Laserdisc Dynamics vs Blu Ray

LD was fantastic, but so is Blue Ray, especially when getting older.
Even regular DVD movies play better on Blue Ray.
But, even though Vinyl has some better qualities, it also has less desirables too, just like LD. Reel to Reel was also great. And so was Beta.

I put a Blue Ray Burner in my PC, and when I watch movies, watch through the PC ( sometimes ) and with the upscaling of the receiver I have, that helps even more. So, to do a side by side comparison, one would really need a non upscaling set up, which is rare with clean power and replaced output transistors and capacitors, etc.
Online streaming and external hard drive is the replacement to all of these technologies, and with the right programs running, little difference is heard, for me anyway.
I know I am not getting it all with my equipment, but I am getting better than many with the fact that I have Polk's to begin with.
Right now we are listening to BNL on the old VCR/DVD setup ( Talk To The Hand - Michigan ) and it sounds incredible.
My 2 cents, I wish you the best in your research.

What I hear the primary complaint of LPCM is that it hasn't been used to deliver the full quality of master audio tracks, due to space and bandwidth concerns.

The DTS-HD MA and TrueHD lossless compression formats can deliver full 24/48 master quality audio in about the same bandwidth and space as LPCM at lower 16/48 fidelity.

There's some debate whether LPCM at downconverted 16/48 fidelity is really an improvement over 24/48 DTS @ 1.5Mbps (lossy). In some situations, it may be an improvement, and it others, it may be worse. Providing the full 24/48 audio master does away with such questions, because nothing is more faithful to the master than the master itself. Unfortunately, 24/48 LPCM requires more bandwidth than is available with most titles on BD25, and even some BD50 titles with MPEG-2. That's where DTS-HD MA and TrueHD come in; those codecs can losslessly pack the 24/48 LPCM stream, saving significant bandwidth and space.

A disc that can fit full LPCM compared to Dolby True HD the edge goes to LPCM from looking at the numbers.

LuSh wrote: »

Your comparison of LD to DVD goes against every real world experience I've encountered. DVD is a compressed lossy format end of story. LD PCM is not compressed end of story. I can agree about dynamic range but the word length is compressed. Have you done side by side comparisons? I ask simply because that's what this thread was entirely about since I created it.

Okay, but again... you're talking only 2-channel PCM here, which means that only does you any good for movies before 1985 and the advent of Dolby Digital with Batman Returns. Barring the occasional full bitrate DTS track, DD 5.1 surround tracks on laserdisc are 384k variable AC-3 and require frequency demodulation to derive the AC-3 track from the right channel of the PCM track, whereas most DD tracks on DVD are 448k variable. Not that it's a huge difference from the theater, because 35mm prints use a fixed rate of 320k on the optical track.

But to anyone willing to do side-by-side comparisons, good luck. While you might find preferences over certain DVDs, I doubt you're going to find a single instance where the CD-quality audio of a laserdisc can top the master-quality audio of a Blu-ray. When you consider the noise reduction applied to laserdisc tracks and the lower dynamic range, there should be no comparison. And since your original post was predicated on the notion of "home mixes" that Blu-ray doesn't even use, that makes it even less likely that you're going to find a 2-channel PCM track that sounds better than a lossless track from the masters, any more than you're going to find a CD that sounds better than the 2-channel SACD.

Bernal wrote: »

http://www.zonadvd.com/imagenes/analisis/batmanvuelve_bluray/audio_ing_dd51.gif

http://www.zonadvd.com/imagenes/analisis/startrek2009/audio_ing.gif

Okay... was there a point there that I missed?

Bernal wrote: »

+1

"Originally Posted by kuntasensei
Okay, but again... you're talking only 2-channel PCM here, which means that only does you any good for movies before 1985 and the advent of Dolby Digital with Batman Returns...."


Saving Private Ryan and Batman

Yeah, I saw the graphs... but how does that contradict what I said? You're showing graphs of 448k Dolby Digital for SPR (which Laserdisc can't hold - AC-3 on Laserdisc is limited to 384k) and Batman Returns (the first Dolby Digital movie). What is the point of showing me that?

Any of you familiar with DTS Neo:6 ?

Ok, I hate to derail this thread...but I gotta!

kuntasensei (or anyone else), is there a place that lists those types of presets and which is best for what?

Which one do you prefer (if any)?

Kuntasensei, do you prefer Dolby TrueHD or DTS MA when watching bluray? Can you tell any differences between the two?

organ wrote: »

I find that DTS MA is recorded slightly hotter than Dolby TrueHD.

They're actually at the same level. TrueHD just has a dialnorm parameter that changes the global volume, whereas DTS MA doesn't. If you account for the dialnorm, they're identical.

ryanjoachim wrote: »

I no longer see the DTS-HD or TrueHD logos when i'm watching movies (I used to when I first got it), even though both my blu-ray player and my media server are both set to bitstream. If I don't see those logos, and only see the Dolby DPL-IIx symbol, am I not really getting DTS-HD/TrueHD?

It just means that you're applying DPL-IIx to those formats. My Onkyo shows DPL-IIz on the display, with very small DTS-MA or TrueHD symbols, but if I hit the display button on either my Oppo or my Onkyo, it shows the format being played.