Category Archives: Audio

640kbps Dolby Digital on DVD

Posted on September 7, 2009 by Stephen Dawson

One of my daughters gave me the Pink Floyd ‘Pulse’ DVD set for Fathers’ Day yesterday. Absolutely brilliant concert from 1994, with superb sound. I was startled to find under audio options that you can select Dolby Digital 5.1 sound … Continue reading →

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1.0

Posted on July 24, 2009 by Stephen Dawson

The other day I put on the excellent Warner Bros Blu-ray title, An American in Paris, and noticed something odd: the music was coming out of the front left and right speakers. I already know that this disc has seven … Continue reading →

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Picking differences

Posted on June 23, 2009 by Stephen Dawson

Two posts down I mentioned the five musical samples at Is 24-bit Recording Really Better?, from Ethan Winer. Very useful for blind testing, these things, because they each start from the same 24 bit recording, present it in the same … Continue reading →

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Audio subjectivism

Posted on June 22, 2009 by Stephen Dawson

My brother has drawn my attention to an episode of ‘Skeptoid’ in which (third item) the magical benefits of expensive audio cables are dismissed, along with the value of face masks in combating swine flu, the radioactive dangers of depleted … Continue reading →

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Blu-ray Audio

Posted on June 10, 2009 by Stephen Dawson

Over at the ‘Unofficial Blu-ray Audio and Video Specifications Thread‘ on the AVS Forum, a Russian contributor has put up specifications for a couple of Blu-ray audio discs. Note, there’s no particular format difference between Blu-ray audio and regular Blu-ray. … Continue reading →

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Apple iTunes, a masterpiece of obfuscation

Posted on April 25, 2009 by Stephen Dawson

Goodness knows when you will see this. Internet for me, at the moment, is thoroughly dead. New computer. Spent Thursday night loading stuff. Likewise Friday morning. During one of its reboots, its graphics card failed. The shop people actually came … Continue reading →

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Eight bits of noise?

Posted on April 16, 2009 by Stephen Dawson

In the previous post I asked at the end: ‘Is 24 bits it worth it?’ I want to do an extensive post on this in due course, but let me first make my point briefly. In that previous post I … Continue reading →

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24 bit sound vs 16 bit sound and DTS-HD Master Audio

Posted on April 11, 2009 by Stephen Dawson

I’ve run BDInfo on the forthcoming Australian release of Slumdog Millionaire on Blu-ray from Icon Film Distribution. This turns out to be a very different encode to the US version. The main title details of the US version are here. … Continue reading →

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That’s a lot of bits

Posted on April 7, 2009 by Stephen Dawson

I’ve just been analysing the new Blu-ray release of the 1958 musical Gigi. This gets Dolby TrueHD 5.1 channel sound for the English track, backed up with Dolby Digital 5.1 at 640kbps. Foreign language audio is provided in French, German, … Continue reading →

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DTS-HD High Resolution

Posted on March 23, 2009 by Stephen Dawson

I’ve been after a disc — any disc — carrying DTS-HD High Resolution audio. This is, of course, the improved version of DTS. It remains lossy, but can carry more bits of data, so it is less lossy than regular … Continue reading →

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