Dolby Podcast Episode 2, November 22, 2006
The basics of audio on high definition disc formats, Blu-ray and HD DVD: Jack and Craig define “HD Audio” and describe the Dolby technologies — Dolby TrueHD and Dolby Digital Plus — used on high-definition discs. Plus, listener, Sarah, learns about what to look for in a home-theater-in-a-box system.
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Mentioned in this Episode
[music]
Jack Buser: Hello and welcome to Sound Matters [now known as Dolbycast –Ed.], the insider's guide to entertainment technology from the experts at Dolby Laboratories. I'm Jack Buser.
Craig Eggers: And I'm Craig Eggers.
Jack: And we're here to give you the straight talk on everything you need to please your ears.
Hello everybody and welcome back to the second ever episode of Sound Matters - a new podcast coming to you from Dolby Laboratories.
Craig: They renewed us. [laughs]
Jack: That's right! Looks like there's some people out there listening. We've got some questions in for you today.
Craig: Definitely, definitely.
Jack: All kinds of exciting new topics to talk about.
Craig: Tell them who you are.
Jack: I'm Jack Buser.
Craig: And I'm Craig Eggers.
Jack: That's right. And we're here to host Sound Matters, which is going to be a bi-weekly podcast coming to you from Dolby Laboratories. We're going to be covering all the hot topics on audio, sound and home theater - everything you need to know to set up a killer system in your house.
Craig: And get the most out of your home entertainment, right?
Jack: That's right. That's right.
Craig: Hey Jack! We've got our first question from a listener. Isn't that cool? That's cool. That's cool.
Jack: Hey somebody sent in a question! All right I'm excited!
Craig: So it goes like this: "I enjoyed your segment last week on home theater setup." Hey they enjoyed what we're talking about.
Jack: That's good. That's good.
Craig: That's good. "I'm thinking about purchasing a home-theater-in-a-box. Could you spend a few moments talking about home-theater-in-a-box?"
Jack: I guess we didn't cover that last time, did we?
Craig: Thank you, Sarah.
Jack: Who's that from? Sarah! OK. Well, Sarah, listen we didn't talk much about home-theater-in-a-box last time.
Craig: We really didn't. We talked about full tower speakers and full range and setups.
Jack: That's what happens when you get the two of us together!
Craig: Yeah. That's right.
[laughter]
Jack: The home-theater-in-a-box. I guess we should start by just explaining what one is.
Craig: Yeah. You know home-theater-in-a-box really began in the late 80s to early 90s, when manufacturers started taking an AV receiver, coupling it with a packaged set of speakers that included the 5.1 setup and the subwoofer, which is part of the 5.1 setup, and put it all in one box.
Jack: With all the wires you need.
Craig: All the wires you need, all the setup, all the connections you needed.
Jack: There's usually some simple little diagram on how to set it up.
Craig: A simple diagram and they even color-coded the speaker connections and the different connections. Recently, home-theater-in-a-boxes migrated to the point now where almost 80% of your home theater boxes today have a built-in DVD player.
Jack: That's right yeah.
Craig: We call that an integrated home-theater-in-a-box.
Jack: Now it didn't use to be that way but nowadays they usually throw in a DVD player. So you got your DVD player, your AV receiver, all the speakers you need, all the wires you need and some simple setup instructions. Sounds like, I mean from what we hear from a lot of our customers out there, it really is an ideal way to get started with home theater.
Craig: It's really a good way to dip your foot in the water and test the water.
Jack: That's right. Generally it all comes in a box made by one manufacturer - generally. And generally they're also at a pretty reasonable price point as well.
Craig: You can purchase a home-theater-in-a-box today for as little as $99 and go as high as $1,999 to $2,099.
Jack: 99 dollars, huh!
Craig: Well you know. [laughter] They're out there.
Jack: They're out there.
Craig: They're definitely out there.
Jack: I actually recommend to a lot of my friends, they say, "Hey look, you know. Jack, knowing you, coming over to your place. I really enjoy listening to your 5.1 setup - I want to get started what should I get?" And a lot of times I turn people on to a home-theater-in-a-box. It's just a real easy way to get started. It's not real complicated to setup. And like you said just dip your toe in the water without really fully committing yourself, I guess, to a multi tens of thousands of dollars system.
Craig: I'm actually thinking about putting a home-theater-in-a-box-in my bedroom. That would give me 3 home theater systems in the house. What do you think?
Jack: I think that's great! I think you're finally catching up to me - is what I think. Well what guidance can we give on buying a home-theater-in-a-box when you're out there looking for one?
Craig: The thing that makes home-theater-in-a-box different from regular home theaters we talked about last week, really is the size of the speakers.
Jack: That's right. Speakers are important when you're buying a home theater.
Craig: People don't always want big, large tower speakers in their home.
Jack: That's right.
Craig: So a lot of your home-theater-in-a-box systems have bookshelf-type speakers. Some of them are even smaller than bookshelf-type speakers! But the whole system is really calibrated and tuned to work together in unison.
Jack: Yeah.
Craig: Whereas in a large home theater system, that subwoofer is the LFE channel, the “Low Frequency Effects” channel, which only exists to really power up explosions and crashes and that kind of stuff.
Jack: Right.
Craig: In a home-theater-in-a-box the subwoofer actually acts to balance the whole system and really reproduce some of the low frequencies that you're not going to get in some of the smaller speakers in a home-theater-in-a-box.
Jack: That's true, another thing that I tell folks to look for, beyond just the speakers, which is definitely probably the most important thing to look for - the quality of your speakers in your home-theater-in-a-box system. The other thing you really want to look for is your I/O - your connectivity. A lot of the home-theater-in-a-box systems, I have noticed, actually don't include enough I/O, if that's going to be your main system for some time. If you're buying it for a side room, maybe you don't have to worry about it having all the connectors you need on the back.
But a lot of people go out, they buy these systems and then they want to hook up, let's say, their Playstation 3,…
Craig: Right.
Jack: …or they want to hook up their Xbox 360, or their Nintendo Wii, or maybe they get digital cable, they want to hook up that. And they say "Oh man, I ran out of digital inputs! This thing didn't have HDMI." You want to have those questions answered in your own mind before you go out shopping for one of these home-theater-in-a-boxes. Think about, “what are all the things I'm going to connect to this thing someday?”
Craig: Right.
Jack: And just make sure you buy one with enough connectivity.
Craig: That's really, really good advice, Jack. And the other advice I would offer up is audition your home-theater-in-a-box.
Jack: Yeah.
Craig: Listen to it.
Jack: That's very important.
Craig: You know what, audio is an investment. The cool thing about audio, and especially speakers, it's an investment that could be amortized.
Jack: They stay around for a while, right?
Craig: Precisely.
Jack: Yeah, if you're going to spend your money somewhere, spend it on audio, because you're liable to keep it for a long time.
Craig: Exactly. And maybe you'll spend a little bit more than you anticipated up front.
Jack: Yeah.
Craig: But look at the fact that you're going to amortize that approximately over 4 or 5 years, maybe even longer.
Jack: Maybe even 10 years. I know my dad's still using speakers that he bought 20 years ago, you know?
Craig: My B&Ws are 10 years old.
Jack: There you go.
Craig: And they sound as good today as they did the day I bought them.
Jack: There you go. There you go. So, definitely audio is a good investment, home-theater-in-a-box is a great way to get started. Look for the quality of your speakers. Look for your connectivity. Those are the 2 important things you want to look for.
Craig: Audition that system.
Jack: And audition the system.
Craig: Ask for an audition.
Jack: Well, tell you what, let's move on. Sarah, hopefully that answered your question. Again, if you listeners out there have questions that you want us to answer here on-air, the address is soundmatters@dolby.com [now dolbycast@dolby.com –Ed.]
Craig: soundmatters@dolby.com.
Jack: “Sound matters”, all one word: soundmatters@dolby.com. But let's move on to today's topic. I'd like to introduce today's topic. This is a topic that's a real favorite of mine, actually, and it's hot out there in the industry and in consumers' mind, which is: next-generation DVD: HD DVD, and Blu-ray. And specifically what we're going to cover today are the new audio formats that are coming out for HD DVD and Blu-ray. There's a lot of really exciting stuff to talk about.
Craig: So we'll talk about those things right after this break.
[Music]
Announcer: If you have a question for the experts at Dolby Laboratories, email us at soundmatters@dolby.com. For more information and links pertaining to today's topic, be sure to log on to dolby.com/soundmatters [now dolby.com/dolbycast –Ed.].
Jack: All right gang, so we were talking about next-generation DVD, specifically, HD DVD and Blu-ray, a very, very hot topic in people's minds right now. What should I buy? What do these new disc formats get me? What's this all about?
Craig: Two new disc formats that promise high-definition video and high-definition audio.
Jack: High-definition audio, wow! See, that's the part that I really want to cover. Obviously, we're Dolby, we're a little bit biased, but a lot of people don't realize. They talk about Blu-ray and HD DVD, it's all about the video quality. People don't realize we're bringing new sound formats to both Blu-ray and HD DVD, what we're calling a high-definition audio, really a next-generation listening experience.
Craig: Right. Both discs are 5-inch discs. The difference between them and conventional DVD is that they store immense quantities of data.
Jack: That's right.
Craig: And that immense quantity of data can now be manipulated to deliver a high-definition picture, and we still have enough data left over to deliver high-definition audio.
Jack: I actually like to say it the other way around, that the data allows us to deliver high-definition audio, and there was still enough data left over for the video! [Laughter]
Craig: There you go. There you go. That works.
Jack: So when people talk about high-definition audio, what are they talking about, what are these new sound formats all about? They're really characterized by 2 things. The first thing is much higher data rates. So we're talking about data rates upwards of, geez, what are they talking about, 18 megabits per second in the case of lossless audio.
Craig: For lossless audio.
Jack: I mean even the lossy codecs are running at 1.5 megabits per second..
Craig: You can go as high as 3 in some HD DVD.
Jack: So what does all that mean? You know, folks are saying, "Oh Jack, Craig, you're talking about megabits per second, megabits this, megabits that. What does that mean?" We're talking about audio performance that's far beyond what we were able to do on standard definition DVD.
Craig: We're talking about less compression, basically.
Jack: Exactly right.
Craig: And if you're listening to this podcast, you might be listening to 128 kilobits per second, 250K a second. And I just bumped my microphone and you know, I nailed you last week about that, and I just did it myself!
Jack: Before you bumped your microphone, you were going into a very good explanation of data rates. When we talk about MP3, a lot of times we're talking about data rates of 128 kilobits per second.
Craig: Right, yeah.
Jack: Compare that to 18 megabits per second, I mean we're talking about literally a world of difference…
Craig: Precisely.
Jack: …between what people are used to…
Craig: Precisely.
Jack: …when they are listening to on the internet and things like that to what these next generation disc formats can deliver. It's just fantastic.
Craig: Yeah, the less compression that you get with Dolby Digital Plus enables us to do a couple of things: A.)Elevate the audio quality. Create a richer, warmer, deeper, more immersive audio experience. Secondly, offer up to 7.1 discrete channels of audio performance in the future.
Jack: Right. That's right.
Craig: Right now, currently DVD and most broadcasting is 5.1. We now have the ability to add 2 new speakers to the system.
Jack: Discretely.
Craig: We don't know what those are yet.
Jack: Yeah.
Craig: But they are discrete channels,
Jack: Yeah.
Craig: …and obviously with the higher bit rates, the less compression, we can deliver all that with a much warmer, much more immersive, much more satisfying audio experience.
Jack: Yeah, and you said the magic words also, which is Dolby Digital Plus, and that's a logo to look for,
Craig: Right.
Jack: both on Blu-ray and HD DVD. It can deliver up to 7.1 channels of discrete information and can run at much higher data rates then standard Dolby Digital could run on previous generation standard definition DVD. So really, I mean, for me I've been playing Dolby Digital Plus at home, some of these new discs that run at these very, very high data rates, and I've got to tell you, my AV receiver has never been happier. [laughter]
Craig: Well, I have to tell you, Dolby Digital Plus is based on Dolby Digital technology which is absolutely incredible. We have a tremendously efficient encoder with Dolby Digital and Dolby Digital Plus is actually a lossy format, just like Dolby Digital.
Jack: Yeah. So what does that mean " lossy"? I'm sure we're going to describe what these lossless formats are, but let's talk about what lossy is.
Craig: Right. “Lossy” means that basically what you're doing is you're compressing the audio by eliminating redundancies in the audio,
Jack: That's right.
Craig: …and also you're eliminating audio elements that aren't perceptually heard by the listener.
Jack: Right, that's right. So it gets the audio to a manageable size,
Craig: Exactly.
Jack: …by eliminating what you can't hear. Lossy formats are quite common out there.
Craig: Very.
Jack: Dolby Digital is a lossy format, so is Dolby Digital Plus, MP3, AAC. There lots and lots of different generally audio codecs are lossy, but...
Craig: Let's talk about lossy for just one second. The neat thing about Dolby Digital Plus is we do have less compression. It remains a lossy format.
Jack: Yeah.
Craig: …which means if you're a Hollywood studio, you can now use Dolby Digital Plus and put multiple audio streams on there.
Jack: Different languages.
Craig: Different languages.
Jack: More directors' commentary.
Craig: And do them in 768 kilobits per second, or 1.5 as Universal is doing on some of their titles, and get audio quality that some reviewers are actually saying is virtually transparent.
Jack: That's right. And the important part is it's more of the stuff that you loved about DVDs: more commentary, more bonus features, multiple languages, all those cool little extras that made DVDs so much fun. You get more of that stuff.
Craig: And the cool thing about Dolby Digital Plus is because of its efficient compression, we can deliver that level of quality without impacting picture quality.
Jack: Yep, that's right.
Craig: When you look at a DVD disc or any type of optical disk, it's literally a bit bucket, and how you allocate the bits that are in that bucket is going to determine what level of picture quality, what level of audio quality, how many streams you might have on the disc if you have multi-channel audio, whether you're going to have director's commentary, outtakes. God knows we've got some outtakes that I'm already afraid to listen to, you know.
[laughter]
Jack: But listen, I've got to transition this, because my favorite part about these next generation formats, and I love Dolby Digital Plus, I really do, but these new lossless technologies, Dolby TrueHD, totally lossless audios just appearing on some discs right now, fantastic stuff.
Craig: And we'll discuss that right after the break.
Jack: Exactly.
[Commercial break]
Jack: Lossless audio is the topic of the moment, let me tell you it is a hot topic out there in the industry, and in consumer's mind, and certainly my favorite topic to talk about right now: Lossless audio. What is lossless audio?
Craig: Well, Jack, you know we covered lossy audio compression in a previous segment. Lossless audio is also a form of compression. It's a form of compression, however, that enables us to reproduce in the living room what they heard in the studio.
Jack: Exactly the same and that is what is so wonderful about lossless audio. What you hear in your living room is exactly the same thing the director heard when they said, "Right, that's a wrap. Put the movie in the can. We're done here." You're hearing the movie the way it's meant to be heard.
Craig: And expressed in the terms of bits, we often use the phrase “bit-for-bit identical”…
Jack: That's right.
Craig: …to the studio masters, meaning that what you get out of your player…
Jack: Yeah.
Craig: …is exactly what they heard in the studio, BUT it remains a form of compression. Now, why would you do that?
Jack: Well, you said it beautifully earlier about the idea of these discs being a bit bucket, right? You still have to compress the size of the audio streams so that you have enough data left over for the video tracks, for all your bonus features and stuff like that, and that's why formats like Dolby TrueHD are so important. You can get the original studio master audio on the disc, and have plenty of room left over to have extremely high video data rates and tons of bonus features and things like that.
Craig: That's what's most important. With Dolby TrueHD, you get an audio experience that's equivalent to uncompressed PCM.
Jack: That's right.
Craig: Uncompressed audio.
Jack: Exactly the same.
Craig: But at data rates to ½ to ¼ that required to deliver that perfect audio experience, if you will, on the disc itself.
Jack: That's exactly right. That's exactly right. I mean, when we first put out this format, I was saying to myself, “man this is the audiophile dream”. Finally, there is a practical way to get lossless sound tracks married with high definition video tracks on a disc in people's homes. Finally, people at home are going to be able to hear movies the way they're meant to be heard.
Craig: Exactly.
Jack: This is just an audiophile dream.
Craig: You know the first time I heard DVD-Audio the first thing I thought was,
Jack: Got to get some pictures. [Laughter]
Craig: Precisely! It wasn't, "God, this is really cool!" My first thought was, "How do I marry this with a picture and get this audio quality with a picture?"
Jack: That's exactly right. I tell you what, folks, if you go out there and you manage to find a player with Dolby TrueHD, and there are more and more of them every day, Toshiba just put out some HD DVD players.
Craig: Panasonic…
Jack: Panasonic..
Craig: …announced a player at the CEDIA show.
Jack: The Playstation 3 will support Dolby TrueHD.
Craig: Hey now!
Jack: Hey now, heck yeah!
Craig: Oh yeah!
Jack: I was glad to see that announcement going out, been working on that one for a while, and it looks like those of you, yeah, who are thinking about picking up a PS3 are going to get a fantastic audio experience.
Craig: Truly.
Jack: Truly, Dolby TrueHD and PlayStation 3, I swear I died and gone to heaven. [laughter]
Craig: You know, so many of the people talk about home theater as being an effort to recreate the director's vision, to recreate what the director wanted you to see…
Jack: Yeah.
Craig: …and feel and hear.
Jack: Yeah.
Craig: Now with high definition video on these new discs, and now with Dolby TrueHD audio, literally that entire sentence is now being communicated to the consumer.
Jack: That's right, and you know, when this format first got released, I was thinking “man, this is an audiophile dream, people that are really into this stuff are really going to appreciate Dolby TrueHD” and I started playing some of the early Dolby TrueHD soundtracks at home. And I actually had some folks over saying, "Hey, come on over. Check this out. This is the ultimate audio format, I just want you guys to just check it out." And I've got to tell you, around the room, people were saying, "Man! This is really noticeably different than what I was hearing on DVD!" Just literally worlds beyond what standard definition DVD was capable of. To them, it was truly a next generation listening experience.
Craig: Isn't it neat when even the average person can tell the difference?
Jack: Can tell the difference. That's right. We are really reaching a level with audio. I know you were tossing around the words, “audio perfection”. I feel like finally we're getting close. Right?
Craig: Yeah. We're there.
Jack: We're there, absolutely. Dolby TrueHD. Look for it when you go to buy your players, when you go to get your software. It's hot stuff right now. Also Dolby Digital Plus is a fantastic complement. The two of them together…
Craig: Definitely.
Jack: ..make for a true next generation high definition listening experience.
Craig: Experience, there you go. Hey Jack, I'm looking at the time counter here and guess what?
Jack: Don't say it. Don't say it.
Craig: Guess what?
Jack: I guess it's going to have to be a wrap.
Craig: [singing] It's time for us to go.
Jack: Well it's been a lot of fun this week.
Craig: It really has.
Jack: We are soundmatters@dolby.com.
Craig: I'm Craig Eggers.
Jack: I'm Jack Buser. And please send in your questions. We are more than happy to answer all the questions you have here on air.
Craig: If you liked our first answer today,
Jack: Yeah.
Craig: send in a note saying you liked our first answer.
Jack: Absolutely! Absolutely! We love to hear feedback from you guys out there. So again, we're soundmatters@dolby.com, all one word, soundmatters@dolby.com. And that's a wrap for this week. We'll see you next time.
Craig: See you next time.
Jack: Bye-bye.
[music]
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