Why can't new equipment play old material

[MidiMagic]

They removed Pro Logic II because no new product is being released that uses it, and they don't care about the users who have libraries of VHS tapes and laserdiscs that use that format.

Problem is, most new receivers and processors don't have the multi-channel analog inputs needed to connect the SM. That's the main reason why I won't update my receiver.

This is exactly the same cpap reasoning they used to make new computers so they can't run old programs.

I have a record player that can play almost any disc record ever made. The only records it can't play are:
- Pathe records that play at 90 and 120 rpm on 14-in and 20-in discs
- Two 16-in radio station records I have
- CD-4

If I can have that, why can't I have a surround receiver that can play all formats?

Never mind VHS tapes and laserdiscs, there are plenty of DVDs of films with Dolby Surround soundtracks. And for many of them if they ever get Blu Ray releases they will probably still have the original Dolby Surround encoded soundtracks. The money simply isn't there to remix films for discrete multi channel audio if the film itself never had one in the first place.

I am listening to Dolby Surround on TV right now as I type. So there is still "product" out there. I get Dolby Surround commercials and (a few) recordings on the radio. Like the change from CD to DVD to BluRay, they want you to buy the recording again.

All of what VHS I have left, much of my DVD collection, and many CD movie soundtracks are in Dolby Surround. The money-grubbo9ing companies don't care about that. I would think that "Can play any surround sound recording" would be a selling point.

And they probably have capacitors that are on the way out, have bashed up casework, and other issues. I've spent several years keeping a look out for something that fulfills my requirements and not found anything.

Now if someone would sell a multi channel analogue in to HDMI converter box, I'd buy one immediately and hook it up to my DV137. That would get me Pro Logic II decoding of Dolby Surround encoded DVDs.

Dolby Labs can't license Dolby Surround anymore because the patents have expired.

Note that there has been only one Dolby Surround encoding system. There are three separate decoding systems.

And Dolby Surround is the only system that eliminates the cogging problem. Discrete tries and fails by adding more speakers.

 

[Owen Smith]

Dolby Labs can't license Dolby Surround anymore because the patents have expired.

That doesn't stop Dolby Labs including PL and PL/II decoding in firmware development kits made available to AV gear manufacturers. Not does it stop Dolby Labs providing Dolby Surround (original) encoding software, indeed it makes doing so cheaper if Jim Fosgate's estate no longer has to be paid.

Note that there has been only one Dolby Surround encoding system. There are three separate decoding systems.

I'm aware of that.

I've decided I can't live in the past. Too much work keeping old hardware functioning, especially with the absence of repair shops that are any good round here.

My new Arcam AVR31 does at least have Auro 3D processing, which some people claim gives better results with music and Dolby Surround (original) decoding. Certainly gives me an option to try.

 

[gene_stl]

Apple is the first and champeen for that. (incompatibility)

Once upon a time I managed to intercept a stream of surplus from Zeiss USA. I bought a pallet of computers which were mostly dual processor Xeon. These had been imaging work stations for laser scanning confocal microscopes and fluorescent microscopes. I nursed that lot of computers along for myself and my sons for a very long time. They were hotrods when new and were only about two or three years old when I got them and they had hot graphics cards which my sons liked for their moron gaming.

Included in this wonderful pallet was an Apple G4 dual processor which had been something of a graphics hotrod. My art student son was required to buy a dual processor G5 which came with a bundle of software. A university deal. Not a SINGLE title from the G5 bundle would load onto the G4.
After I determined that , I immediately sold the G4 to a friend who had been whining to get it away from me.

I have always been an Apple free zone because I could never stand Steve Jobs. I know their products are pretty good but they are unnecessarily overpriced and their stores pretentious in the extreme. The above experience confirmed that I would stay an Apple free zone. I have to admit being a little tempted by Apple classical music streaming. But I have a long way to go before thinking about pulling that trigger.

 

[MidiMagic]

That doesn't stop Dolby Labs including PL and PL/II decoding in firmware development kits made available to AV gear manufacturers. Not does it stop Dolby Labs providing Dolby Surround (original) encoding software, indeed it makes doing so cheaper if Jim Fosgate's estate no longer has to be paid.

I'm aware of that.

I've decided I can't live in the past. Too much work keeping old hardware functioning, especially with the absence of repair shops that are any good round here.

My new Arcam AVR31 does at least have Auro 3D processing, which some people claim gives better results with music and Dolby Surround (original) decoding. Certainly gives me an option to try.

I read in an article somewshere that Dolby now hates Dolby Surround and wants to make it go away. I hate their cogging discrete systems.

 

[MidiMagic]

Apple is the first and champeen for that. (incompatibility)

Once upon a time I managed to intercept a stream of surplus from Zeiss USA. I bought a pallet of computers which were mostly dual processor Xeon. These had been imaging work stations for laser scanning confocal microscopes and fluorescent microscopes. I nursed that lot of computers along for myself and my sons for a very long time. They were hotrods when new and were only about two or three years old when I got them and they had hot graphics cards which my sons liked for their moron gaming.

Included in this wonderful pallet was an Apple G4 dual processor which had been something of a graphics hotrod. My art student son was required to buy a dual processor G5 which came with a bundle of software. A university deal. Not a SINGLE title from the G5 bundle would load onto the G4.
After I determined that , I immediately sold the G4 to a friend who had been whining to get it away from me.

I have always been an Apple free zone because I could never stand Steve Jobs. I know their products are pretty good but they are unnecessarily overpriced and their stores pretentious in the extreme. The above experience confirmed that I would stay an Apple free zone. I have to admit being a little tempted by Apple classical music streaming. But I have a long way to go before thinking about pulling that trigger.

I had to replace a failed XP computer and the new computer cannot run XP or any of the XP programs. They changed the hardware so the old software can't work.

 

[kfbkfb]

Of course, a (no logic) Hafler decoder could be implemented (in software, inside the A/V receiver) with very little code and no license fee.


MidiMagic:
Regarding accessing data formatted for software that no longer works...maybe the people working on the Firefox browser (IIRC, open source) could be encouraged to write reformatting software so the data could be used by newer (still operating) software.


Kirk Bayne

 

[minimumtumbleweed]

I had to replace a failed XP computer and the new computer cannot run XP or any of the XP programs. They changed the hardware so the old software can't work.

They don't change the hardware so the software won't work. they change it beacuse they are making progress and moving forward with new features. Does it really sound reasonable to develop hardware to support every format or software package for all time? It is much more than just "saving a buck". You all sound like my grandmother who won't learn how to use a cellphone even if it means being able to see her great-grandchildren over video call. Dolby Surround is older than me. Windows XP is done - why would you want to use it? Do you want viruses? There have not been security updates for XP in nearly a decade. This is how technology works. There are great things available today; it's time to move on.

 

[Owen Smith]

I read in an article somewshere that Dolby now hates Dolby Surround and wants to make it go away. I hate their cogging discrete systems.

Hates original Dolby Surround or new Dolby Surround? It's impossible to tell from the context in your post.

 

[Mr. Afternoon]

I can understand the need to retain backwards compatibility...it saves us time, money, and confusion. However over a period of time sometimes upgrades are required with advances in technology.

The whole proprietary without availability this is where I have a problem with. I don't have a thing against proprietary technologies if the licensing is reasonable and can be widely used/implemented. The problem comes where a company abandons a previous proprietary thing without providing some semblance of operability for the future (specifically for audio) like releasing source code or schematics or hosting downloads for decoders so that the community who may be interested can still play back these formats.

For example, FLAC and LPCM are completely free with a high level of interoperability between devices. A proprietary example would be DVD or DVD-Audio, where both are defunct (especially the latter), one can still purchase the specifications to develop their own programs for playback and authoring if needed. The specifications (relatively speaking) are not expensive either, I think a lot of people have spent money on the Dolby Atmos Encoder/Decoder here which costs MORE. Of course, there's reverse-engineering projects, but for a lot of audio stuff it requires someone to have the time and interest to try to crack some tough nuts completely from scratch.

Of course for anything that's available in discrete formats, matrix formats are useless. However until all releases can be moved to official releases on discrete formats (which is practically impossible) matrix decoding systems will always have their place. One way to prolong interoperability with audio formats is obviously archival on the computer. You can always play almost all digital formats with ease on a computer hooked up to your AV receiver, eliminating most of the headache.

For some people, constantly archiving, upgrading, and using multiple formats/programs is not for them, which I think is the point @MidiMagic might be trying to express.

 

[Owen Smith]

And Dolby are a completely awful company for this sort of thing. Want to make a new cassette deck? Tough luck, Dolby won't sell you the chips for Dolby noise reduction and no-one else knows fully how it works. Original Dolby Surround, DPL and DPL II have now joined that group.

Ray Dolby as he got older came to hate the company that he started. The corporate marketing droids took it over.

 

[jaybird100]

I still don't understand why everyone has to buy brand new. Lots of good used stuff out there at bargain prices, with the features you are looking for!

I still use a 23 year old Denon AVR-3300 receiver. It has the analog multichannel inputs, Dolby Pro Logic (not II), as well as Dolby Digital and DTS. It still sounds as great as it did when new; better, in fact, with the SM. There's nothing in a new receiver that does what I want, and this one does. If there are any capacitors that are on their way out, I sure can't hear it. It also has a phono input, which only the most expensive models seem to have anymore. It's built like a tank!

 

[Electric Moo]

Well that sucks. I assumed everything could at least decode Pro Logic II.

Matrix quad is the only practical surround format on vinyl.

How long before Dolby cuts discrete 4 channel support? Heck, why don't we get rid of stereo too? It's an old format...

 

[kfbkfb]

It turns out that DTS already has a Dolby Surround compatible encode/decode system (DTS Stereo):

https://forum.lddb.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=388

Maybe contact the DTS company and explain the need for DTS stereo decoding since (original) Dolby Surround has been removed from A/V receivers since ~2014 (I just did).

https://xperi.com/company/contact/

Kirk Bayne

 

[furui_suterioo]

I say forget new receivers, they can't be repaired like analog amps. Eventually all the new formats will be playable via PC, just connect more vintage amplifiers!

 

[jaybird100]

I'm confused, modern AV amps have a Dolby Surround mode. Admittedly it's compatible rather than precisely the same decoder, but is that a problem?

It's not compatible. Its sole purpose is to upmix stereo to surround, but it works in a much different way than the Dolby Surround we all are familiar with. It won't deliver the correct effect from encoded sources.

 

[SeeMoreDigital]

Surely there's some old Dolby Pro Logic decoder chip-sets that are still available. If-so, I wonder if it's possible to transcode the multi-channel analogue audio output into a multi-channel digital bit-stream.

 

[Owen Smith]

Surely there's some old Dolby Pro Logic decoder chip-sets that are still available. If-so, I wonder if it's possible to transcode the multi-channel analogue audio output into a multi-channel digital bit-stream.

Pro Logic II was never a chipset, it is digitally processed and just part of the software that runs in the DSP of the decoder. And I don't want original Pro Logic (which was available as an analogue chipset but became software later), DPL II is much better (on my Arcam AVR350 anwyay).

 

[SeeMoreDigital]

I remember many years ago buying a Dolby Pro Logic 3-channel amplifier (for centre, rear right and rear left) from either Maplin or Richer Sounds. It enabled you to keep your existing 2-channel amplifier for normal stereo use. It worked well with TV and LaserDisc sources...

I wish I could remember who made it.

 

[Owen Smith]

I remember many years ago buying a Dolby Pro Logic 3-channel amplifier (for centre, rear right and rear left) from either Maplin or Richer Sounds. It enabled you to keep your existing 2-channel amplifier for normal stereo use. It worked well with TV and LaserDisc sources...

I wish I could remember who made it.

I had an Arcam Xeta 2 add on processor as you describe above, and before that a Yamaha DSP E492. Both had the same problems, in that the rear channel amps were poor and the decoding was Pro Logic only not DPL II. An additional issue today is their output was entirely analogue, not HDMI.

 

[ar surround]

I’ve enjoyed reading this thread about the demise of the ability for current gear to handle legacy codecs. However, what is even more dumbfounding is the lack of simple controls in these modern AVRs, specifically the L/R Balance control and especially the FADER control.

My Marantz SR7013 only allows for individual channel adjustments. How silly is that?