Hey all. First post. I am off the HDMI bandwagon. Tired of the restrictions, and tired of the BS. Tired of the constantly changing spec. If you havent heard, 1.3 wont be the end, 1.3b is coming.

Im sorry for ranting, but I had been anticipating the release of the new Outlaw Pre/Pro as everyone else has. I read AVSforum, and saw the sticky FAQs about "why I dont need HDMI", as well as Gonk's commentary regarding HDMI, but neither really drove the point home as much as these articles:

Quote:
First let's clarify some nomenclature. Dolby and DTS have both introduced new audio codecs. The lossy ones are DD+ (Dolby Digital Plus) and DTS-HD (High Definition). The lossless codecs are Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA (Master Audio).

Think of Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA as zipping a computer file to save space. None of the data is discarded, just packed more efficiently to take up less storage space. When you unzip the file, 100% of the data is still there, and you get a bit-for-bit copy of the original.

If you had a zipped document that you wanted to send me on disc, you would have two choices. You could unzip it on your computer before putting it on the disc. Or you could send it to me as a zipped file (would take up less space on the disc) and I could unzip it on my computer. Either way, I end up with the exact same document, down to the last letter.

Likewise, decoding (unpacking) a soundtrack in the player or in the receiver will yield the exact same results. It's not like high end receivers have a special secret version of TrueHD decoding reserved for them that cheap players aren't allowed to have. It's just format decoding. If certain audio data is flagged for the left front channel, then decoding in the worlds most expensive receiver won't place that data somehow "more" into the left front channel than decoding in the world's cheapest player.

Going back to the zipped document analogy. If you wanted to change anything in the document, from simple correction of spelling mistakes to complex re-formatting for a better look, you would first need to unzip that document. You wouldn't be able to manipulate it while it was still zipped.

Similarly, everything a receiver does to the soundtrack, upto and including D/A conversion, requires the soundtrack to be in uncompressed PCM form. In fact, when you send your receiver a DD or DTS bitstream, the first thing it does is decompress the soundtrack to linear PCM. Only then can it apply things like bass management, time alignment, etc.

Soundtracks on HD DVD (and eventually on Blu-ray, when it goes interactive) operate very differently than they do on DVD. With current DVDs, you need entirely separate soundtracks for things like foreign languages and filmmaker's commentary. This is actually a pretty wasteful approach.

With HD DVD, soundtracks can be authored in the 'Advanced' mode, which allows multiple content streams to be live-mixed (mixed in real time). You don't need another soundtrack for foreign languages. Just swap out the English centre channel stream with one of the foreign centre channel streams. You don't need another soundtrack for commentary. Just reduce the level of the main soundtrack and mix in the commentary stream. Same with button sounds and other interactive features, like picture-in-picture.

Just like editing the document requires unzipping the file first, doing any of this live-mixing to the soundtrack requires decoding it to linear PCM first. This is why it has to be done in the player. They're not going to transmit every option to your receiver, just one soundtrack. You choose what you want to hear, it is mixed in the player (i.e, the soundtrack you want to hear is literally built in real time inside the player) and transmitted as a final mix to your receiver.

Current HDMI allows 8 channels of 96/24 PCM to be transmitted (more than enough resolution for any soundtrack), but not the new codecs in their native form. When HDMI 1.3 arrives, it will allow the new codecs mentioned above to be transmitted in their native bitstream, but only if they were authored in 'Basic' mode (no interactivity). If the soundtrack was authored in Advanced mode, then it cannot be transmitted in undecoded form; decoding in the player is mandatory because of live mixing.

So far, all HD DVD soundtrack have been authored in Advanced mode. Which means nothing will change when new receivers arrive on the market. Despite having HDMI 1.3 transmission and decoders built into the receiver, decoding will still have to take place in the player.

Currently, Blu-ray discs are authored in Basic mode, since they haven't gotten interactivity yet. As soon as BD Java is up and working, they'll all be authored in Advanced mode too. At that point, what are the decoders in the receivers going to do? Decode the relatively few BD titles that were released before interactivity? Most of those titles will be re-issued anyway.

Personally, I'm glad that decoding is shifting to the player. I wish it had always been that way. Since receivers need the data in PCM form anyway, that's what every player should be outputting (irrespective of what format is used to store the data on the disc). As mentioned before, when new audio codecs and formats arrive, you'll have to buy a new player. But as long as the players keep outputting the audio in PCM form, current receivers will always remain compatible with anything that shows up in the future. How elegant is that!

Sanjay

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9353634&&#post9353634
http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/Joshua_Zyber/High-Def_FAQ/High-Def_FAQ:_Is_HDMI_1.3_Really_Necessary/853

The question is what does this mean to audiophiles that want the highest quality audio?

If these articles are accurate, it means that 99% of High Def discs will be mixed in the player. The discs are going to be decoded and transmitted as PCM, whether it is 5.1/7.1/8.1 analog out of the player, or PCM over HDMI, both methods rely on the DAC's of your player.

Please read this article excerpt:


Due to the complexity in decoding DTS-HD MA adding this capability would add complexity and cost to new players at a time when there is enormous pressure to produce high-definition players at lower prices. It's cheaper—or at least friendlier to current marketing realities—to put this decoding in the AV receiver, where the enthusiast will pay for it without batting an eye. To make the bitstream transmission work, however, both the player and the receiver must be HDMI 1.3 compliant.


Many recent AV receivers can accept multichannel PCM digital audio over earlier versions of HDMI. Most HDMI-equipped players can convert standard DD and DTS to multichannel PCM, and most (but not all) players can do the same for Dolby TrueHD.

Decoding any form of Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD MA into PCM is a completely digital operation—a manipulation of bits. It's a fact that audiophiles have long been skeptical of digital processing, particularly of things that can corrupt the digital data stream, such as jitter. Jitter interrupts the timing sequence, so that the bits do not always arrive at their destination when they should. "Bits is bits," say the digiphiles; "The right bit at the wrong time is the wrong bit," argue the phobes.

Until it's proven otherwise, we'll come down on the side that argues that the all-digital process of converting TrueHD or DTS-HD MA to multichannel PCM digital involves no sonic compromises.

But there are, despite this alternative, advantages to passing these audio formats along to the receiver in their raw "bitstream" form. The most obvious is that no HD DVD or Blu-ray player yet available will decode the full high-resolution data stream of DTS-HD Master Audio into PCM.

The original article is here:
http://www.ultimateavmag.com/features/807hdmi13/

To further illustrate this look at this from the Dolby site:
http://www.dolby.com/consumer/technology/trueHD/AVRs/trueHD_avrs_3.html

Excerpt from Dolby:

To decode these bitstreams, the A/V decoder will need to support the updated data protocols, as well as incorporate these new decoding algorithms. In addition, it will be necessary to select HD discs in which the content maker has permitted the core 5.1 or 7.1 audio bitstreams to bypass the player’s mixing process and be sent directly to the digital outputs of the player. We expect that certain HD discs will permit this, but they may represent a minority of titles. In the end, the sound quality will be essentially the same as that of audio decoded within the player as PCM signals and transported through a current-generation HDMI connection to the A/V receiver.

With six or eight channels of 24-bit/96 kHz audio to handle from these new HD formats, the post-processing DSP requirements for an A/V receiver more than double. Rather than devoting the considerable DSP resources to decoding the core audio signals within the A/V processor itself, it may be more fruitful to use the A/V processor’s DSP resources to perform high-resolution post-processing such as bass management, room or speaker equalization, Dolby Pro Logic® IIx decoding, or other types of digital signal processing.

As a result of the quality and capabilities that the new digital interfaces provide, hardware manufacturers can offer more highly optimized system designs that attain the ultimate in performance while providing the greatest flexibility and efficiency for the consumer.


That last paragraph is funny. What quality??? HDMI SUCKS! This rate of change of its specification cant be suported. Whats the point? Every other device has analog outs anyway (except the PS3). If I were a sales guy, I would never tell someone to use HDMI. Its too hard to figure whats what. I would get them the player with DTS-MA decoding (thats not out yet), and make sure it had 7.1 or 8.1 analog out, and their receiver or amp had at least 5.1 analog inputs.

Prehaps Oppo or some other high end audio/video company will eventually get in the game with better quality player with great DACS?

This fiasco sure makes the 990 look more appealing, especially given the ridiculous amount of changes the HDMI committee keeps making.

tres0r