On the HD-DVD and Blue-Ray players they have TRUE HD surround. What receivers on the market currently accept this format? IS the Denon AVR-3806 a good choice for 100% HT?? If so tell why, if not tell why and give another suggestion. Thanks
From my understanding of the new formats, the player does the decoding and outputs the audio signal through the either 5.1 or 7.1 analog outputs which you connect to the same input on your receiver or pre/pro. This is rather dissapointing since the processor in a mid to highend reciever of decent quality(NAD,HK,Denon, Marantz PioneerElite,Arcam),will almost certainly be of better quality. IMO I would not spend a dime on these new formats which may well erupt into another format war as SACD,DVD Audio did and as usual leaving the consumer on the short end of the stick. 720p via HDMI up-conversion looks wonderful to me and the difference between it and 1080p is negligible ranging from unnoticable on some sets to barely perceptable on others.
Sony/Phillips should also keep it's proverbial big mouth shut and get out of home audio and devote all of it's vast wealth of research capability to what it has done well for decades- making a great TV,and stop engaging in silly format wars,which always engage it's nemisises Toshiba and Panasonic to counter, in which both manufacturers and consumers lose.
Sony and Philips are very different companies. The CD is one of the very few collaborations between them.
Sony are renowned for gadget innovation which started with the Walkman all those years ago.
Philips do continue their research. I remember a man from Philips telling us at a lecture that 95% of Philips' research doesn't reach light of day, let alone production. It's in the nature of R&D that most research remains just that. The other 5% more than cover the R&D costs that are 'failures' (which they don't see as failures incidentally).
Philips has a long distinguished history in home audio. Before CD, Philips invented the compact cassette, definitely a home audio item and before that Philips were heavily involved in valve (tube) production, in part for TV manufacture but also for home audio. Philips were also pioneers in silicon transistors. To this day Philips is one of just half a dozen companies making CD and DVD transport mechanisms. Interestingly, most pro-audio transports use Philips mechanisms, most high end transports (e.g. Krell, Naim, Mark Levinson, McIntosh) use Philips mechanisms.
Philips is very much in home audio, just not as obviously as you'd think. The SACD/DVD-A debacle was caused by Philips trying to hold onto their market share once their CD patents had run out. The HD-DVD/BluRay situation is being driven by a completely different market - gaming. Traditionally, the gaming market has accepted different standards (Nintendo vs Playstation for example). It is the availability and quality of the software in each standard which has determined the success of each, but all continue to survive thanks to innovation and momentum, or you could say that all are taking a long time to die thanks to their respective market shares.
The problem I see at this point is that the two standards will pick up enough market share to continue to survive. With the music providers sticking to their respective technology partners I can just see a situation where either a universal machine would be required in order to play your music or if a universal machine is not possible (quite likely actually), that you would have to have separate machines to have all the options. Of course, all this is playing into the hands of the Microsoft in the form of the media server! Since media servers use hard disc as the storage medium, they effectively become the de facto standard...just like VHS did.
"Sony/Phillips should also keep it's proverbial big mouth shut and get out of home audio and devote all of it's vast wealth of research capability to what it has done well for decades- making a great TV,and stop engaging in silly format wars,which always engage it's nemisises Toshiba and Panasonic to counter, in which both manufacturers and consumers lose"
I know what you mean about philips there new audio sucks there dont even use real tweeters in there mini systems any more it plasic i bought 4 years ago adn it had real tweeters
Thanks for the info Frank I thought though that Sony had bought Phillips a few years back. Thanks for the correction. I realize now that the two are independent and only occasionally work together on new technologies. The Blu-Ray and HD DVD players also have coax and Toslink optical outputs for regular DD and DTS which at this point other than incorporating increasingly more channels as from 5.1 to 7.1 and beyond I see little that could be improved. What I fail to understand is why they would revert back to analog surround for movies. DD and DTS are vastly superior to Dolby Pro logic in terms of noise levels, dynamic range and improved channel intelligibility. I will say that I do very much enjoy DVD A and SACD even though the multichannel output is analog due to piracy concearns. But IMO for surround sound as with movies digital until the speaker output is the way to go. Interestingly the Sony's Blue Ray players do not support SACD and Toshiba's HD DVD players don't seem to support DVD A either. Also the price,in the US, of a 1080p capable display is about twice that of a 720p display. I don't think most consumers are willing to shell out the extra cash for a rather marginal improvement in picture quality at this point, let alone $500 minimum to over $1k for a player that doesn't support all formats. Looks like the manufacturers are in for quite an up hill battle.
What I fail to understand is why they would revert back to analog surround for movies. DD and DTS are vastly superior to Dolby Pro logic in terms of noise levels, dynamic range and improved channel intelligibility.
Are those two sentences supposed to be related? Why would you run the 6/8-channel input through Pro Logic?
Peter your missing the point here. DD and DTS are Digital, Pro Logic is analog,of course you know this. Ideally the best connection for surround sound for DVD movies is a digital connection, not analog RCA's,which Blu-Ray and HD DVD use for "true HD surround". It would seem then that manufacturer's are doing the classic "big step forward and severeral steps backwards" move where some progression is made in one area in this case video,but a retrograde in audio. If you had a standard DVD player with a built in DD/DTS decoder but had no digital input on your receiver or pre/pro but had a set of 5.1 analog inputs,not likely these days, but very likely on older equiptment,you would use these and get DPL.
"I don't think most consumers are willing to shell out the extra cash for a rather marginal improvement in picture quality at this point, let alone $500 minimum to over $1k for a player that doesn't support all formats."
That doesn't seem to be true. The latest I have read is that the limited numbers that end up on the shelves are flying off of it. BB can not get enough of the Samsung $1K blue ray boxes.
DD and DTS are Digital, Pro Logic is analog,of course you know this.
With you so far...
If you had a standard DVD player with a built in DD/DTS decoder but had no digital input on your receiver or pre/pro but had a set of 5.1 analog inputs,not likely these days, but very likely on older equiptment,you would use these and get DPL.
You would use these but you would not use DPL on it afterwards. The 5.1 analog coming out of the DVD player would already be decoded from DTS or DD and would be ready for amplification (except for the usually crappy bass management on DVD players). There would be no need to use Pro Logic, which is used to generated surround sound from stereo input (not 5.1 input), using information matrixed into the stereo.
This is petty PG so let's end it here. Your right but it is better to let the receiver, pre/pro do the decoding instead of the DVD player with it's"unusually crappy bass mgt" right? That was my point which this new fangled Dolby True HD surround used by the Blu-Ray and DVD HD has the player doing the decoding. Stof, this may be true in your neck of the woods,such however is not the case in mine where both Walmart and BB are selling these new players and they are hardly "flying off the shelves" as both chains have plenty in stock.
Actually I'm not quite sure that's true in Chicago. I was reading an article on NYtimes about this which I can't find again for the life of me. I was hoping to include it in with my comments. It was my own surprise at reading that article that spurred me to write about it. I didn't think many people would be early adapters, since as the article mentioned, one customer went to the HD-DVD rack and picked up a DVD only to come back after realizing that it wasn't Blue-Ray.
I can just see the mess the stores have to deal with.
" 720p via HDMI up-conversion looks wonderful to me and the difference between it and 1080p is negligible ranging from unnoticable on some sets to barely perceptable on others."
4 times the base resolution is hardly noticable? What exactly have you watched in HD? Go take another look, the difference is night and day.
thanks for the entertainment. Now to the orginal question. is the Denon a good rcevier for a 100% HT. Will it be able to power a Polk 7.1 setup along with a buttkicker and SVS subwoofer?? Ny feedback is desparately needed and appreciated
"4 times the base resoultion is hardly noticable?.. What have you watched in HD?..
Plenty sir as I have a friend that has a 720p tv and another that has a 1080p tv. Watch weekly Discovery HD 720p and HBO HD then saw a demo HD DVD at a local electronics store- 720p 30 scan frames per/s ,1080p 60 per/s. slight difference not one that leaps out at you. What the hell is the "base resolution"-480p?, if so then sure 480p vs. 1080p "night and day" difference. AKP- this setup would be fine ,heard the Denons w/Polks not bad. Haven't heard the SVS but from what I have read about it you shouldn't need the Buttkicker as it may be overkill.
The difference between 780p and 1080p is negligible for most TVs on the market, IMO it will be a while before we see any true 1080p content so the added expense may not be worth it right now.
However I took your comment as comparing DVDs upconverted to 720p vs HD content. The new players will playback a 1080i or p source rather than upconverting standard definition to 1080p, the difference between the two formats will be a larger difference than how the Discovery HD channel looks between your friends TVs. You will have to wait for some 1080p souce material to do a real comparison, the only way to output it now is from a PC.
Hang on! The full resolution of a true 1080p display is about 4 times that of a 720p display as far as I know. Note that there isn't any such thing as a true 1080p source at the moment since the only HD-DVD machines out in the real world aren't capable of it and neither I believe are the BluRay machines! Therefore a true 1080p source with the disc encoded with 1080p should show a remarkable improvement in performance, provided it's done right (another issue which hasn't been considered).
On the subject of audio, in order to take advantage of the TrueHD surround encoded on the HD discs, one currently has to use the analogue multi-input option of the AV receiver since no AV receiver can decode the HD output of the HD-DVD/BR machines but also because the HD-DVD/BR machines can't put out a digital signal at full resolution at this point in time.
In terms of whether it's better to get the receiver to decode or not, this is not as simple as it first appears. The transfer of digital audio data between domestic devices often suffers from digital distortion known as jitter. Jitter is a problem caused mainly by the cheap and relatively nasty connections (S/PDIF and TOSLINK for standard def, IEEE1394 or S400 for HD) that are used. Jitter is particularly destructive on musical communication so it does not seem to have as big an effect on HT applications. With the reduced interest in music-only playback, this is not an oft-mentioned issue.
Alexander, with respect, your first post specifically spoke about the TrueHD issue and then followed with the question about the Denon. Given that TrueHD isn't available through a receiver currently, it's easy to understand how the Denon was sidelined as the main issue! FWIW, the 3806 is an excellent receiver, along with any number of other excellent receivers at similar money. Personally I rate the Denon higher than most others, but music is important to me, so at similar money I would take the equivalent Arcam rather than the Denon, even though the Arcam doesn't enjoy the feature set of the Denon.
"The difference between 780p and 1080p is negligible for most TVs on the market"
90% of new TVs that claim 1080p cannot accept a 1080p signal. They simply scale a 1080i signal to 1080p the same way DVD players display progressive scan. Others that accept 1080p still process the image down to 1080i before scaling back to 1080p. I agree that 1080p native is 4 times more resolution than 720p, but how long it will be before anyone can reap the full benefit of this technology remains to be seen.
The 1080p capable displays are on the way. Pioneer have one which is 50" with full 1080p resolution (proper 1080 lines). It's expensive of course (£5k or so in the UK - that's about $9k) but it was the first on the market. I believe Panasonic have on in the wings and Sony are meant to have one out too. The problem for all these manufacturers is making the screen smaller. I believe there is a limit on plasmas at the moment which means they can't get smaller than 50" with true 1080p res.
I've yet to find any concrete information on the next gen format's video capabilities, but have heard plenty of speculation. Frank, you seem quite knowledgeable, I hope you can correct or corraborate what I've heard.
I've heard the present cables don't have enough bandwidth to support a 1080p feed, which I suspect will limit the quality of over the air transmissions for some time until there is enough of a fiber optic network to support it - if it's even possible. I've also heard talk of changing the physical format of the HDMI plug - whether this is to support more video bandwidth or for other reasons, it's sure to p.o. quite a few "early adoptors" like myself who were led to believe an HDMI/HDCP television will set them up for the HD future. Now there's even media reporting some machines such as the Playstation 3 will be able to output HD through a component connection and play both Blu-Ray games and movies. Lots of conflicting info, hope you can shed some light.
On Saturdays I work in a HiFi shop which is why I knew about the Pioneer. My understanding is that domestic HDMI cables have enough bandwidth to cope with the demands of 1080p. Over the air transmissions are another thing entirely. I do not believe most installations can cope with the demand of 1080p currently and the standard remains 720p or 1080i for broadcast quality.
There has been talk about HDMI 1.3 having a different connector. To be honest, the standard HDMI connector is an abomination. We are having major problems with breakage in the shop, not customers' homes, but the shop is a far more demanding environment and our cables are breaking at the connector. We can't even get into them to fix them most of the time. The cables I use are high quality expensive cables so I am not happy about this connector. That said, I'm not particularly happy with the proposed change for HDMI 1.3 since the whole world is in the process of changing to the HDMI interface we all know and, to a certain extent, love.
There is a lot happening in display technology currently. Two years ago, I think it was Samsung who were displaying their 2k technology, that's 2000 lines. If that were adopted we would be getting better resolution in the home than many cinemas offer. The latest cinema projector from Sony is a 4k projector, and they're talking about a domestic variant. Of course, there's no domestic medium that supports a 4k picture currently, but numbers are infinite so it's perfectly possible to make these changes. The question is whether we will see them. In a 50" screen it's very unlikely (and there are other performance factors which come into play), but on larger screens the difference could be appreciable.
I am not aware of HD content being sent down component. I would be surprised if this could happen since no component-based device I know of can support that number of lines. Component is an analogue medium. If you were pumping the signal down to a display with just component-in, it would not support 720 lines. If your display supported 720p it would probably have a digital chassis and HDMI, which would save the encoding and decoding process from happening on the display unit so it seems unlikely that HD through component would happen - but stranger things have happened in the past!
The PS3 will be able to play BluRay games and movies, that's true. I believe it will also be able to play standard DVD movies. It will possibly support SACD since Sony is meant to be committed to the format and politically it would be disaster for SACD if it weren't supported by the PS3.
Frank Kano's question was whether or not cable (company) can even transmit 1080i over the standard coax lines. The answer is that they should be able to. They can physically handle over 100MB/sec. FIOS is not necessary for that purpose. It is the phone company's that are eager to push fios into homes so they can send TV over broadband and compete with the cable companies.
I don't believe that's what Kano was saying. He asks specifically about <i>cables<i/> and their bandwidth. He also mentions broadcast transmission limitations.
As it is, my understanding in broadcast is that transmission by cable can cope with 1080i but not 1080p. I never mentioned FiOS!