DTS-HD Master Audio Becoming the Blu-ray Standard
Posted in Commentary, Technology on January 15th, 2010 by Dave
Something that has fascinated me a little lately is the trend towards DTS-HD Master Audio, to the point now where it has become the de facto standard for Blu-ray Disc releases.
A couple of studios have used it from the start - Fox, who also distributes MGM, took quite a bit of flack for using DTS-HD Master Audio on their releases back when there were no players capable of decoding it or even passing it on to a receiver.
Universal Studios has also religiously used DTS-HD Master Audio on their releases, though capable players were abound well before they finally started releasing Blu-ray discs after having been exclusive to the HD DVD format.
Disney and Lionsgate moved to DTS-HD Master Audio from Linear PCM and smaller distributors like Image Entertainment, the Criterion Collection and Magnolia Home Entertainment have started using DTS-HD Master Audio as a matter of course.
More interesting to me though is the defection of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment from Dolby TrueHD to DTS-HD Master Audio in recent times, as well as an apparent similar defection under way over at Warner Home Entertainment.
Sony has certainly already made the move and newly announced Warner titles inreasingly have DTS-HD Master Audio where in 2009 only a handful of titles used the codec.
While Paramount has also been predominantly using the Dolby TrueHD codec, there have been cases of DTS-HD Master Audio releases, especially associated with the Star Trek franchise.
I talked to both Sony and Dolby at CES this year and got differing answers regarding the SPHE move to DTS-HD Master Audio.
Dolby stated that the work flow for titles with TrueHD and seamless branching had difficulties, which pushed some studios to use DTS-HD Master Audio for certain titles at least.
This may be a credible reason that we see DTS-HD Master Audio on the Warner release for Watchmen, which used seamless branching for the Maximum Movie Mode on the title.
However we are seeing DTS-HD Master audio listed for upcoming Warner titles like Poseidon and The Box, which seem like fairly standard releases.
Talking to Sony I got a very different answer - they said that the move to DTS-HD Master Audio was one of consumer preference measured by an internet poll.
Regardless of the reasons behind the moves, it is interesting to see the DTS codec now dominating the Blu-ray landscape with over 45% percent of the lossless audio Blu-ray releases, when at launch it looked like it simply wasn’t ready for prime time at all.
If you have any thoughts on this, feel free to add your comments.
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January 16th, 2010 at 3:40 am
Interesting post Dave. I’ve begun to notice this trend and was wondering why it was happening. As naive as it sounds, I had speculated that the studios simply saw a trend and didn’t want to be left out. Perhaps they see TruHD as a thing of the past and want to be seen as forward thinking? There may be some truth to the preference poll explanation from Sony even though I suspect most listeners couldn’t detect the difference between DTS-MA and TruHD in a “blind” listening test.
January 16th, 2010 at 8:18 am
Indeed conceptually it is all the same as PCM, though I think that there are dialog normalization options that might affect the perceived audio quality.
Though I agree that most would probably never be able to pick the difference or at least a preference reliably.
I have always wondered why there are so few 7.1 TrueHD releases, thinking that there might be a work flow issue with that, but Dolby said that was not the case…
January 16th, 2010 at 9:54 am
Another distinct advantage of DTS-HD Master Audio is the incorporation of a standard DTS core to the audio stream. This provides compatibility with older receivers/players that do not support DTS-HD Master Audio. Also, this eliminates the need to also included a secondary legacy soundtrack on the disc which many Dolby TrueHD titles have. It will be become less of an advantage as support for both lossless audio formats becomes more widespread.
Also, in my opinion having used both Dolby and DTS encoders; the DTS encoder is much friendlier to use. I kinda hate using the Dolby encoder. Just my personal preference though.
January 16th, 2010 at 10:23 am
I believe for TrueHD (on Blu-ray at least) there is a core Dolby Digital also, so in theory you should never need to have legacy DD on the disc.
In theory…
January 17th, 2010 at 11:03 pm
Dolby TrueHD doesn’t offer a legacy Dolby Digital Core in the way DTS-HD MA does. On Blu-ray a separate legacy Dolby Digital stream that can be interleaved with the TrueHD stream so that it will appear as a single stream to the user. They are two independent streams. In contrast DTS-HD MA encodes a DTS core and then creates a Master Audio extension that contains the lost audio information removed from the lossy encoding of the DTS core. This has the potential to offer more efficient use of space compared to TrueHD at the cost of being more processor intensive to decode (and encode).
January 25th, 2010 at 1:26 pm
I have listen and watch the growth of this fine company
ever since their first theatrical release of Jurassic Park.
the DTS audio soundtrack was amazing.Dolby Digital to me never
sounded right i had a chance to do a blind sound test when i worked for a high end audio video store again DTS sounded better.So I am very happy that DTS is the audio standard
for Blu-Ray Disc.So now everyone is able to enjoy a great audio format.Keep up the great work DTS.
RIP Dolby Digital. You had a great run but now…….
The fans the people have spoken DTS RULES
February 14th, 2010 at 8:14 pm
ROB, the difference between lossy DTS and lossy Dolby Digital is irrelevant. DTS-HDMA and Dolby TrueHD are each completely different than their respective companies’ older codecs.
For the modern HD lossless codes, a proper implementation will result in the exact same PCM soundtrack out of both codecs.