it's not happening any time in the forseeable future so for now I'm going to buy BluRay and enjoy the great audio and sound quality.