DTS HD MA vs Dolby True HD LFE

Kiran_B

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DTS HD MA vs Dolby True HD. Coming to bass which one you like. I know it depends on the type of movie and the way LFE is recorded, but just curious to know your thoughts.
Comparing the new 1080p blurays I watched, Terminator dark fate(DTS HD MA) and
Gemini Man(Dolby True HD). My PS3 can't bitstream HD/Atmos audio formats so I had to use LPCM. Both the movies have very good LFEs but to my ears Gemini Man has little edge. Both the movies I watched with volume -5(AVR trim -10.5 and subs gain 1 o clock)
About my setup(dedicated HT room, size 12*16 with modest accoustic treatment), last month I upgraded from Bose lifestyle V25 to the following 5.2.4:
LR Paradigm monitor 3000f
Center Paradigm monitor 2000c
Surround Klipsch R14s
Subwoofer dual SVS PB 2000s
Atoms NHT super zero 2.1(installed on ceiling but not yet connected to AVR)
AVR Marantz 6013
Power Amp Marantz mm7055(still not yet connected)
Bluray player PS3(Sony X700 4K player .Just played once and kept it aside)
 
i saw Gemini man & TDF in Atmos codecs.
But personally have noted that the DTS-HD is having better Bass than True HD tracks.
while using LPCM in ps3,does the ps3 do audio decoding or ur av rcvr?
 
i saw Gemini man & TDF in Atmos codecs.
But personally have noted that the DTS-HD is having better Bass than True HD tracks.
while using LPCM in ps3,does the ps3 do audio decoding or ur av rcvr?
PS3 does the audio decoding. This Sunday I am going to replace PS3 with Sony UBP X700 and re-watch both the movies and will post my result.
 
Always DTS of any version sounds better to my ears in commercial/home theatre.

Though I seldom watch in 5.1.2 layout for Atmos, except for demo clips, movies don’t sound anything exceptional/nothing noticeable in Dolby with ceiling speakers too!

All the Atmos files I play are usually 50-80gb.So not compressed.To an extent, perhaps, can be attributed to my narrow room (12ft wide).

Of course I can’t make much/any difference between 7.1ch and 5.1ch. Room length is 19ft. Am i missing some tinkering with settings?? Can anyone comment.

In contrast, even 2ch sound almost as good as 6ch when played with dts neo!
 
I generally find DTS neural much better & smoother than Dolby digital for upscaling for music as well as for movies in 5.1.
I Find Dolby digital more harsh.
 
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I watched, Terminator dark fate(DTS HD MA) and
Gemini Man(Dolby True HD). My PS3 can't bitstream HD/Atmos audio formats so I had to use LPCM. Both the movies have very good LFEs but to my ears Gemini Man has little edge. Both the movies I watched with volume -5(AVR trim -10.5 and subs gain 1 o clock)
Would it really be a fare comparison? Ideally we should find some movie that have the same master audio in both formats and watch the same.

Of course I can’t make much/any difference between 7.1ch and 5.1ch. Room length is 19ft. Am i missing some tinkering with settings?? Can anyone comment.
I was in the same boat as you and I use kodi on an HTPC as the source. What I realized is if I instead of bitstreaming the audio to the AVR so that AVR would show up the format name (used to feel good once) if I instead enable decoding the PC level through Kodi and still keep surrounds setting to 7.1 then it mixes the channels better and gives marginally better output. It is just an observation. Also if you have invested in a 7.1 surround setup and your sources are mostly 5.1 then while playing the 5.1 tracks with bitstream if you change your AVR configuration to 5.1 by turning off the side surrounds and using the rear surrounds then the effects will be better.

Always DTS of any version sounds better to my ears in commercial/home theatre.

This is a general notion, I would not deny it. But you should note one thing that if a source came with an identical uncompressed surround audio then that would have been the ideal representation of the master recording. Instead when tracks are encoded into Dolby or DTS there is a difference in the way the encoding happens and if one encoder has the logic of boosting the LFE obviously the same would sound punchier at the same volume level of the AVR.
 
I have watched lots of movies on my HT set encoded in Dolby Digital, Dolby TruHD, DTS, DTS HDMA, LPCM. There are certain movies I watch in multiple format. Like Black Hawk Down in LPCM( Blu ray)and DTS( DVD ), Gladiator (DVD) and Saving private Ryan in both Dolby Digital as well as DTS.
To my experience....
DTS is more powerful and dynamic in nature with surround sound brusting out of speakers. Surround sound field is louder but not detail and sharp.
Dolby is tight, agile and tidy in nature with accurate and pin point surround sound field. Dolby needs more power to deliver same loudness to that of DTS.
LPCM is more robust and agile in nature with well controlled low end/LFE. (Better than Dolby )
I have some super bit Dolby Digital DVDs and which sounds great . Certainly Dolby atmos/TruHD bluray movies like Ninja Turtles, MAD MAX FURY ROAD are reference level movies in audio department.
Ultimately surround sound experience greatly depends on HT system, system calibration ,how well surround sound is engineered and recorded, playback equipment and source.
 
I was in the same boat as you and I use kodi on an HTPC as the source. What I realized is if I instead of bitstreaming the audio to the AVR so that AVR would show up the format name (used to feel good once) if I instead enable decoding the PC level through Kodi and still keep surrounds setting to 7.1 then it mixes the channels better and gives marginally better output. It is just an observation. Also if you have invested in a 7.1 surround setup and your sources are mostly 5.1 then while playing the 5.1 tracks with bitstream if you change your AVR configuration to 5.1 by turning off the side surrounds and using the rear surrounds then the effects will be better.

I am also into HTPC,but new to kodi,i am playing my source (HD movies) through
Arcsoft Total media, My few Questions.

1. Can you tell me how to configure KODI,
2. Which sound card are you using to bitstream audio to AVR,which sounds better decoding through KODI,or AVR doing the decoding
3. What if we use multichannel AMP connected to PC sound card (5.1/7.1) KODI doing the decoding,without AVR.
4. Can we get DTS HD & DOLBY TRUE HD/Dolby Atmos though HTPC/KODI..
If Yes for Atmos,is there any sound card availble to carry the .2/.4 (Atmos channel)
here also no AVR.
5. Do we need AVR for Atmos having HTPC.

Thanks
rajesh.
 
I have watched lots of movies on my HT set encoded in Dolby Digital, Dolby TruHD, DTS, DTS HDMA, LPCM. There are certain movies I watch in multiple format. Like Black Hawk Down in LPCM( Blu ray)and DTS( DVD ), Gladiator (DVD) and Saving private Ryan in both Dolby Digital as well as DTS.
To my experience....
DTS is more powerful and dynamic in nature with surround sound brusting out of speakers. Surround sound field is louder but not detail and sharp.
Dolby is tight, agile and tidy in nature with accurate and pin point surround sound field. Dolby needs more power to deliver same loudness to that of DTS.
LPCM is more robust and agile in nature with well controlled low end/LFE. (Better than Dolby )
I have some super bit Dolby Digital DVDs and which sounds great . Certainly Dolby atmos/TruHD bluray movies like Ninja Turtles, MAD MAX FURY ROAD are reference level movies in audio department.
Ultimately surround sound experience greatly depends on HT system, system calibration ,how well surround sound is engineered and recorded, playback equipment and source.
I agree with you. Surround sound and LFE greatly depends on HT setup and how the music composer engineered and recorded. Until two months back I was under the impression that we need accurate/good subwoofers and any floor standers to take over the frequencies from 80hz onwards. Unfortunately it's not true. A good ported subwoofer with port tuning calibrated to produce ultra bass frequencies can't produce high SPL between 60hz to 120hz octave where we feel chest thumping bass(generally called as mid bass). Even legendary PB16 ultra, rythmik FV15HP, JTR, Monolith etc can't produce mid bass. As per my learning we need a good pair of speakers that can seamlessly integrate with subwoofers and produce bass authoritatively from 60hz onwards. It's a never end journey to have proper HT setup.
 
I am also into HTPC,but new to kodi,i am playing my source (HD movies) through
Arcsoft Total media, My few Questions.

1. Can you tell me how to configure KODI,
2. Which sound card are you using to bitstream audio to AVR,which sounds better decoding through KODI,or AVR doing the decoding
3. What if we use multichannel AMP connected to PC sound card (5.1/7.1) KODI doing the decoding,without AVR.
4. Can we get DTS HD & DOLBY TRUE HD/Dolby Atmos though HTPC/KODI..
If Yes for Atmos,is there any sound card availble to carry the .2/.4 (Atmos channel)
here also no AVR.
5. Do we need AVR for Atmos having HTPC.

Thanks
rajesh.

1. In kodi under System settings go to Audio settings and select surround as 7.1 and then mark "Enable Passthrough" as No and then there would be settings like Dolby True HD capable receiver, make all of them as No forcing Kodi to decode audio and send as LPCM to AVR. AVR will display Multichannel IN (in case of my denon) instead of displaying codec name, all set for test.

2. I am using inbuilt audio out HDMI on board.

3. Point 3 should give you direct analogue out as against AVR doing to the Digital to Analogue conversion. So difference in output may be there if DAC chips are different between sound card and AVR

4. I am unsure of Atmos, rest is possible.

5. Atmos capable AVR are there is market that can decode Atmos channels. However I would need someone to validate my belief that Atmos is just 2 / 4 extra channels so ideally a 7.1 non Atmos AVR configured as 5.1.2 or 9.2 AVR as 5.2.4 should work provided LPCM is fed to AVR by decoding the codec at HTPC level should be possible
 
I have watched lots of movies on my HT set encoded in Dolby Digital, Dolby TruHD, DTS, DTS HDMA, LPCM. There are certain movies I watch in multiple format. Like Black Hawk Down in LPCM( Blu ray)and DTS( DVD ), Gladiator (DVD) and Saving private Ryan in both Dolby Digital as well as DTS.
To my experience....
DTS is more powerful and dynamic in nature with surround sound brusting out of speakers. Surround sound field is louder but not detail and sharp.
Dolby is tight, agile and tidy in nature with accurate and pin point surround sound field. Dolby needs more power to deliver same loudness to that of DTS.
LPCM is more robust and agile in nature with well controlled low end/LFE. (Better than Dolby )
I have some super bit Dolby Digital DVDs and which sounds great . Certainly Dolby atmos/TruHD bluray movies like Ninja Turtles, MAD MAX FURY ROAD are reference level movies in audio department.
Ultimately surround sound experience greatly depends on HT system, system calibration ,how well surround sound is engineered and recorded, playback equipment and source.

There is a difference in bit rates and compression ratio when it comes to Dolby Digital (5.1) and DTS (5.1). Some of the Bluray discs came with both Dolby 5.1 and DTS 5.1 tracks, we could listen in both and compare.

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Dolby digital compresses 5.1ch digital audio data down to a raw bit rate of 640 kilobits per second (kbps). However, the 640kbits/s is only applicable to Blu-Ray discs. The maximum bit rates that Dolby Digital can support for DVD Video and DVD audio is up to 448kbits/s. To squeeze in all the relevant data, Dolby Digital employs a variable compression of around 10 to 12:1.

DTS surround sound, on the other hand, applies a maximum raw bit rate of up to 1.5 megabits per second. However, that bit rate is limited to approximately 768 kilobits per second on DVD video. Due to the higher bit rate supported by this format, DTS requires significantly low compression of about 4:1.

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When it comes to Dolby TrueHD and DTS HDMA , both are lossless formats, which means nothing is lost in the encoding and decoding process and we get what the original content had. But there were features incorporated in the encoding tools of these formats which may be used by Masters which may make a different in output. Generally we don't get these two formats in the same bluray disc hence we can't compare for the same movie. Even if we get it, we can't say it is a format related difference, it could be that the master decided to use the feature of the encoding tool in different way which makes the output different.

DTS HDMA was considered to be easy to use while making bluray discs, hence many masters preferred the format and we mostly see more Bluray discs with DTS HDMA than Dolby True HD.

This changed again with Dolby Atmos. It took more time for DTS to come out with DTS:X and they didn't define speaker layout and other properties. Hence we see more Atmos Bluray/UHD discs than DTS:X. (my general observation).
 
Hi all, I have a query here
Iam using Sony bdps4100 Blu-ray player connected to onkyo reciever and hdmi cable is 1.4 version, when I play Blu ray disc DTS hd ma audio bitrate is 5.6 Mbps for 5.1 and 9mbps for 7.1, am I getting lossless audio here? Please share your valuable inputs
 
Hi all, I have a query here
Iam using Sony bdps4100 Blu-ray player connected to onkyo reciever and hdmi cable is 1.4 version, when I play Blu ray disc DTS hd ma audio bitrate is 5.6 Mbps for 5.1 and 9mbps for 7.1, am I getting lossless audio here? Please share your valuable inputs
What is the Sony bdp audio settings
 
Hi all, I have a query here
Iam using Sony bdps4100 Blu-ray player connected to onkyo reciever and hdmi cable is 1.4 version, when I play Blu ray disc DTS hd ma audio bitrate is 5.6 Mbps for 5.1 and 9mbps for 7.1, am I getting lossless audio here? Please share your valuable inputs
Yes it’s Lossless at those bit-rates.
 
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