TRUE AUDIO or lossless audio

graco1

what does this true audio terms means, i recently brought a MARANTZ SR-4003 receiver from an authorized dealer in NY, and now reading i see that the model 5003 have something called TRUE AUDIO, i mean im gonna be hooking up my receiver to a sony ps3 to watch blue ray movies, by connecting an HDMI cord from my ps3 to receiver will i be getting a much better sound lets say if i was using like regular cables before this HDMI came out, or is the HDMI only a way of lessening cables at the back of your receiver and it doenst provide that much better sound quality, and also will i have to upgrade to a SR5003 to get this TRUE AUDIO, now in saying all of this i havent open my receiver its still in the box SEALED and depending on your response it will be sold at a LOSS but im awaiting ya all ANSWERS

Sami

If your 4000 has HDMI, PS3 will output the new formats to it as LPCM. Make sure you select that option from PS3.

graco1

yes the marantz 4003 have hdmi1.3 output jacks so what does that mean? will it do it? and what is LPCM? im assuming thats a audio format so the thing is this after it goes from the ps3 to the receiver will it be that LOSSLESS AUDIO they talked about or do i have to get a receiver that OUTPUTS the signal to that format

rdb2001

graco1 wrote: »

yes the marantz 4003 have hdmi1.3 output jacks so what does that mean? will it do it? and what is LPCM? im assuming thats a audio format so the thing is this after it goes from the ps3 to the receiver will it be that LOSSLESS AUDIO they talked about or do i have to get a receiver that OUTPUTS the signal to that format

LPCM is what the PS3 sends to your receiver for the decoded version of the loseless tracks on blu rays. The PS3 does all the decoding onboard and that can not be bypassed, which is good if you only have a receiver with HDMI pass through. Your receiver has HDMI 1.3 so you are fine cause the ps3 is decoding it onboard and sending it to your receiver as LPCM. Just make sure your PS3 is hooked up via HDMI and you will be able to enjoy all loseless formats. Digital optical and coaxial do not have the bandwidth to support the 7.1 loseless audio tracks. It is uncompressed audio. It will give you a much better sound, more discrete by using HDMI as well as better wire management with less cables. Hope this helps and others will chime in.

wutadumsn23

I use my PS3 for LPCM via my HDMI and it works like a champ. Like Sami said though you will have to change the sound settings on your PS3 because I think it uses Bitstream as a default setting for sound. Just change the audio out to HDMI and make sure you select LPCM also. Not sure exactly which setting it is under, but sniff around and you should be able to find it without much trouble. Also it may or may not say "Dolby True HD" on your receiver when you play the Blu-Ray ( I know my 806 doesn't) but all you have to do to see what format the movie is playing in is press select during the movie and it will tell you on the top which audio format it is playing in. Make sure the movie is formated to play in True HD (because not all Blu-Ray's are) and make sure it is during the movie when you check, because the menu screen, previews and extras often times are not formatted in True HD. If you can't figure it out, let me know and I will figure out exactly what you need to do to make sure it is on LPCM and I will pass that on to you. Hope this helps and welcome to Club Polk.

graco1

so then all i have to do is connect my PS3 and change the audio settings to HDMI and then pop in my BLUE RAY move with TRUE DOLBY DIGITAL and i should be good to go but just saying this was my reasoning http://us.marantz.com/Products/172.asp if you notice the 5003 say DOLBY TRUE HD and the 4003 says DOLBY DIGITAL EX, and if im not mistaken because a movie like KUNG FU PANDA for the kids http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/movies.php?id=1211 tells you DOLBY TRUE HD not DOLBY DIGITAL EX, im almost clear but i konw ya all will put me over that why becuase the movie says DOLBY TRUE HD and the RECEIVERS the 5003 say DOLBY TRUE HD

wutadumsn23

I am not 100% on this but I think that True HD is a format specific to higher end dvd's such as Blu-Ray's, and DD EX is a fancier version of DD for SD DVD's. DD EX can be reproduced via optical cable so this leads me to believe that it is not one of the newer high end lossless codecs, such as True HD. That is curious though that the 5003 has the HD decoders and the 4003 does not, but they both have HDMI?? That is a question for the experts, but maybe the 4003 just isn't designed or maybe have the right codecs to support it. You are correct though about how to get the PS3 ready to do it, just make sure you also change the output to LPCM from Bitstream, which is in a seperate area from the HDMI portion of the sound settings. Also, for future reference this is the test thread portion of the forum, so you may not get many responces/views. Next time you may want to use a more problem specific area of Club Polk.

cheddar

With DVD, you had Dolby Digital and DTS as audio format choices. But these are actually audio compression formats that squeeze an original PCM track into something that fits on a DVD. To use the audio, you have uncompress it back to PCM (aka decode it) in either the receiver or player. However DD and DTS are known as lossy formats because part of the process of compression is actually throwing away audio information the compression format deems less necessary resulting in a decoded PCM track that isn't exactly the same as the original.

With blu-ray, it's now possible to use lossless audio compression formats that decode to the exact same original PCM version. Those lossless formats are TrueHD and DTS-HD MA. There are other formats available on blu-ray, but they are all lossy, except for uncompressed PCM which is just the PCM track which was never compressed in the first place. Takes up far more space on the disk, but is the equivalent of TrueHD and DTS-HD MA because they should all be the same PCM track in the end.

Cheap blu-ray players often include bitstreaming as your only option. This just means that the blu-ray player passes the compressed signal off to the receiver to decode. And you have to buy one of the latest receivers as only they have the necessary hardware to handle a bitstream lossless signal. More expensive players allow internal player decoding so they are backwards compatible with a larger array of gear since more receivers can handle a lossless PCM signal via hdmi.

Which lossless option is included on the disk varies by movie studio. Some use multiple formats on their disks and some only offer a single format in their title offerings. But whether you want to go the receiver decode route or the internal player decode route, just make sure that uncompressed PCM, TrueHD, and DTS-HD MA is handled properly along the entire chain.

pablo_rodz

Great explanation... Thanks for that... I'm looking into getting the PS3