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See latest What Hi Fi: High Fidelity Pure Audio format brings hi-res audio to Blu-ray


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There is a very interesting article on What Hi Fi.


I have actually heard some of these disks at a recent Marantz Demo.


Please see the article. Of Particular interest to me is the following reply to other comments.


"Everyone thinks 24/96K is the same thing as the original recording, which is different from the studio master. Its complicated and confusing.Uncompressed" is not the same as "lossless compression", lets be clear. Only the tangible hard copy Blu-ray disc contains the uncompressed multi-channel audio, it would be illegal to download it from anywhere, its not possible. For playback, the content must be transferred in the digital domain from the source to the preamp/processor or AVR. HDMI is the interface to use, its high speed and data rate Bitstream were developed just for this purpose, with a specific security protocol called HDCP. In the age of DRM, the studios make us "authenticate" a secure connection that cannot be copied or hacked.  Without that, the audio content is down rezzed to the still-compressed Dolby Digital EX or DTS Digital Surround ES, both at 24/96K.  For most people, thats still fine. However, if you are looking for the ultimate listening experience at home, you must conform to the security protocol.  Without HDMI v1.3 or higher, you cannot hear and see the best content.  The OPPO player is the last to offer analog outputs, it can do the audio processing on board and output the Dolby TruHD, dts MasterHD, and LPCM 2.0 fold-down of the Dolby TruHD.  I've compared the HDMI digital throughput to the analog version from the OPPO, there is a modest increase in clarity, resolution, and dynamic range when you stay in the digital domain, as you said, its worth the cost of the upgrade to HDMI, of that there is no doubt.


Where we get into trouble is thinking that DVD-A is a one to one copy of the original recording because its 24/96K  The people trying to sell you another copy of an old vinyl album or CD want to believe it too so they dont tell you about Blu-ray, they cant sell you those via a download, that would be illegal.  Makes you wonder, what are the studios protecting?


HD soundtracks at 24/96K can be copies of the commerical CD, which as we know are bound by the RedBook standard, compressed 4 to 1 to fit 12 songs in 60 minutes on a single sided disc. Upsampling and reclocking these does not increase the dynamic range.  There are downloads of the PCM 24/96K "losslessly compressed" versions, those are better than CD but be careful, there are a lot more CD copies than original masters when downloading. 


In order to hear the difference, it takes a big system and the privacy to turn it up. I am fortunate, my HD projection system has a screen 111" diagonal, with electrostats and double subs in surround, I can reach higher SPL's than ever before on Blu-ray, its better than live. Shows like Adele at Royal Albert Hall can make you choke up you are so close to her, so intimate, those eyes and voice on those songs, its simply sublime.  SADE produced new ultra 4K video, with multiple projectors creating a staging event that raises the bar to a new art as well. 3D texture mapping is creating new realities in space, live shows are evolving.  Roger Waters The Wall will be out on Blu-ray this year, just wait till you see what can be done now.


To recap, MLP on DVD-A, or DVD movies,or broadcast tv, is not HD, not as good as Dolby TruHD or dts MasterHD even though its 24/96K. For the best resolution, a secure connection must be established. DRM allows them to manipulate the output of the disc and control its use, thats legal now. 


check out the new Essence electrostats, I am just introducing them now.  www.essenceelectrostatic.com  Really good looking and not too big."


The pictures on that Essence site looks great.

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When you say it is 'interesting', do you mean 'laughable'?  :(

 

Which particular aspect of it do you want to draw attention to? 

Not laughable I find it genuinely interetsing and would like to hear what other members think.

 

The bit I quoted was from the comments and is the technical aspects. Most of that will interest people like us on the forums.The article itself I found really interesting and possibly exciting as it appears that there are several big name brands behind this format.

 

I am very interested in technology and am enjoying the the progress made and still being made relating to  high res files via computers, DSD, dacs etc. I am also interested in the growth or future of blu ray music including concerts as CD and DVD do not have the storage capacity. I think for the average user of technology it is a lot easier to pop a blu ray in a player than it is to find a high res download.

 

In my mind the modern family uses blu ray players and AVR's (rather than stereo systems).  I am hoping that this medium can and will grow and is  or can become audiophile quality.

 

When I listened to two of these disks a high quality Marantz blu ray player and AVR was used, but the speakers were junk. I could not form an opinion. What I did like was the surround sound/effects? I am thinking that the market can get traction a lot faster if mainstream brands start selling this on blu rays that may have a lot more appeal to people that are not interetsed in high res downloads and the relevant hardware or computer tweaking that comes with it.

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Hi Jventer,

I'm not sure how much of the technical aspects you understand concerning DVD-A and Blu-ray audio but the author doesn't seem to fully comprehend some of his statements. Regarding this statement- "To recap, MLP on DVD-A, or DVD movies,or broadcast tv, is not HD, not as good as Dolby TruHD" - Does the article mention that both DVD-A and Dolby TrueHD both use MLP lossless compression? DVD movies never used MLP AFAIA.

 

"Everyone thinks 24/96K is the same thing as the original recording"...do they?

 

Are you familiar with some of the DVD-A stats?: DVD-A does not necessarily require Meridian Lossless Packing and can provide uncompressed 24/192 2 channel, 24/48 uncompressed 6 channel or 24/96 6 channel using MLP at approx 1:1.78 compression.

 

Anyway, I do believe the secret to great sounding audio is not the particular bit depth, sampling rate or the medium it is delivered upon but more so the way it was recorded and subsequently its mastering. Like any format there are superb presentations and utter crap- its all in the mastering.

 

If you're interested in DVD-A there is a thread I put together a while back -here

 

Hopefully Blu-ray can revive some of what DVD-A and SACD failed to deliver in quantity - vastly improved audio quality in a single format without the need for special transports.

 

Cheers

Edited by Craigandkim
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Hi Jventer,

 

Anyway, I do believe the secret to great sounding audio is not the particular bit depth, sampling rate or the medium it is delivered upon but more so the way it was recorded and subsequently its mastering. Like any format there are superb presentations and utter crap- its all in the mastering.

 

Cheers

+1 to that - couldn't agree more :)

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I hoped beyond all hope that, when bluray came out, it would be the next mainstream audio medium, unlike DVDA and SACD, because of one important consideration: it uses a standard, common, cheap AV player. The music DVD was a very successful medium, unlike DVDA and SACD, and despite having mp3 quality multichannel (although PCM 2496 stereo audio was there), and I assume this was because it utilised a common AV player (as well as offering video, obviously). Now with bluray, that sole audio quality blockage is removed. Hooray!

 

Well, I'm still waiting. And it is 7 years since the release of bluray. 

 

In the end it looks like it may be bypassed by the rise of HD music downloading and streaming.

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Please see the article. Of Particular interest to me is the following reply to other comments

 

He is fairly misinformed, or has communication problems, or both.... A couple of points counter most of his misinfo:

 

  • Redbook audio does not use compression
  • DVD can contain 24/96 stereo uncompressed
  • Neither DVD or Bluray audio is down-converted in all "non-HDCP" circumstances
  • "a modest increase in clarity, resolution, and dynamic when you stay in the digital domain" ... just depends on the DA converters in the source vs receiver
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Here is the What Hi Fi Article

 

 

High Fidelity Pure Audio format brings hi-res audio to Blu-ray
21 Jun 2013

The High Fidelity Pure Audio Group chose to launch at Dolby's Soho Square headquarters yesterday. The HFPA Group will use marketing and promotional activity to drive awareness of the benefits of the High Fidelity Pure Audio format.

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High Fidelity Pure Audio releases are, fundamentally, high-resolution recordings mastered to Blu-ray discs and intended for playback on any Blu-ray disc player.

Created from studio master recordings at a minimum of 24bit/96kHz standard, the discs are encoded in three ultra high-quality lossless formats: uncompressed PCM, DTS HD Master Audio and Dolby TrueHD.

Compatibility with any existing Blu-ray player or PS3 obviously gives HFPA an advantage over previous high-definition standards such as SACD. In addition, most discs will include the option to download the same content as either MP3 or FLAC lossless files - this allows the music to be enjoyed across virtually all platforms and players.

Universal Music Group is at the forefront of this initiative, but with support from the likes of Warner Music Group, Bose, Bang & Olufsen, Dolby, DTS and more it's obvious the format has some heavyweight backing.

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A number of titles have already been released in France, the sound quality of which have been very positively received. The rollout into other territories will continue throughout 2013 (currently the UK launch is slated for September). Information on UK pricing is tentative, but French retailer FNAC is charging just shy of €20 per disc.

According to research undertaken by Universal's Insight Team last year, the proprtion of music consumers who said they were fairly/very/extremely likely to buy a high-definition audio product within the following six months ranged from 21% (UK) to 32% (US).

By Simon Lucas

 
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The comment I posted earlier was made by Bob Raboport. He is the designer of Essence Electrstatics as well. See more info below:

 

 

"Award-winning marketing consultant to manufacturers of high performance audio and video products for both consumer and professional applications. Holder of 2 patents, 12 Innovations CES awards, listed in Who's Who of American Inventors, and most recently the leading advocate for adoption of the Blu-ray audio standard; currently sales director for Essence Electrostatic LLC."

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Well good on 'em, I hope they succeed, like I said earlier. 

 

It's nice to see the discs in a non-blue cover, they look good.

 

I went to the Universal Music Group website but there is no mention of this initiative! Weird.

 

However they do have a Facebook page, so all is well with the world after all. And you can follow them on twitter. Maybe this is the new way, instead of a traditional ;) web site.

 

And there is a 1 minute youtube clip which is so well presented one starts to appreciate that the head of the initiative is a marketing guru.

 

They have some headline acts on their roster, so that's an interesting change from some HD music efforts.

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The audio only blu-rays have been around for a little while- one of note is Patricia Barbers Modern Cool- as a reference MFSL SACD, its release on blu-ray was also eagerly anticipated.

 

However its 5.1 content was only DTS HD-MA 24/96, with the stereo mix being LPCM 24/192 . Surely on a 50Gb BR disc, they could have opened up the throttel to 24/192 5.1 uncompressed LPCM as well.

 

Why not utilise the full potential of the medium?

 

Info here  & here

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It's not the data storage capacity, it's the transfer bitrate that matters.

During playback the 2 streams of 2-ch LPCM 24/192 and 5.1-ch LPCM 24/192 would be transmitted at the same time.

 

 

How do you figure? 

 

Via the menu you select either 2 channel or 6 channel. The standard allows 6 channels of 24/192 LCPM @ a bitrate of 27.6Mbs.

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Whatever you select or not select, all the encoded audio and video in the media have to be squeezed through the bandwidth limited pipeline at some point.

When the pipeline can't handle that much bandwidth, there'll be drop outs.

It's convenient for record labels to opt for lossless codecs.

But,

...If you unpack a lossless file on the fly the processing time increases measurably and that tends to decrease the sound quality....

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They're not.   You pick an audio track on the player, and only that track is output.

During the encoding or authoring process, all the audio streams will be multiplexed as a single MPEG-2 transport stream together with the video. The player/receiver/dac will demultiplex everything but only decodes the steam that the user selected.

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Jeromelang,

 

sorry mate - you are confused by the process. Yes data streams are multiplexed- however as Davewantsmore has stated you are only sending one audio stream at a time as predicated by the menu selection of the disc and what has been chosen by the user to be unpacked.

 

Think rationally about the process you are trying to describe and your previous comment:

 

It's not the data storage capacity, it's the transfer bitrate that matters.
During playback the 2 streams of 2-ch LPCM 24/192 and 5.1-ch LPCM 24/192 would be transmitted at the same time.

 

It does not make any sense

Edited by Craigandkim
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not to be a spoil sport but 2L has had simultaneous releases on BD audio/SACD/CD just exactly for the purpose of comparing. I'm quite happy with sacd. I'll buy some bd audio releases for sure but audio wise in my books have found sacd as best as gets :)

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I appreciate the posts. I have been looking at 2L and think they are doing a good job. My surround sound system is not that good - need to upgrade one or other time. But in the meantime I like the fact that if I buy something I can get it in different formats. Play on 2 channel or multichannel.

Has anyone listened to one of these blu rays on a good multichannel system?

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Bluray uses Multiple Program Transport Stream (MPTS) of MPEG2 transport stream (TS) for communicating data to receiving devices.

After the (receiving) decoder receives the TS it can Decode only the streams for the program it's playing (as selected by the user), and will ignore streams for other programs.

What this means is that if the Blu-ray Disc is encoded with 4 types of audio stream - for example, (1) 2-ch LPCM 24/192, (2) 5.1-ch LPCM 24/192, (3) 5.1-ch Dolby True HD, and (4) 5.1-ch DTS-HD MA, and during playback, all these 4 audio streams would be transmitted at the same time via the multiplexed MPEG2 transport stream. But at the receiving decoder, after demultiplexing, only 1 selected audio stream will be decoded, and the other 3 audio streams will be ignored. The audio stream to be decoded is the one the user selected on the Blu-ray Disc audio menu.

Edited by jeromelang
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