BIG Blu-Ray Audio drive from Universal Music in 2013

[Failed Muso]

the trouble (for surround-o-philes!) is that stereo hi-Rez is doing rather nicely in the shape of AF's SACDs etc., so I don't know if surround is that big a deal to Universal or anyone else.!?

I know... it seems everything is against us... :howl

 

[inquadwetrust]

Well maybe not everyone.

I just got back from IBC in Amsterdam - I work in Broadcast and I always make some time to go and see the DTS stand. They're really pushing DTS-HD headphone surround as a natural continuation of living room surround. They gave me a copy of their new demo Bluray which has the following discrete music tracks:

Minus The Bear - 'Listing' 7.1 24/96
of Montreal - 'Spiteful Intervention' 7.1 24/48
JJAMZ - 'Suicide pact' 5.1 24/48
Seawolf - 'Old Friend' 7.1 24/96
Royal Teeth 'wild' 7.1 24/48

They're all very discrete and sound rather nice. I asked about what DTS were doing and after a long look back at what went wrong last time around they're trying to provide infrastructure available to producers to mix for surround in the living room as well as on the move. The headphone demo was very nice, very discrete. They also intimated they were in talk with some bigger names than the indies above but it was all under wraps for now. But they're committed to surround music and this isn't everything they have.

Time will tell, but to hear modern, contemporary music in hi res surround with excellent mixing and separation gives me hope for the future.

 

[Disclord]

Well maybe not everyone.

I just got back from IBC in Amsterdam - I work in Broadcast and I always make some time to go and see the DTS stand. They're really pushing DTS-HD headphone surround as a natural continuation of living room surround. They gave me a copy of their new demo Bluray which has the following discrete music tracks:

Minus The Bear - 'Listing' 7.1 24/96
of Montreal - 'Spiteful Intervention' 7.1 24/48
JJAMZ - 'Suicide pact' 5.1 24/48
Seawolf - 'Old Friend' 7.1 24/96
Royal Teeth 'wild' 7.1 24/48

They're all very discrete and sound rather nice. I asked about what DTS were doing and after a long look back at what went wrong last time around they're trying to provide infrastructure available to producers to mix for surround in the living room as well as on the move. The headphone demo was very nice, very discrete. They also intimated they were in talk with some bigger names than the indies above but it was all under wraps for now. But they're committed to surround music and this isn't everything they have.

Time will tell, but to hear modern, contemporary music in hi res surround with excellent mixing and separation gives me hope for the future.

Do you know whose headphone technology DTS is using? They own SRS and Spatializer now, both of which had virtual headphone tech. And didn't Neural have a headphone virtualizer? I ask because I simply cannot hear the effects claimed for virtual surround systems, including headphone processing. They sound different, but still have the 'voice in the center of your head' effect that is intrinsic to headphone listening, plus the added fatigue from out of phase effects. Dolby Headphone is the best I've heard so far, but that's not saying much.

Are they planning on making digital copies available of the headphone processed tracks on BD-A's so consumers can listen using their iPod's and such?

 

[neil wilkes]

the trouble (for surround-o-philes!) is that stereo hi-Rez is doing rather nicely in the shape of AF's SACDs etc., so I don't know if surround is that big a deal to Universal or anyone else.!?

Which are probably not nearly as High Res as you may think. Check this out, as well as this & this.

Then we go to DSD (why?) which is a 1-bit system and requires heroic noise shaping (visible as a purple haze in a spectral analyzer) and it has been conclusively shown by various engineers that all there is above 23KHz in DSD is noise - no audio information at all, and claims of PCM equivalent at 2.8GHz is nonsensical (as is most DSD marketing) and DXD simply doubles the file size for no reason at all.
See here for some very interesting reading, specifically this thread

 

[0tto]

Then we go to DSD (why?) which is a 1-bit system and requires heroic noise shaping (visible as a purple haze in a spectral analyzer) and it has been conclusively shown by various engineers that all there is above 23KHz in DSD is noise - no audio information at all, and claims of PCM equivalent at 2.8GHz is nonsensical (as is most DSD marketing) and DXD simply doubles the file size for no reason at all.

hey Neil, wait for lil bit and here will appears few sound gurus to explain you that you cannot heard anything
above 20KHz anyway and mp3 with it's 44/16 is absolutely sufficient for distribution of the music

 

[fredblue]

Looks like the Beck - Sea Change HFPA blu-ray will be in 5.1 after all...

http://www.musicdirect.com/p-152009-beck-sea-change-51-blu-ray-pure-audio-disc.aspx

 

[fredblue]

Oh and here's a surprise....

http://www.musicdirect.com/p-152018-nick-drake-five-leaves-left-51-blu-ray-pure-audio-disc.aspx

Nick Drake "Five Leaves Left" in 5.1 on HFPA blu-ray..!?

 

[fredblue]

Queen ANATO in 5.1...

http://www.musicdirect.com/p-152027-queen-a-night-at-the-opera-51-blu-ray-pure-audio-disc.aspx

 

[fredblue]

Crime Of The Century...

http://www.musicdirect.com/p-152030-supertramp-crime-of-the-century-blu-ray-pure-audio-disc.aspx

 

[fredblue]

What's Going On HFPA USA pre-order...

http://www.musicdirect.com/p-152016-marvin-gaye-whats-going-on-blu-ray-pure-audio-disc.aspx

 

[inquadwetrust]

Do you know whose headphone technology DTS is using? They own SRS and Spatializer now, both of which had virtual headphone tech. And didn't Neural have a headphone virtualizer? I ask because I simply cannot hear the effects claimed for virtual surround systems, including headphone processing. They sound different, but still have the 'voice in the center of your head' effect that is intrinsic to headphone listening, plus the added fatigue from out of phase effects. Dolby Headphone is the best I've heard so far, but that's not saying much.

Are they planning on making digital copies available of the headphone processed tracks on BD-A's so consumers can listen using their iPod's and such?

They didn't reveal if this was developed in house or whether it was an continuation of the Neural tech they bought. The set was a treated room with 11.1 and you sat on a small stool and listened to the sound check by speaker. Then you put on some pretty cheap standard Sennheiser headphones and listened to the sound check again. The speaker placements were identical, including the height and sides and the acoustic character of the room was very close. They explained that the DTS-HD headphone process images the placement either by recreating position of the speaker with room ambience or dry or a combination of both. We then listened to a Hans Zimmer composition that recreated his studio as well as a MLB game which had the crowd both behind and above-behind. The headphone mix was an export process directly from the original discrete mix, their intention being to allow you to listen on a mobile device with standard headphones via an app or through an AV receiver. They also demoed a scalable version for streaming, with dynamic bandwidth compensation which was also pretty good as well. I could barely tell the difference between a couple of big jumps in bandwidth on the same soundtrack. Their intention seems to be to engage a younger non-surround equipment owning crowd by download and streaming as well as the existing owners via the same methods plus physical discs with music both vintage and contemporary. There was also a facility to encode surround for closed headphones or inner ear buds as alternate streams.

Regarding phase - I'd say nothing weird was going on, but this was demo content and nothing like a double blind test. I heard their previous demo at NAB earlier in the year and the Usher track they used sounded really full and nice but was no where near as discrete as the content they played and have used on the demo disc some five months later. I think it's fair to say they've developed and refined the actual process itself since then as well as addressing a need for truly discrete music to illustrate the effectiveness of the delivery.

I'd be fairly sure the right email to the address you can find on the inner cover jpeg will result in you listening to the living room versions for yourself.

 

[fredblue]

"Kaya" HFPA USA pre-order...

http://www.musicdirect.com/p-152011-bob-marley-and-the-wailers-kaya-blu-ray-pure-audio-disc.aspx

 

[Bob Squires Jr]

Music Direct... all titles

http://www.musicdirect.com/c-805-bl...SC&perpage=24&GenreFilterID=0&brandfilterid=0

 

[bmoura]

Oh and here's a surprise....

http://www.musicdirect.com/p-152018-nick-drake-five-leaves-left-51-blu-ray-pure-audio-disc.aspx

Nick Drake "Five Leaves Left" in 5.1 on HFPA blu-ray..!?

It looks like Music Direct has the same format description on all of the HFPA disc listings. So I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that they all will have 5.1 Audio on them.
Would make sense on Sea Change since that one has already been issued on SACD and DVD-A, so we know that the 5.1 mix exists.

Stay tuned....

 

[fredblue]

It looks like Music Direct has the same format description on all of the HFPA disc listings. So I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that they all will have 5.1 Audio on them.
Would make sense on Sea Change since that one has already been issued on SACD and DVD-A, so we know that the 5.1 mix exists.

Stay tuned....

yes... but but but..

only the Beck, Queen & Nick Drake titles have...

(5.1 BLU-RAY PURE AUDIO DISC)

..in their, umm, titles..!

The rest are billed as (BLU-RAY PURE AUDIO DISC).. the plot thickens!

 

[dr8track]

yes... but but but..

only the Beck, Queen & Nick Drake titles have...

(5.1 BLU-RAY PURE AUDIO DISC)

..in their, umm, titles..!

The rest are billed as (BLU-RAY PURE AUDIO DISC).. the plot thickens!

Has the Nick Drake - Five Leaves Left ever been released in surround? I know the Nick Drake Treasury SACD has some 5.1 music on it, but wasn't sure about the Five Leaves title.

 

[fredblue]

Has the Nick Drake - Five Leaves Left ever been released in surround? I know the Nick Drake Treasury SACD has some 5.1 music on it, but wasn't sure about the Five Leaves title.

not afaik

 

[DuncanS]

Crime Of The Century...

http://www.musicdirect.com/p-152030-supertramp-crime-of-the-century-blu-ray-pure-audio-disc.aspx

Shame its not in 5.1, one of my all time favourite albums, lets hope its not compressed! ...and Nick Drake's "Five Leaves Left" in 5.1, that would be something new

 

[dr8track]

Shame its not in 5.1, one of my all time favourite albums, lets hope its not compressed! ...and Nick Drake's "Five Leaves Left" in 5.1, that would be something new

Well, at least the Drake release is encouraging that they will be delivering some new material in 5.1. Maybe that will at least mean there's a better chance of more new 5.1 releases. But I agree that it is a shame most of the current titles they plan to release aren't 5.1.

 

[Odys]

Music Direct does not list 5.1 for Serge Gainsbourg's Histoire De Melody Nelson, which is the one title we know was released in 5.1. To quote Mr. Gaye, "What's going on?"

Did the European releases offer digital downloads?