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Topic: Any audio decoder that does what Cyberlink PowerDVD's does? (Read 17427 times) previous topic - next topic
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Any audio decoder that does what Cyberlink PowerDVD's does?

Reply #25 –
Yeah but that's just higher resolution on the video side isn't it? Or is the audio different between dvd and bluray as well?

What was the major change between 8 and 9? Because like I said, 8's audio decoder is exactly the same as 9's audio decoder.

Any audio decoder that does what Cyberlink PowerDVD's does?

Reply #26 –
Look at the channels and audio configuration from your two movies.

One is a 6 channel true surround and the goofy movie is just a 2 channel stereo encoding.

I don't think you can feed 6 channels into a headphone.  It would need to be downmixed from 6 to two channels (L & R).

Any audio decoder that does what Cyberlink PowerDVD's does?

Reply #27 –
He's using Dolby Headphone, it takes multichannel audio and mixes it in stereo. It's a bit like an on-the-fly binaural.

Quote from: ChorniyVolk on
Yeah but that's just higher resolution on the video side isn't it? Or is the audio different between dvd and bluray as well?

What was the major change between 8 and 9? Because like I said, 8's audio decoder is exactly the same as 9's audio decoder.

Bluray has DTS-HD, DDPlus and Dolby TrueHD audio, but I don't know if the decoders for AC3 is different. I never tried any AAC audio with any PowerDVD, maybe it doesn't support multichannel AAC? Support for bluray started with 7.3 Ultra, through 8 Ultra and 9 Ultra so it doesn't surprise me 8 and 9 are the same. The difference between those three is mostly bloat, but 9 can also bitstream the HD codecs through cards like the ATI 5000 and the Intel Core i3/i5 w/graphics.

Any audio decoder that does what Cyberlink PowerDVD's does?

Reply #28 –
What are the advantages to bitstreaming?

Thanks for all the help, by the way.

Any audio decoder that does what Cyberlink PowerDVD's does?

Reply #29 –

PowerDVD was designed to play DVDs and Blu-Ray discs (with the later versions).  Commercial movie ones or relatively compatible user-made ones.  There is nothing in either spec for those disc formats that includes AAC.  DVD audio tracks are AC3, DTS, and/or PCM.  Blu-Ray audio tracks can include those along with their HD equivalents (DTS-HD, Dolby TrueHD).

So, why should PowerDVD support AAC when it's not part of either the DVD or Blu-Ray video/audio spec?

Any audio decoder that does what Cyberlink PowerDVD's does?

Reply #30 –
Cause it's supposed to be a media player so I'm not surprised it does. I think it also does MP3. I personally never used it, but Chroniyvolk says it did decode AAC.

Quote from: ChorniyVolk on
What are the advantages to bitstreaming?

Thanks for all the help, by the way.


No problem. Bitstreaming was more of a feature with DVD cause there was no other way to transmit multichannel digital audio. With bluray, there have been countless discussions about it and the quality difference to just transmitting decoded multichannel LPCM through HDMI which in a way were more meaningless than the "hi-res" discussions when SACD and DVD-A came out, since HDMI is capable of full lossless transmission in LPCM form. Many people swear to the difference, which may be true but because of level differences due to "dialnorm" which is metadata that levels tracks according to dialogue volume (I assume center channel). Most players don't do dialnorm AFAIK, but receivers do.

Besides that, another objection many people have is that players downsample audio because of DRM restrictions to 16/48, though I've never seen evidence that it makes a difference with listening to the full 24/48 tracks of most movies that are not 16/48 themselves. In fairness one would have to rip the track which in itself is a bit of a pain for the usual consumer. Only recently they've stopped downsampling with certain audio devices with a protected audio path such as the ATI 5000 series or the new Intel Clarkdale chips. Bitstreaming bypasses all these shenanigans so the paranoid can be sure that their receiver is getting the full audio.

But there are practical differences. Decoders especially of software players are buggy, and there are also some problems with drivers and channel mapping in Windows, especially with 7.1 audio. Bitstreaming also bypasses all that, and it's the actual reason why I bitstream from my PC instead of decoding to LPCM. Also, there is no usable directshow decoder for DTS-HD yet, or DD+ 7.1 AFAIK, so that work has to be done in the receiver if you don't have a commercial player.

Any audio decoder that does what Cyberlink PowerDVD's does?

Reply #31 –
Is any of that useful in any way if you have nothing between your computer's sound output (in my case, a soundcard) and a listening device? And especially if you use a player that has tons of configuration options available to avoid any "automatic decrease in quality/efficiency" that other players do without asking?

Any audio decoder that does what Cyberlink PowerDVD's does?

Reply #32 –
The problem is not in the receiver, but in the players/decoders and even the drivers. The mucking happens before the audio is output through the HDMI pipe. If you're decoding on the PC you can avoid some of these issues by using WASAPI exclusive, but not all of them, and devices and drivers are still finicky when it comes to WASAPI exclusive support.

Any audio decoder that does what Cyberlink PowerDVD's does?

Reply #33 –
Hmm, interesting. Should I be worried about that though? I mean, I don't even use hdmi, the HD555s are connected through a TRS connector, so I mean I'm still in the analog area.

Not to mention that 99.9% of the media I listen to/watch is pirated content from scene groups and such, so it's usually reencoded for size anyway, I doubt those little extra bits of quality that players mess up are even there anymore. I mean, some of my HD movie rips have DTS audio which I'm assuming was ripped from the bluray release and not reencoded, so I guess I am "missing out" on the extra quality in that case, but like I said, my equipment isn't exactly extremely high end or audiophile tier, would you agree? I doubt I could tell the difference, and I try to avoid placebo effects, I was into FLAC for a little while, was convinced that I could hear the difference between it and 320kbps mp3, but I'm pretty sure that was mostly if not completely a placebo, and an expensive placebo it was (well, in the area of harddrive space).

Any audio decoder that does what Cyberlink PowerDVD's does?

Reply #34 –
I think the worries with PowerDVD are more for people using HDMI. I think the decoder is not so bad when using analog audio. Bitstreaming of HD codecs, at least for now, is only applicable for bluray content.