Jethro Tull 5.1 (“Bursting Out” box set with Steven Wilson 5.1 mixes out in June 2024!)
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The specs I have seen from many sources state the MC of the Blu-Ray and DVD are 96/24. If so, please tell me the difference.
I moved on from vinyl almost 30 years ago, so these box sets do not interest me complete. I have purchased some starting with the Muse set and have either sold or traded for the discs I could use. I work out trades or shared cost on all of them, so it is a win-win for all parties.
hwkn
1K Club - QQ Shooting Star
I'm listening to the 5.1 mix of the alternate version of My God from the Blu ray and it's amazingly good.[if I could give a grade to this disc right now it's a definite 10]
That's interesting. I moved on from vinyl about 23 years ago, and just "moved back" about 6 weeks ago. I'm going to keep the LP and the BD, and give the rest to a friend of mine who is a big Tull fan but won't pay for all this extra stuff.
I did make many vinyl transfers of titles that never made it to CD, I have all of the Tarney/Spencer Band releases :>) I do love the warm sound of vinyl, but I do not miss the surface noise and pops. I play my music loud, very loud :>)
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wanners
400 Club - QQ All-Star
I don't have mine yet, but from what I read, the DVD is a DVD-V with DTS 24/96, which means that a 24/96 capable decoder takes additional compressed info and decompresses it on the fly to make a higher resolution sound than regular DTS. It is still lossy though.
I have not received mine either, but will my ears be able to tell the difference between the DVD and Blu-Ray? I have my doubts, but I do have 60 year old hearing. I can still hear a needle hit the carpet :>)
wanners
400 Club - QQ All-Star
Really hard to say. I could tell the difference between the Genesis dts 96/24 and the hirez SACDs. Side by side, I'd say yes, you would probably hear the diff. But if you aren't anal about sound quality and never hear the BD, it might not matter.
From the specs I have read both the DVD and Blu-Ray are 96/24 which hawks back to my original question, the difference?
DVD: Album mixed to 5.1 surround sound with 4 additional recordings all DTS Surround (96/24) & Dolby Digital Surround (48/24)
Blu-ray: Album mixed to 5.1 surround sound with 4 additional recordings all 96/24 LPCM & DTS-HD Master Audio
The DVD is lossy (compressed); the Blu-ray is lossless (uncompressed). The Blu-ray will sound better.
wanners
400 Club - QQ All-Star
I thought I did. DTS 96/24 is lossy. It is different from lossless 96/24 in PCM or DTS-MA. The use of 96/24 by DTS in this instance is somewhat misleading, they should have used another description. Theoretically, the BD 96/24 should sound better, but some people will argue that there is no audible sound quality difference. I believe I can tell the difference normally, but there could be some older recordings where the additional resolution is essentially meaningless.
Thank you for your reply. I will compare the two when they arrive and see if I can hear a stark difference.
wanners
400 Club - QQ All-Star
There are many prior posts here and elsewhere on the internet that describe the difference between DTS96/24 lossy (DVD-V) and 96/24 PCM or MLP on a DVD-A. I suggest doing a search to avoid reinventing the wheel on this thread--that is if you want to understand the technical differences (or maybe you don't care).
Thank you for the reply wanners. I guess I am one who can not hear a stark difference. I remember reading here a year ago or more that 96/24 uncompressed was barely high resolution. I think it came up about the Blu-Ray series from Sears. Is this fact or fiction?
wanners
400 Club - QQ All-Star
There's been lots of talk about what DTS 96/24 really accomplishes. To my ears it is much better than regular DTS, but not nearly as nice sounding as PCM on a BD or MLP on a DVD-A, or even SACD. I"m a true high res guy. Not sure about the Sears thing.
wanners
400 Club - QQ All-Star
You didn't, don't worry about that.
I will use a quote from a old steel worker I know and worked with when he was offended. "Let's shake hands and never speak again"
96 refers to sample rate (96,000 cycles per second). 24 refers to digital word length (24 bits available). These are recording format resolutions. Resolution is really important, but it doesn't explain the whole story.
Neither of these numbers tell you anything about file copy fidelity or data throughput. Both of these parameters are important to the result you get when you play back the audio from the media you purchased.
File copy fidelity refers to the exactness of the data copy process from the point it is packaged and saved to media, to the point at which it is retrieved from the media for use (in this case playback).
There are three types of file types: non-compressed, losslessly-compressed, and lossy-compressed.
Non-compressed files are copies that are copied exactly as the original was created. Absolutely nothing is changed. The file size is exactly the same; all of the bits of data are the same; even the spaces that contain absolutely no data in the file are copied as is. The copied file can be played back requiring no additional software. It will sound exactly the same as the original file, when played on the same equipment.
Up until recently, data file size limitations required lossy compression to fit into the media sizes that were commercially viable. The lossy compression is another program interposed into the copy process that reduces the size of the copied file.
Lossy compression actually discards data that was in the original file of digital audio data. The result is a very (to my 57 year old ears) audible degradation of the sound quality, when compared to playback from a non-compressed, or losslessly compressed file.
When DVD-Audio discs were first designed, there was not enough space on a DVD to record 60 minutes of six (5.1) channels of uncompressed audio at 24/96 resolution. So companies were tasked to create a compression scheme that resulted in absolutely no data loss. Meridian (a company from England) came up with a program to do just that. They called it Meridian Lossless Packaging (also known as MLP).
MLP repacked the data in a much more efficient way, throwing away only the empty spaces that contained no data. There were additional changes made to the files that resulted in more file size savings. MLP is a losslessly-compressed file format. It is an extra program that is interposed into the copy and subsequent data retrieval processes. The result is a file retrieval that plays back as if it were never compressed.
Have you ever noticed that the 5.1 tracks on a DVD-Audio disc is never specified as being 24 bit / 192 sample rate? that is because even MLP cannot compress file size sufficient to allow 24/192 level data to stream from the output of a DVD player. This is a hardware limitation of the DVD player. Blu Ray players have much higher data throughput capacity, so they can use CODECs (COmpression / DECompression programs) such as Dolby True HD (which uses MLP, by the way) and DTS- HD Master Audio (which uses a proprietary CODEC for audio).
So, now that you have a basic understanding of the technologies involved, I will answer your question about the actual audio differences between the DVD with resolution of 24/96 and the Blu ray (which uses DTS-HD Master Audio) with a resolution of 24/96.
For the stereo tracks on the DVD, the format is uncompressed LPCM (Linear Pulse Code Modulation, AKA 24/96 uncompressed digital audio). You will hear absolutely no difference between these tracks on the DVD versus the same tracks on the Blu ray disc. The original DVD standard allowed for uncompressed stereo 24/96 LPCM.
The DVD standard did not allow for uncompressed multichannel (i.e. > 2 channels) audio. For surround sound formats (5.1 and quad 4.0), the best available CODEC on a DVD is DTS 24/96.
DTS 24/96 uses a (very good) lossy compression scheme. The Rhino / Handmade Quadio releases were done in DTS 24/96, and they sounded very good. But they did not sound as good as was possible using a lossless compression CODEC. Check out some of the bitching on the posts in this forum about DTS 24/96 sound quality. I think a lot of the criticism is over the top, but it gives you a basis for comparison.
On the Blu Ray disc, the sound quality of the audio file will be as close to what Steve Wilson was able to hear when he remixed the tracks in the studio. That does not mean that the quality of the audio file is the only parameter that affect overall sound playback quality. The quality of the hardware you use for playback, and the acoustics of the room you listen in will have affects on the overall sound quality you get to hear.
However, even if you are listening on a budget level system in a poor acoustical environment, I expect that you will hear an obvious difference in sound quality on the surround tracks of these recordings.
Steven
Neither of these numbers tell you anything about file copy fidelity or data throughput. Both of these parameters are important to the result you get when you play back the audio from the media you purchased.
File copy fidelity refers to the exactness of the data copy process from the point it is packaged and saved to media, to the point at which it is retrieved from the media for use (in this case playback).
There are three types of file types: non-compressed, losslessly-compressed, and lossy-compressed.
Non-compressed files are copies that are copied exactly as the original was created. Absolutely nothing is changed. The file size is exactly the same; all of the bits of data are the same; even the spaces that contain absolutely no data in the file are copied as is. The copied file can be played back requiring no additional software. It will sound exactly the same as the original file, when played on the same equipment.
Up until recently, data file size limitations required lossy compression to fit into the media sizes that were commercially viable. The lossy compression is another program interposed into the copy process that reduces the size of the copied file.
Lossy compression actually discards data that was in the original file of digital audio data. The result is a very (to my 57 year old ears) audible degradation of the sound quality, when compared to playback from a non-compressed, or losslessly compressed file.
When DVD-Audio discs were first designed, there was not enough space on a DVD to record 60 minutes of six (5.1) channels of uncompressed audio at 24/96 resolution. So companies were tasked to create a compression scheme that resulted in absolutely no data loss. Meridian (a company from England) came up with a program to do just that. They called it Meridian Lossless Packaging (also known as MLP).
MLP repacked the data in a much more efficient way, throwing away only the empty spaces that contained no data. There were additional changes made to the files that resulted in more file size savings. MLP is a losslessly-compressed file format. It is an extra program that is interposed into the copy and subsequent data retrieval processes. The result is a file retrieval that plays back as if it were never compressed.
Have you ever noticed that the 5.1 tracks on a DVD-Audio disc is never specified as being 24 bit / 192 sample rate? that is because even MLP cannot compress file size sufficient to allow 24/192 level data to stream from the output of a DVD player. This is a hardware limitation of the DVD player. Blu Ray players have much higher data throughput capacity, so they can use CODECs (COmpression / DECompression programs) such as Dolby True HD (which uses MLP, by the way) and DTS- HD Master Audio (which uses a proprietary CODEC for audio).
So, now that you have a basic understanding of the technologies involved, I will answer your question about the actual audio differences between the DVD with resolution of 24/96 and the Blu ray (which uses DTS-HD Master Audio) with a resolution of 24/96.
For the stereo tracks on the DVD, the format is uncompressed LPCM (Linear Pulse Code Modulation, AKA 24/96 uncompressed digital audio). You will hear absolutely no difference between these tracks on the DVD versus the same tracks on the Blu ray disc. The original DVD standard allowed for uncompressed stereo 24/96 LPCM.
The DVD standard did not allow for uncompressed multichannel (i.e. > 2 channels) audio. For surround sound formats (5.1 and quad 4.0), the best available CODEC on a DVD is DTS 24/96.
DTS 24/96 uses a (very good) lossy compression scheme. The Rhino / Handmade Quadio releases were done in DTS 24/96, and they sounded very good. But they did not sound as good as was possible using a lossless compression CODEC. Check out some of the bitching on the posts in this forum about DTS 24/96 sound quality. I think a lot of the criticism is over the top, but it gives you a basis for comparison.
On the Blu Ray disc, the sound quality of the audio file will be as close to what Steve Wilson was able to hear when he remixed the tracks in the studio. That does not mean that the quality of the audio file is the only parameter that affect overall sound playback quality. The quality of the hardware you use for playback, and the acoustics of the room you listen in will have affects on the overall sound quality you get to hear.
However, even if you are listening on a budget level system in a poor acoustical environment, I expect that you will hear an obvious difference in sound quality on the surround tracks of these recordings.
Steven
