Awhile back I wrote about the lack of DTS-HD support on the PS3. Well it seems that Sony has corrected that with the release of firmware 2.30. Now the PS3 will internally decode DTS-HD Master Audio and DTS-HD High Resolution Audio along with Dolby TrueHD and pass that along on the HDMI out. It still will not transmit by bit rate for a compliant HDMI 1.3 receiver to decode, only uncompressed PCM. That is fine as my Denon cannot decode the bit rate transfer anyways. By the way, uncompressed Dolby 5.1 and Dolby TrueHD has been stellar on Blu-Ray discs, it really drive your speakers. The sound is engaging and deep. I cannot wait to try out the DTS formats. It is a great time to be a HT freak.
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Category: HDTo keep up with the demand for more HD, Comcast has started to compress the HD source a bit more by adding three HD stream into a 38.8 QAM pipe instead of two. Once again, it is a numbers game. Now Comcast can boast the same numbers as DirectTV or Dish, “we have 150 HD channels”. HD is so abused just like streaming HD movies at 720p. People, don’t believe the hype. TRUE HD with uncompressed audio can ONLY be found on stamped media for now (Blu-ray). There is not enough bandwidth to transport this type of data effectively. This will not change any time soon. Remember the golden rule. Spend as much on the media as you did for your gear. It does you no good to watch a compressed HD stream with pseudo-surround audio on a 106″ 1080p projection system with 7.1 premium surround sound setup. Hell it does not make much sense to run that same stream on ANY HD capable screen. You do not even NEED to buy Blu-ray disks, rent them from Netflix. The point is this, if you did your homework and got a killer setup, then feed it what it deserves. Anything less would be criminal.
Now that Toshiba is dropping their HD-DVD fight, it seems Blu-ray will be declared the winner of the HD movie format, making Sony seem like geniuses by incorporating the very expensive tech in their PS3. Some say this war was irrelevant as streaming video is the real future. I do enjoy streaming Netflix with it’s near DVD quality video and very basic surround sound audio but it still does not compare to the actual DVDs you can pick up at any store or shipped to you with video or audio quality. One day, streaming HD will be in fact the way to deliver high quality audio and video, but that day is not here and will not be here for many years to come. Till then, enjoy the long waits as you watch your list of movies on Netflix get longer with Blu-ray discs.
Back in the day of Dolby Surround and Pro-logic, buying Monster Cables made sense. The better the shielding on those analog runs, the better the fidelity that pumped out from your speakers (at least I always thought so). When the world moved on to Dolby Digital and DTS, we held on to our cables and Monster as we moved to component hookups. Now with HDMI, Monster is no longer relevant. With both audio and video traveling on the same cable in pure digital form, there is no need for gold plated, quad-shielded, multi-threaded, or whatever else they can throw onto the line. As I stated before, Digital is not susceptible to the same type of interference as analog. Now it seems the reason why Monster is still around is the incentives for store owners to push the product due to the high profit margin. Take a look at this Consumerist report. Good luck Monster, your high pricing days are numbered.
For those of you who do not have cable or satellite (or do not care for them like me) will be able to purchase a digital converter box for your aging TVs next month.
The NTIA said that approved devices will be on store shelves no later than February 18. The converter boxes will take a digital TV signal and change it to a signal that older TV sets can recognize.
Though I fully support OTA, I am also in favor of junking the crt for new LCD/plasma TVs with ATSC tuners. Hey if I can make the sacrifice to go all LCD only TVs throughout my home, you should be able to do the same!
