Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems BR Is the King OF HD.

Indeed.

All HD DVDs have Dolby Digital Plus audio (640kbps on Warner`s titles, 1.5mbps on Paramount`s and Universal`s), which of course no pre-amp or receiver on the market can decode at the moment. To work around this, the Toshiba player will convert DD+ to PCM and then convert that to 1.5mbps DTS over SPDIF.

Dolby TrueHD can be downconverted to DTS by the players too I believe, so what with Warner only using 640kbps DD+ on a title like Batman Begins, selecting the TrueHD track will probably sound better downconverted to DTS than the 640kbps DD+ track on the same disc will sound upconverted to DTS.

Some of Paramount`s titles, and a couple of Universal`s ones, offered a DTS track beside the DD+ one, but they soon abandoned that and I can`t think of a recent HD DVD that has had DTS on the disc itself. I don`t own either HD format though so I might be mistaken, but I do have an unhealthy obsession with following the progress and releases on both HD DVD and Bluray.

I hope CES is interesting in January. Rumour has it Bluray studios will actually announce some good films.