What audio codecs will Blu-ray support?
Linear PCM (LPCM) – offers up to 8 channels of uncompressed audio. Dolby Digital (DD) – format used for DVDs also known as AC3, offers 5.1-channel surround sound. Dolby Digital Plus (DD+) – extension of DD, offers increased bitrates and 7.1-channel surround sound. Dolby TrueHD – extension of MLP Lossless, offers lossless encoding of up to 8 channels of audio. DTS Digital Surround – format used for DVDs, offers 5.1-channel surround sound. DTS-HD – extension of DTS, offers increased bitrates and up to 8 channels of audio. Please note that this simply means that all Blu-ray players and recorders will have to support playback of these audio codecs, it will still be up to the movie studios to decide which audio codec(s) they use for their releases.
• Linear PCM (LPCM) – offers up to 8 channels of uncompressed audio. • Dolby Digital (DD) – format used for DVDs also known as AC3, offers 5.1-channel surround sound. • Dolby Digital Plus (DD+) – extension of DD, offers increased bitrates and 7.1-channel surround sound. • Dolby TrueHD – extension of MLP Lossless, offers lossless encoding of up to 8 channels of audio. • DTS Digital Surround – format used for DVDs, offers 5.1-channel surround sound. • DTS-HD – extension of DTS, offers increased bitrates and up to 8 channels of audio.*Please note that this simply means that all Blu-ray players and recorders will have to support playback of these video and audio codecs, it will still be up to the movie studios to decide which codec(s) they use for their releases.* Is Blu-ray the same thing as HD-DVD? No, HD-DVD (previously known as AOD) is the name of a competing next-generation optical disc format developed by Toshiba and NEC. The format is quite different from Blu-ray, but also relies he
Linear PCM (LPCM) – up to 8 channels of uncompressed audio. (mandatory) Dolby Digital (DD) – format used for DVDs, 5.1-channel surround sound. (mandatory) Dolby Digital Plus (DD+) – extension of Dolby Digital, 7.1-channel surround sound. (optional) Dolby TrueHD – lossless encoding of up to 8 channels of audio. (optional) DTS Digital Surround – format used for DVDs, 5.1-channel surround sound. (mandatory) DTS-HD High Resolution Audio – extension of DTS, 7.1-channel surround sound. (optional) DTS-HD Master Audio – lossless encoding of up to 8 channels of audio. (optional) Not all of the Blu-ray players will be able to decode these audio codecs. Some higher definition audio will not be decoded by some models. However, most high end receivers should be able to decode the higher definition audios. Check with the model specification for proper audio decoding.
The Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) still hasn’t made a final decision about what audio codecs will be included in the specification, but according to the BDF technical spokesman Richard Doherty, the included audio codecs should offer a significant improvement over the audio formats supported by the current DVD spec. They are currently looking into advanced audio codecs, including lossless codecs.
