Blu-ray Disc and Interactivity
Dolby Podcast Episode 37, March 27, 2008
Jack and Craig explain profile 1.0, profile 1.1 and profile 2.0 (BD-Live) for Blu-ray players, and recommend a few BD-Live-capable Blu-ray players. Listener, Kenny, asks about in-ceiling (in-wall) speakers for his home theater.
[intro music]
Jack Buser: Hello! And welcome to Dolbycast, the insider's guide to entertainment technology from the experts at Dolby Laboratories. I'm Jack Buser.
Craig Eggers: And I'm Craig Eggers.
Jack: And we're here to give you the straight talk on everything you need to please your ears.
[musical interlude]
Craig: Welcome back, Jack.
Jack: How you doing, Craig?
Craig: I've got to tell you, it was a beautiful, beautiful morning. I drove in at 5:30 this morning.
Jack: Yeah.
Craig: There was a full moon right over the city.
Jack: Oh, that's awesome.
Craig: And I was thinking of you. You were probably just getting in at 5:30, weren't you?
Jack: No. Actually, I saw the best concert I've seen in a long time, just the other night—last night, actually—a band called Black Moth Super Rainbow.
Craig: Black Moth Super Rainbow.
Jack: Yeah. They play at a very famous club here in the city called Bottom of the Hill. And they put on such an incredible show. So, any listeners out there that like sort of indie rock and electronica, check out Black Moth Super Rainbow.
Craig: And I know Scott, our producer, last night, went and saw The Black Crows.
Jack: The Black Crows. We were making a joke: The Black Crows and Black Moth Super Rainbow. [laughs]
Craig: Yeah. Wow.
Jack: Anyway, we're going to do a really interesting podcast today. This is actually something that I had to research quite a bit to come up with all the information for the podcast. We're actually going to be breaking down the various profiles of Blu-ray players.
Craig: Blu-ray interactivity, yeah.
Jack: That's right. Blu-ray now has won the format war, and so it's a great time to go out and buy next-generation optical disc players.
Craig: Definitely.
Jack: Specifically, Blu-ray players, I guess, at this point.
Craig: That's it.
Jack: And there are all kinds of really, really cool features that Blu-ray can do, like interactive video and audio, picture-in-picture. But there's some things you've got to know, so we're going to break all that down during this podcast. But before we do...
Craig: We have a listener phone-in telephone number, and you know what it is.
Jack: That's right. [laughs]
Craig: 1-888...
Jack: 6...
Craig: DOLBYC.
Jack: And the letter C.
[laughter]
Jack: I love that phone number. Yeah, it's a little difficult to remember, [laughs] I think.
Craig: Just a little.
Jack: I've said it enough times that it is now permanently etched into my brain. It's 888-6-DOLBYC.
Craig: And backwards, that would be...
Jack: CYBLOD... [laughs]
Craig: CYBLOD-6-888.
Jack: But don't dial that. Dial 1-888-6-DOLBY and the letter C.
Craig: And we actually have our very first listener call-in right now.
Jack: So let's go. Let's go to the question.
Kenny: Hello, Jack and Craig. My name is Kenny. I live in Southern California and first and foremost, awesome podcast. Thank you very much for all you guys do. And I just had a question regarding in-ceiling speakers.
My wife is not a big fan of floor-standing speakers, and so I'm looking to do some in-ceilings. And I was just wondering, what kind of trade-offs, what sacrifices do I have to make, and, basically, how is that going to affect the listening performance of the system, by having them in-ceiling as opposed to floor-standing? Any input is greatly appreciated. And thanks, and keep up the good work. Bye.
Craig: Well, great question, Kenny. I have to say, first and foremost, in the past, I have not been a big fan of ceiling speakers or in-wall mounted speakers based upon a performance perspective. But I've got to tell you, the technology and the performance of these devices is increasing dramatically.
Jack: It's improved a lot.
Craig: And it really solves the whole "Where do I put my speakers in my room?" situation, when, quite frankly, in a lot of cases, you just don't have the room for tower speakers...
Jack: That's right.
Craig: Or any type of other speaker. And a lot of these new in-wall speakers and ceiling speakers come with grills that can be painted.
Jack: That's right. Perfectly match your wall, perfectly match your ceiling.
Craig: Match the aesthetics.
Jack: Yeah. Yeah. Like Craig said, I am a huge fan of floor-standing, big old speakers. And like Craig, also, I was very, very hesitant to ever think about in-wall or in-ceiling speakers. But I've been doing a lot of reading myself, and yeah, the technology seems to have really improved.
Craig: I would say, first of all, Kenny, don't use the word "ceiling speaker", because when people think of ceiling speakers, they think of the whole-house entertainment systems of the '80s and the '60s, where you basically had a speaker in the ceiling and maybe a NuTone sound system that was delivering FM radio through the whole house.
Jack: [laughs] I don't even know what a NuTone sound system is, but it sounds cool.
Craig: You don't know what that is? Well, you've got to come from Cincinnati to know that, I guess.
Jack: OK, OK.
Craig: But in-walls have really changed dramatically. And I think one of the biggest things that have changed them is the fact now that a lot of in-wall speakers have got sealed backs, which really helped to increase the performance of the speaker. It helped to eliminate any potential rattles or vibration that might be caused by putting your speakers into the wall and having the volume pumped up and a lot of gain.
Jack: Right.
Craig: With the sealed back, you've got, basically, a speaker that can give you better performance, give you better low-frequency performance. You're seeing in-wall speakers now that can deliver frequency response from 50 all the way up to 22,000 cycles.
Jack: There you go which, essentially, is the range of human hearing.
Craig: Exactly.
Jack: Short of a few cycles down at the low end.
Craig: Exactly. And at 50 Hz, you would probably consider that to be a small speaker when you're doing your speaker menu setup.
Jack: Right.
Craig: And then, obviously, you're going to route all of your low frequencies to your subwoofer.
Jack: You can even get an in-wall sub, can't you?
Craig: Yeah.
Jack: That's cool.
Craig: Sunfire has an in-wall sub. JBL does some in-wall sub products.
Jack: But what about ceiling? This was always my hang-up with the ceiling is that it seems like—and again, I'm not an expert on ceiling speakers—but it just seems like that would mess up the directionality of your system, especially if you're going 5.1.
Craig: I think, ideally, I would want my speakers to be in-wall. You're seeing a lot of Speco manufacturers actually put them in the ceiling, though.
Jack: In-wall.
Craig: But, ideally, I would like to see them in the wall.
Jack: Right.
Craig: But whether you put them in the wall or put them in the ceiling, you have the same factor. You've got 16-inch studs that you're literally going to cut a hole in the drywall or the wall itself—or the wall itself, [laughs] he said.
Jack: Right.
Craig: And you're going to install that into that space. And the cabinets and the speakers are designed to be able to clip into the drywall studs and be able to basically attach to that.
Jack: Yeah. I seem to recall, also, I think, if you absolutely must go ceiling, there are in-ceiling speakers that have rotatable drivers, so you can kind of aim the directionality.
Craig: Exactly, yeah especially the tweeter part.
Jack: That's right exactly, exactly.
Craig: So you can aim the tweeter directly at you. Because low frequencies are more omni-directional than, obviously, high frequencies are, right?
Jack: Right.
Craig: And you have two-way speaker systems now, as well as three-way speaker systems in in-walls also.
Jack: Yeah. Now, the only problem that I have, really, I guess, for in-wall and in-ceiling speakers, is that you don't get to show off your big old speakers. You know what I mean?
Craig: [laughs]
Jack: I love to have just big speakers out in the room. You can show them off and say, "This is..." But I guess, if you must hide it, it sounds like there's very little compromise in terms of audio these days.
Craig: And there are economies of scale. You can spend as little as $159 for an in-wall speaker or you can buy a Meridian in-wall speaker and spend as much as $4, 000 for an in-wall.
Jack: Yeah. There you go. There you go.
Craig: But you've got companies like Atlantic Technologies, B&W, Polk, Paradigm, Meridian, Klipsch, JBL.
Jack: Cool.
Craig: All these companies that we're really familiar from, from the high-end, high performance side of the speaker business, actually delivering this type of product to the marketplace.
Jack: Now that's very cool. Well, Kenny, I hope that helps you out. I know that I learned a lot from your question. We're going to go to a break. When we come back, we're going to be talking about high-definition interactivity for Blu-ray, the various profiles, and really, what to look for when you're buying a Blu-ray player. We'll be right back.
Craig: Stand by.
[musical interlude]
Announcer: You're listening to Dolbycast, with Craig Eggers and Jack Buser. Email your questions to dolbycast@dolby.com. That's dolbycast@dolby.com.
[musical interlude]
Craig: And we are back at Dolbycast and, Jack.
Jack: Yeah. Well, listen. We pulled up the NuTone website...
Craig: They're a pretty cool company, aren't they?
Jack: And let me tell you, very cool company. And I tell you what, Kenny, NuTone looks like they've got some pretty sweet in-wall speakers. [laughs] So, listen, they've also got the rock speakers. And if you're a long-time listener of Dolbycast, you know we love rock speakers.
Craig: Outdoor home theater. [See New Developments in Outdoor Audio on July 5, 2007. –Ed.]
Jack: Absolutely So, NuTone.
Craig: We've got to do another segment on that. You know that?
Jack: Absolutely. Well, big shout-out to NuTone, because, man...
Craig: I grew up with that company. They were whole-home audio, way before whole-home was cool.
Jack: Yeah. So it's NuTone. NuTone.
Craig: Yeah.
Jack: Shout-out. That's cool.
Craig: So, shall we go to our next subject?
Jack: Yeah, absolutely. Listen. Right now is such an amazing time in consumer electronics market because there has been a winner declared in the format war. That winner is Blu-ray and so if you have been waiting to buy a next-generation high definition optical disc player for your home, now is the time.
Craig: So one format. No more confusion.
Jack: That's right.
Craig: And as we've said so many times in the past, that one format is the one device, that Blu-ray player is that one device that enables you to get the very, very most performance from your connected television set.
Jack: As well as your audio system.
Craig: As well as your audio system.
Jack: Yeah. Now that is to say, that we should be clear though that buying a Blu-ray player you do have a lot of choices. So hopefully during this podcast, what we are going to do is we're going to clear up as many of those issues that might be confusing when you go into the retail store to try to decide what player is right for you.
Craig: So ultimately a lot of that confusion comes around the subject of interactivity.
Jack: That's right.
Craig: We talked about interactivity before and we're going to talk about it in just a second. But, short of all that whole interactive experience, I think one of the coolest things with the Blu-ray player now is the whole popup menu idea.
Jack: Oh, it's very cool.
Craig: Because in the past if you were watching a scene and you wanted to go to a menu, what did you have to do? You had to press the menu button and the player would stop and you would go to a menu screen. Now with the popup menus, you press the popup menu button.
Jack: Yeah.
Craig: The menu pops up on the bottom.
Jack: While you are watching the movie.
Craig: While you are watching the movie. Movie doesn't stop and you can navigate through that menu. It's great for demonstrating your home theater system.
Jack: Absolutely. And when we talk about interactivity, it's really those popup menus that are sort of the first interactive features to appear on Blu-ray discs.
But we are seeing more and more interactive features appear. Like, picture-in-picture, director's commentary, which actually is a very compelling experience if you've ever seen a Blu-ray disc, do this. Essentially what happens is you get a little popup window and the director or whoever is doing the commentary is actually there on screen, while the movie is playing.
Craig: In the window.
Jack: In a window, doing the commentary track. And I got to tell you, it's definitely more compelling.
Craig: Well if you think about it, I mean, standard definition DVD to get the director's commentary track you actually had to just watch the dedicated track itself.
Jack: Right.
Craig: Now you can do it simultaneous with the playback of the movie.
Jack: It's very, very cool.
Craig: And every Blu-ray player that was manufactured after November of 2007
Jack: 2007, that's right.
Craig: h as this capability and it's called "Final Profile" and I believe there's another name for it, Jack.
Jack: Well, this is where it gets... so this is where I hope we can clear up some confusion. I'll be honest; I had to do some research to get this all exactly right. So, for people going out to buy a Blu-ray player, there are what are called, different kinds of profiles to the players. There's profile 1.0, profile 1.1 and coming soon profile 2.0.
Craig: And profile 1.0 gives you the popup menus that we talked about.
Jack: That's right.
Craig: No real other interactivity.
Jack: That's right. Now, profile 1.0 if you are an early adopter and you have already gone out and you have bought a Blu-ray player, right.
Craig: Me.
Jack: Chances are you bought a Profile 1.0 player. These are the early players. They refer to this as the “grace period profile”, because these players were not capable of doing... basically weren't capable of doing picture-in-picture, because they didn't have what's called a secondary video or audio decoder.
So if you were an early adopter, it doesn't mean that the new discs won't play. It just means that you won't be able to take advantage of those interactive features.
Craig: You'll get the theatrical movie experience with the popup menus.
Jack: That's right. Now, all players manufactured after November 1st, 2007 and that date has passed. The players manufactured now are actually profile 1.1. And you want to absolutely make sure that when you are buying a Blu-ray player you at least buy one with profile 1.1. Those are the players that are out on the market right now. This is called "Final Standard Profile".
Craig: Right.
Jack: Or "Final Profile", or sometimes you will even hear it referred to as "Bonus View”.
Craig: Right.
Jack: So, what does that mean?
Craig: Well, “bonus view” enables you to enjoy the picture-in-picture features that we were talking about. The ability to watch the movie, possibly have director's commentary or in some cases maybe even a blue screen where there are lots of computer animation, lots of graphics were interlaced and interspersed in the move.
Jack: That's right. So it is kind of like a "Making of" as you are watching. That's very, very cool.
Craig: It is.
Jack: So if you want to take advantage of these new interactive features, which I highly recommend you do, you want to absolutely make sure that the Blu-ray player you are buying is Profile 1.1. Again, that referred to as "Final Standard Profile”. Also shorthand you'll hear "Final Profile”.
Craig: Right.
Jack: Or "Bonus View”.
Craig: You know I actually have some software that's labeled as “Bonus View”.
Jack: Absolutely. That means that the software takes advantage of these new interactive features.
Craig: It has those features on the disc and if you have the player, the version 1.1 player, you will be able to take advantage of that.
Jack: We should be clear also. When we say “software”, I guess we're too “in the industry”, right? When we say software, we mean the movies. You'll see the movies labeled as such.
Craig: Blu-ray discs.
Jack: Now, it's kind of a bummer for early adopters. I am an early adopter. It's a little bit of a bummer because the profile 1.1 actually makes use of a second video decoder in order to do the picture-in-picture. That means if you were an early adopter, you can't do a firmware update, chances are, a firmware update to a 1.1 player. So that's kind of a bummer.
Craig: So if you want the picture-in-picture, you definitely have to have the newer version of the player.
Jack: Yeah, that's right. So I do have a 1.0 hardware player, but...
Craig: What's coming, Jack?
Jack: PlayStation 3.
Craig: That's been out for a while.
Jack: That's right. Well, that started out and then you got a firmware update for PlayStation 3 and that thing has so much juice in it.
Craig: Right.
Jack: Absolutely. You did profile 1.1, and guess what's coming?
Craig: Profile 2.0.
Jack: That's right. By the time this podcast goes live, or at least very shortly thereafter, there will be a firmware update for the PlayStation 3.
Craig: And it's called BD-Live.
Jack: It's turned into a BD-Live player. That's right. That's profile 2.0 and that's what's coming right around the corner. So by the time this launches, if you have a PlayStation 3, be sure to connect it to the Internet and check and see if there's a firmware update. And if it's not ready by the time this goes live, it should be ready within a matter of days and it's going to update the player to a full BD-Live player.
Craig: Now, profile 1.1 had a certain amount of memory in it.
Jack: That's right.
Craig: … 256 megs of memory, which enables you to do the video decoding, the video playback and the picture-in-picture. Now, when you go to profile 2.0, you have as much as whole gigabyte updated in there…
Jack: T hat's so cool.
Craig: …w hich means, these devices now have a Ethernet port.
Jack: That's right. So, with BD-Live you've got increased storage capacity and an Ethernet, Internet connectivity, we should say.
Craig: Which enables you to stream, so potentially in the case of Profile 1.1; you're taking advantage of features that are on the disc.
Craig: Right? So that window, that director's commentary is on the disc and your player is enabling you access it.
Jack: That's right, Right.
Craig: But once you get to BD-Live, you're now talking about the capability to buy a disc, put it in your player, popup a window sometime in the future: it might have director's commentary, other special features that the studio has literally streamed down to your player.
Jack: Yes, absolutely. And in fact there's more than just streaming. You can even download new content. So that's also what that local storage is for. You got a gigabyte of memory there in these BD-Live players so you could actually download more content over the Internet.
Craig: Theatrical trailers, news specials.
Jack: You got it.
Craig: And promos.
Jack: I can't wait for BD-Live to really take off on the movie front or on the software front, so I can start having discs that will take advantage of BD-Live. That just sounds very, very cool.
There was even a disc, a Blu-ray disc; I think it was Saw from Lionsgate that actually allowed you to do a certain amount of blogging or something like that.
If there is any listener out that that has Saw. I'm not a big fan of horror movies and that kind of genre, so I don't know if I want to get the disc. Evidently it's got some really cool interactive features that were put on the disc even before BD-Live has been officially put out there. So I would love to check that out.
Anybody that has checked out those blogging features as part of the Internet connectivity of that movie, let me know.
Craig: So not only the greatest video performance that we have seen to date, the very best audio performance we've seen to date, but we're now starting to see interactivity to start to take place in...
Jack: Absolutely. I should also mention, there have been two movies announced by Sony Pictures that will be official BD-Live movies. So that when you get that firmware update for the PlayStation 3, you can really check it out and use it. And these are coming out on April 8th from Sony. There's going to be Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. Do you know that?
Craig: Not familiar with it.
Jack: I don't know that movie. But anyway, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. It looks kind of cool and The Sixth Day. I don't know that one either. Do you know that one?
[laughter]
Jack: Anyway, they're going to be BD-Live. It's going to be very cool.
Craig: So, listeners, call us at 1-888...
Jack: [laughs]
Jack and
Craig: [together] 6-DOLBYC.
Craig: And tell us about those movies.
Jack: Yeah. These movies aren't out yet, so I don't know if they're going to be good or not. I'm sure they will. But they are going to be full BD-Live movies, so you'll be able to take advantage of that new capability of the PlayStation 3.
Craig: Excellent. And we know Warner Home Video has been really involved in the whole interactive side of these formats, so I expect a lot of cool content from them, also.
Jack: Absolutely. Oh, BD-Live, games. You'll actually have games. Did you see that at CES?
Craig: Mm-hmm.
Jack: You'll actually be able to play games that are included with your movie. That's just like the coolest thing.
Craig: We were talking about Profile 1.1.
Jack: Yeah.
Craig: In the old HD DVD format, when you got 2 Fast 2 Furious, every time the dude wrecked a car...
Jack: Yeah!
Craig: You'd get a bill that would appear up on-screen and say, "OK, that damage cost X, Y, Z."
Jack: [laughs] "Here's how much the damage cost." Yeah.
Craig: Yeah. It was cool.
Jack: You can do some really, really fun stuff, I think, with interactivity. And again, if you think, "Look, all I want to do is watch the movie", before you pass judgment on interactivity, I've got to tell you: just check it out. It really is cool stuff, just the fact that a disc that you buy can actually change over time: they'll add content it, new stuff, new commentary, new trailers, new what have you. The possibilities are almost endless—games, right? It's really something that you should look for in a player.
Craig: And you think, in terms of a value-added look at the whole marketplace, when you buy a piece of software in the past, basically you bought the software, you handed over your money, and that was the end of your relationship with the studio, with the musician.
Jack: Yeah.
Craig: Now, with BD-Live, literally, you buy the content, and your relationship continues with the studio going forward.
Jack: That's right. The director records a new commentary; you don't have to go buy a new disc, right?
Craig: Yeah, yeah.
Jack: Or the band does a bonus track, you don't have to go get the special edition because it'll just update the disc that you have. It's very cool stuff.
Craig: So I would suggest watching the movie as a theatrical version first, and then watch it again interactively.
Jack: Yeah Absolutely. Well, listen, on that note, hopefully we've cleared up the various profiles. If you have any questions on the various profiles, please give us a call, or write us at dolbycast@dolby.com. Again, the phone number is 888-6...
Craig andJack: [together] DOLBYC.
Jack: [laughs]
Craig: So we'll be right back in just a second. I want to talk about the new Panasonic BD30 Blu-ray disc player and some of its capabilities.
Jack: Absolutely. Be right back.
[musical interlude]
Announcer: You're listening to Dolbycast with Jack Buser and Craig Eggers. Jack and Craig would love to answer your questions. Email them at dolbycast@dolby.com. That's dolbycast@dolby.com.
[musical interlude]
Craig: And back here at Dolbycast. Here I am with Mr. Jack Buser, Mr. Interactivity. [laughs]
Jack: Yeah, [laughs] that's right. I am Mr. Interactivity.
Craig: You are, man.
Jack: You know what? I am a huge fan of BD-Live. I cannot wait for my PlayStation 3 firmware update, which, evidently, the official word is that it's going to be available “late March”.
Craig: Is that right? OK.
Jack: So, if, by the time you're listening to this, March 2008 has already passed, then go and make sure you get it.
Craig: You'll have it.
Jack: Yeah. Make sure you get it.
So we were actually talking about, over the break, a very, very cool BD-Live feature that's worth mentioning here. It's essentially the possibility for Blu-ray players to take a look at the disc that you're watching, and it'll say, “Hey, if you like that movie, you'll probably like these other movies.” And it'll let you watch trailers of other, similar movies. And if you like them, you can actually buy those movies right from your Blu-ray player, or you can even add them to Netflix queue. Isn't that like the coolest thing?
Craig: That's very cool.
Jack: That's very cool.
Craig: That's like Pandora for Blu-ray movies.
Jack: It's something like that, isn't it yeah, totally? It's very cool yet another reason to get a player with the full interactivity of BD-Live. That's cool stuff.
Craig: Cool. So I wanted to talk just a moment about some of the new players that are coming out.
Jack: Yeah.
Craig: As you know, the majority of the players out there in the marketplace decode Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby TrueHD internally. And that's really good, because if you haven't invested in a home theater yet, and you've got either an HDMI input on your home theater system, or 6 analog or 8 analog inputs, you can buy a player that decodes internally and get the whole, great Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital Plus experience.
Jack: And we have a whole podcast on that, with a lot of information.
Craig: Yes.
Jack: And if that went too fast for you, or if you're new to this, make sure you go back and listen to when we talk about...
Craig: Am I speaking too fast? Are we speaking too fast?
Jack: Well, I think our listeners get it, right?
Craig: Yeah, yeah.
Jack: But it is a complicated subject if you're new to it, to make sure you buy a Blu-ray player with the right decoders inside, right?
Craig: Exactly. Yes.
Jack: So you wanted to do a shout-out to a player. And what player was that?
Craig: Actually, Jack, it was the Panasonic BD30, the new player from Panasonic.
Jack: Yeah.
Craig: This particular player has a bitstream out capability. So, what it can do is it can pass Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD as bitstreams to a next-generation, connected AVR, AV receiver that has Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD decoding built-in. And gosh, there are a lot of them: Onkyo, Yamaha, Denon, Sony. Who have I missed? Pioneer...
Jack: Sherwood. Yeah.
Craig: Sherwood, etc. And so this particular unit passes the bitstream. You can do all the decoding inside the AV receiver, and the light lights up and says, "Dolby TrueHD" when you're listening to these great soundtracks.
Jack: Very cool.
Craig: The Denon 3800 also has that capability, in addition to decoding, internally, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD. So, if you have a legacy AV receiver without HDMI 1.3, you can still take advantage of the sound.
Jack: Now, the problem, this is my whole thing, though. I mean, I love the bitstream out capability. But I'm still going to buy a player that decodes internally, because the players that just do bitstream out, right?
Craig: Yes.
Jack: My problem with it is that you don't get the interactive sound if you're doing bitstream out. You have to fall back on Dolby Digital, as I understand it, in order to get the interactivity, if you don't have the decoders inside your player, if it just does bitstream out, for Dolby TrueHD.
Craig: In the case of this Panasonic player, the answer to that's yes. If you want the interactive audio, you're going to use the core Dolby Digital soundtrack.
Jack: So, if I'm watching the movie and I want to watch the movie with Dolby TrueHD, and then I fire up the picture-in-picture to hear the commentary...
Craig: Right.
Jack: I want to be able to hear the TrueHD soundtrack and the commentary.
Craig: That's not going to happen on this particular player, but it's possible in the future to do it. In the case of the Panasonic BD30, it decodes the accompanying Dolby Digital soundtrack.
Jack: I see. So you still get the sound.
Craig: The disc has got a TrueHD soundtrack on it. Every disc that has a TrueHD soundtrack on it also has a Dolby Digital soundtrack on it to offer compatibility across the entire...
Jack: [laughs] So it falls back to that got it. Well, I tell you what. Again, I come back to the PlayStation 3. That's got the full 7.1-channel Dolby TrueHD decoding built-in, right?
Craig: Yes, yes.
Jack: So that if I'm watching a movie on the PlayStation 3, I can watch the Dolby TrueHD soundtrack and have any interactive sound and features and things like that.
Craig: Yeah. In theory, you should be able to listen to the TrueHD soundtrack, have that mixed with your interactive audio. Yes.
Jack: That's very cool. That's very cool. That's very, very cool. So I'm going to recommend to listeners to get a player that does the multi-channel decoding of the formats that you want to listen to. And that just gives you the most flexibility. It'll allow you to hear the best quality audio, bar none, right?
Craig: You heard it from Jack Buser.
[laughter]
Jack: Now, there's another player coming out that I want to just throw out. They announced it at CES, but it's the follow-up to that player, which is the 50. You were talking about the 30.
Craig: Right.
Jack: But this is the DMP-BD50. And that's going to be a full BD-Live player.
Craig: Yes, it is.
Jack: That's kind of cool.
Craig: That's cool. And Sony just announced two players also that'll be coming late summer, early fall, that'll also be full-on BD-Live [the BDP-S350 and BDP-S550 models –Ed.]
Jack: Very cool. Well, listen, everybody out there at Dolbycast, don't forget to send in your questions, your comments to us. Our email is dolbycast@dolby.com. And what's that phone number, Craig? [laughs]
Craig: That phone number is 1-888...
Jack: 6...
Craig: DOLBYC.
Jack: And the letter C. [laughs]
Craig: Yes.
Jack: Well, listen. On that note, we are going to wrap up here.
Craig: You're Jack Buser.
Jack: [laughs] I'm Jack Buser.
Craig: And I'm Craig Eggers.
Jack: And we'll talk to you next time.
[music]