Audio Video News

Sony's PlayStation3 is looking like a better deal all the time. The latest revelation is that the Blu-ray Disc based game console will include the ability to decode up to 7.1-channels of Dolby TrueHD. TrueHD is a so-called "lossless" audio codec that attains compression rates as high as 4:1, but reconstructs the original signal bit-for-bit on playback. Although there have been delays announced for the European availability of PS3, the premium version of the console is due to hit US stores on November 17th at a price of $599.

In addition to Dolby TrueHD, Dolby offers a the higher data rate lossy codec called Dolby Digital Plus for use on the Blu-ray and HD DVD platforms. For the HD disc formats DTS serves up lossless audio with DTS-HD Master Audio and also offers a lossy compression codec with a higher bitrate called DTS-HD High Resolution audio.

PS3's inclusion of TrueHD decoding is all the more interesting and significant in light of the fact that as I write this, Sony has denied that its $999 standalone BDP-S1 Blu-ray player will include support for any of the next-generation audio codecs from Dolby or DTS. Although some marketing literature for Sony's BD player refers to compatibility with these signals, that is only with the backward compatible "core" streams that will work with existing DTS and Dolby Digital decoders at much lower data rates than the high-resolution codecs.

Although the BDP-S1 will playback DVDs, it will not playback CDs. In addition to not decoding any of the new DTS and Dolby formats, there are no indications that it will support HDMI version 1.3, which is spec'd to transfer the new codecs in their native, digital form (it is a heavy rumor that PS3 will indeed offer HDMI 1.3 support as well). The PS3 will not only play CDs.

But that's not all. The PS3 will playback CDs and even SACDs, and will support wired and wireless Ethernet for Internet connectivity. Sony's BDP-S1 will not feature an Ethernet port of any kind, even though it's highly likely that Blu-ray's interactivity features will require Internet connectivity at some point.

In addition to omitting these other features supported in Ps3, I reiterate that the BDP-S1 is essentially incapable of doing anything with the new hi-res audio codecs from Dolby and DTS. While Sony and a few other studios have been getting around this hurdle by using uncompressed multichannel PCM soundtracks, these take up a lot of disc space. Fox has recently announced that its upcoming Blu-ray titles will employ DTS-HD Master Audio, which not even the PS3 will be able to decode. Many currently available HD DVD discs include Dolby Digital Plus and a growing number also include Dolby TrueHD soundtracks. One would assume it's only a matter of time until Blu-ray Discs are released that use Dolby's lossless format. There's no word yet that PS3 will support DTS-HD High Resolution or Master Audio, but beyond that, the standalone players have a ways to go to catch up to Sony's game console.