Dolby Podcast Episode 22, August 30, 2007
Jack and Craig answer questions about home theater submitted by Dolbycast listeners about using a Playstation 3 as a Blu-ray player, HDMI cables, recording high school sporting events in surround sound, high quality music playback formats, DVD recorders and more.
Hear them all: Listen to Dolbycast on iTunes® or subscribe using your favorite RSS reader.
Mentioned in this Episode
[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]
Jack: Dolbycast!
Craig: Hey, Jack, we're back.
Jack: We're back again. Craig, what's that concerned sound in your voice? [laughs]
Craig: I am sitting here looking through a whole list of listener questions.
Jack: I know. I know, I know.
Craig: What have we been doing wrong here?
Jack: I know. Well, the thing is, so many folks, you guys out there listening have been writing, and so many good questions. We just haven't been able to keep up. And we've been wanting to answer every question on the air so that everybody gets the benefit of hearing the answer. But we've just fallen so far behind. [laughs]
Craig: You know, Jack, I think, at the end of every Dolbycast, we tell people, "If you have a question, send them to us."
Jack: [laughs] "Email us: dolbycast@dolby.com."
Craig: We're doing a great job of answering them. What are we going to do here, man?
Jack: Well, you know what? We've got to dedicate a whole episode to doing nothing but answering listener questions. So you guys, if you could see the stack of paper in Craig's hand right now. [laughs] We're going to try to hammer through as many of these. We've got so many great questions. This episode's going to be packed full of so much good information. We hope you guys out there really enjoy it. Please pardon us if it takes a minute for us to come up with the answer, because we're going to be doing this on the fly, ladies and gentlemen.
Craig: There you go.
Jack: This is going to be the great experiment [laughs] in whether Craig and Jack know their stuff, right?
Craig: The great experiment.
[laughter]
Craig: This is like Cramer, where they ask for the stock choice, and he doesn't know about who the stock is.
Jack: [laughs] I tell you what, this is going to be a true challenge for our knowledge. So, listeners, you're going to be challenging us today to be able to answer, I don't know how many questions you have there in your hand. But we're going to be doing this on the fly.
Craig: Oh, man.
Jack: I know. Well, listen. We're going to jump right into it.
Craig: Let's do it.
Jack: We're going to do a couple, and then we're going to go to a break. Let's do a couple.
A listener that's been writing us in a lot is Chris. Thank you, Chris, for all your great questions. We're going to be answering as many of your questions here today as we can.
One question you had, actually, is that you said, "I want to upgrade." Basically, "I'm needing a new receiver because my old one's on its last leg, " you write. "I want to upgrade to HDMI rather than fix my current receiver. My question is that my PlayStation 3 is my Blu-ray player"—as it is mine—"and decodes the Dolby TrueHD sound rather than the receiver." Again, this is this idea of decoding in the player and then passing the decoded audio off to the receiver.
Craig: Right, right.
Jack: "I know you need HDMI 1.3 to connect the player to the receiver if the receiver is going to decode the sound."
Craig: Exactly.
Jack: "Do you need an HDMI 1.3 receiver to handle the Dolby TrueHD sound if the player is decoding the sound?" Answer is...
Craig: How come you got the easy question, huh?
Jack: Because I picked it. [laughs]
Craig: Uh-huh.
Jack: The answer is: no, you do not need HDMI 1.3. In fact, every version of HDMI has been able to pass up to 8 channels of PCM, which is raw, uncompressed, decoded sound.
Craig: And that's what happens inside your PlayStation, inside your HD DVD players.
Jack: And that's what's happening.
Craig: The Dolby Digital Plus, the Dolby TrueHD signal gets decoded and converted to PCM.
Jack: Absolutely. And that PCM is passed off to your receiver.
Craig: Exactly.
Jack: Now, in the future, with HDMI 1.3, you will be able to decode in the receiver. Will it sound any different? Technically, no. Technically, it should sound exactly the same, whether you decode in the player or whether you decode in the receiver.
Craig: Exactly. What you will get with the player, though, if you continue to decode inside the player, is those auxiliary interactive audio tracks that we've talked about in the past.
Jack: That's right.
Craig: The button sounds, and the potential to bring in the Ethernet commentary stream from a Warner site or a Sony site, etc.
Jack: That's right. That's right.
Craig: So, if you just want to listen to the movie as you might have heard it in the theater...
Jack: You can decode in the player or the receiver.
Craig: Exactly.
Jack: But if you want that interactive sound and all that stuff, you're going to decode in the player.
You do ask a second question here, Chris, which is: "Would you need an HDMI cable rated at 1.3 to link 2 HDMI 1.3 components, or is that a myth?" And you might want to go back and listen to our interview with “Little Monster”, Monster Cable [on April 26, 2007 –Ed.].
Actually, what we've learned from the Monster folks is that, theoretically, not all HDMI cables are created equal, and that, because when you're pushing over tons and tons of data, as this data starts reaching really, really high data rates, you have to have semi-decent cable in order to pass that data through, or else you might get errors. Now, if you're not hearing those errors, I don't know if you have anything to worry about.
Craig: Yeah. I think one of the points that Kevin made was, with progressive scan and with 72 Hz or 120 Hz...
Jack: 120 Hz, progressive scan, high resolutions...
Craig: Or if you're going into these new things called deep color, x.v.Color, to deliver those and the bits required to do that, you're probably going to want to have a very efficient connection.
Jack: Yeah. So, I don't know if it's about having a cable "rated" at HDMI 1.3. But if you're having troubles with your cable, you'll see it on-screen. You might see errors and stuff.
Craig: You're going to see it on the screen.
Jack: That's what you're going to see.
Craig: You're probably not going to hear anything.
Jack: If you have that problem, it might be your cable, it might not. Who knows? But certainly, using a decent cable is never a bad idea. So, Kevin, thank you for your question. Craig, you're up. Question number 2, and we're going to a break.
Craig: I have a question from a gentleman by the name of Christopher, and he's in Iowa City, Iowa .
Jack: Yeah.
Craig: And Christopher is talking about DVDs and VCRs. A lot of DVD players today come with a VHS VCR as part of the component system.
Jack: Wait. This is the same Christopher.
Craig: Is this the same Christopher?
Jack: Yes, this is, because my Chris is from Iowa ... [laughs]
Craig: Is this the same Chris? [laughs]
Jack: Chris, you've got 2 questions! So, 2 questions in a row from Chris.
Craig: Two questions. How did that happen?
Jack: Chris, thank you for writing in. Go ahead. I'm sorry for interrupting; I just thought that was funny. Go ahead. Shoot.
Craig: Do we have any more questions from Chris?
Jack: [laughs] I don't know. We're about to find out.
Craig: We might want to go through this and check and see.
Jack: Go ahead. Go ahead.
Craig: Hi, Chris. How you doing? It's great to talk to you. Anyway, Jack, as you know, a lot of DVD players today, for the convenience factor, incorporate a VCR as well as a built-in DVD player/recorder. A lot of people want to take their VHS movies. They might have VHS movies of their home movies on VHS, and they might want to dub those over to DVD, preserve them on a DVD. And Chris asks, "What's the best player out there to purchase?"
Chris, there's a lot of great players out there. Toshiba builds them, Panasonic. Other manufacturers build VHS and DVD recorder combos. I'll only speak from my own uses. I personally have a Panasonic that I'm in love with.
Jack: Yeah.
Craig: My Panasonic DVD recorder delivers incredible picture quality on playback, and that's what I use. But that's not to say that there are not other manufacturers out there that build great products.
Jack: You've got it. Well, listen, Chris, thank you for those 2 great opening questions. We're going to go to a break. When we come right back, we've got a question from Neal about taking lossless audio with you on the road. Be right back.
Craig: Oh.
[musical interlude]
Announcer: Thanks for listening. This is Dolbycast. Jack and Craig would love to answer your questions. Email them at dolbycast@dolby.com. That's dolbycast@dolby.com.
Jack: And we're back here at Dolbycast. We're going to be trying to answer as many listener questions as we possibly can on this episode, because we are way far behind. Guys, thanks for writing in. If you have any questions, again, it's dolbycast@dolby.com.
We've got a question here from Neal. Neal asks, "Listen. I recently began re-ripping my audio CDs to FLAC" which stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec.
Craig: Ooh.
Jack: Now he's realized how much he's been missing by listening to regular, old MP3s. He asks, "I would now like to be able to take my music with me in lossless format, FLAC, on a portable media device. I was wondering if you have any suggestions or if you have any general advice related to the conversion of media to a lossless digital format. I would really like to know what formats you use or recommend for high-quality playback and the devices you use or recommend."
That's a great question. FLAC, FLAC, FLAC, FLAC. The reason why I haven't stored my audio in FLAC is simply for the problem you brought up which is just compatibility. I mean if you are ripping stuff in FLAC and you have any kind of home networking or maybe something like an iPod or any number of devices that just do not support the format.
In my understanding it is supported by some portable players/listeners. If you know any portable players that support this format, please write in and let us know. I think I have seen it on some specs, but again, on the devices that I use in my home, nothing really supports FLAC. Especially since I've got a home networking thing going on.
Craig: You sure do.
Jack: So what lossless format can you use? Well I have used Apple Lossless. That's because I am an iPod user and the iPod will playback Apple Lossless. Again, then you are in the world of Apple and Apple Lossless you won't find on any non-Apple devices. Again, an example is that I listen to a lot of music on my Playstation 3 so what do I got to do?
You really nailed the question when you say what format do you use or recommend for high-quality playback. I've got to tell you, for high-quality playback, I use AAC. I use AAC at high data rates. Why? Because of it's compatibility. No, it's not lossless, but it sounds completely transparent at very high data rates, at least to my ears and it is very compatible. I can play it back on my iPod, I can play it back on my Playstation 3, it goes across my home network no problem, it is very compatible, iTunes plays back AAC.
I write some of my own music, so it means if I write some of my own music and I want to give it to a buddy, I will encode it in AAC.
Craig: So Jack, what is “high data rate”?
Jack: Well it depends. I like to overkill so I do AAC at 256 a lot. It sounds transparent to me. That is what I use; unfortunately there really isn't a great universal solution for lossless in the portable audio world, in my opinion, mainly because of compatibility issues. So that is my answer to that one, thank you Neil for the question.
Craig: Thank you, Jack.
Jack: A lright Craig you're up.
Craig: So we're going to go to Rochester, New York to a gentleman by the name of Joe. Hi, Joe. Joe has got a nice system, Jack. He has got Klipsch speakers...
Jack: Love Klipsch.
Craig: He's thinking about upgrading. You've got Klipsch in your system.
Jack: I got Klipsch. Klipsch Reference Series.
Craig: He's thinking about upgrading. He's talking about buying a Blu-ray player and a HD DVD player and he's talking about his AV receiver. He wants to replace his AV receiver, but like a lot of people he has got a budget.
Jack: Yep.
Craig: He wants to do it for less than $1, 000. He is asking you, do I make this investment in a new AV receiver or do I buy something that is off the shelf that has been available since this summer? What do I do with HDMI 1.3?
Joe, we're about ready to come up on the CEDIA show, so I can tell you that I expect at the CEDIA show we are going to see a lot of new next-generation AV receivers from name brand manufacturers introduced at price points at $1, 000 or less.
Jack: Wow.
Craig: So you will be able to get into HDMI 1.3 and all of the benefits that it provides. Single cable transmission of audio and video.
Jack: Cool.
Craig: The ability potentially to carry deep color signals which expand the color palette.
Jack: By the way, I am a believer in deep color, I might add.
Craig: It's pretty exciting.
Jack: I tell you what, I've started to see the need for deep color.
Craig: from millions of colors to billions of colors.
Jack: Yep.
Craig: We have to do a podcast on that in the future, Jack.
Jack: We do.
Craig: As I say, single cable transmission of audio and video, digital audio and digital video, all the benefits of one cable as opposed to nine or 10 cables that we might have needed in the past.
Jack: Yep.
Craig: The ability to have Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD in that AV receiver and you're going to want to have things like Dolby Digital Plus in that receiver because you're going to decode your soundtracks from your Blu-ray and your HD DVD discs as well as in the future you are going to have broadcast content that is going to be coming to you via cable, via Internet that is going to use Dolby Digital Plus.
Jack: Yep.
Craig: So you'll be able to decode those signals from those set-top boxes in your next generation AVR. So Joe, I would recommend that sometime after the CEDIA show sometime in October, because this is when these products are going to start debuting.
Companies like Onkyo or like Yamaha, Sony, Pioneer are all going to have a very wide and exciting pallet of AV receivers that incorporate all of this next generation digital functionality.
Jack: So cool. I would say I can't wait, but I just bought my receiver so I've got to love it. [laughs]
Craig: There you go.
Jack: Pass that question over to me Craig; I will file it under “answered”.
Craig: File it.
Jack: I've got another one here from Marley. Marley writes in from California . Hello Marley, you are a neighbor here in California . Actually this question is going to be tough for me, Craig. So you might have to jump in and help me out.
Craig: OK.
Jack: This is stretching the boundaries of my knowledge. Marley writes in, “I am in desperate need of a new good sound system for my car”. Ah-ha!
Craig: Hmm.
Jack: “I was wondering if you could cover this topic and give me a good website on where I can learn to install the system myself.”
Craig: Ooh!
Jack: [laughs] “I like bragging that I installed it myself.”
Craig: Wow.
Jack: “I'm a little low on cash, but I want something that will sound good also.” He has been a subscriber since the third issue of the podcast. So thank you, Marley, for listening in.
I tell you what; you are going to stretch the boundaries of my knowledge. We've got a guy here working for us, Michael, who is the head of our Automotive segment. We've been meaning to have him in to really cover Dolby sound in cars, as you can probably imagine in a car it is really an ideal environment for surround sound because you have always had surround sound speakers in the car. It's just they were not really used for anything. It's just stereo in the front and then they copied the stereo in the back.
I think more and more auto manufacturers are realizing that this is a great environment for surround sound and certainly something that a lot of people would love to hear: surround sound in the car.
Technologies is like Dolby Pro Logic II are able to take any stereo source, like a CD, if you will or an over-the-air broadcast and basically change that stereo material into 5.1 stereo surround sound there on the fly when you listen to it. In the car, what better place to listen to Dolby Pro Logic than in a car?
Craig: Perfect environment.
Jack: So you want to know what to buy. Now, this is stretching the boundaries of my knowledge. I can tell you cars that do carry the stuff from the OEM. We've got cars from Jaguar. Cars from Jaguar.
Craig: Acura.
Jack: Acura. Land Rover. Let's not forget Volvo.
Craig: Do not forget Volvo. They were one of the first.
Jack: They were one of the first actually to realize the benefits of Pro Logic technology in an automobile.
Craig: Definitely.
Jack: So there are more and more. Pardon me, OEMs, if I did forget one, but I do believe that list is fairly comprehensive. We've got to get Michael in here to talk about it. Not only cars that you can buy with Dolby surround sound built in, but also aftermarket stuff that you would be able to install yourself.
Craig: Yeah, and there is this whole rear seat entertainment thing going on in the SUVs…
Jack: Yes.
Craig: …where literally now the children in the back seat can watch movies on the trip.
Jack: Yes.
Craig: There is no more of that “when are we going to get there, Dad?”
Jack: That's right. Dolby Headphone in the back seat! That's cool!
Craig: Dolby Headphone in the back seat would be very cool because you can now watch your movies and listen to them in surround sound or in theory you could actually install a 5.1 system just for the backseat occupants in the car.
Jack: That's what I'm talking about!
Craig: You are starting to see 7.1 migrate into the car environment.
Jack: Are you kidding? I haven't seen it. [laughs]
Craig: I've got to tell our listener though; the car is an area that I will not go. I am so afraid of getting in there, ripping something out and not being able to put it back together.
Jack: I did it once.
Craig: I'm going to consult a professional. I'm not doing that!
Jack: No, we've got to have Michael in here because he installed an aftermarket system in his car and I've got to tell you, have you heard Michael's car yet? It's unreal! [laughs].
Craig: You know who else installed was Roger Dressler, one of our earlier guests.
Jack: Yeah, that's right. Listen, so please Marley stay tuned.
Craig: Stay tuned.
Jack: We will have a whole podcast on automotive coming up.
Craig: Definitely.
Jack: Next question, Craig.
Craig: In an earlier podcast, we were talking about what is our favorite discs to demo. We actually solicited questions from our listeners, and this comes from Joe. Joe doesn't tell us where he is from, but he had some interesting points here. He loves popping in Revenge of the Sith. You've heard that haven't you, Jack?
Jack: Absolutely.
Craig: The opening space battle is a phenomenal mix. He says, "Of course I do have to crank it up to minus 10 dBFS to get that wonderful 110 DB output.”
Jack: There you go.
Craig: “Though for good quality audio that's very consistent I would have to go with The Devil Wears Prada. Joe continues "Yes, a chick flick, but if you really listen to all the background noise in the rear channels, everything keeps you in the environment". Now that kind of reminds me of a certain movie that I'm talking about all the time that you given me flack about all the time.
Jack: Oh Bridges. [ The Bridges of Madison County –Ed.]
Craig: Bridges. So Joe I just want to thank you first of all...
Jack: I loved Devil Wears Prada. That's a great flick.
Craig:...underscoring what surround sound really brings...You know people it's not about crashes all the time. It's not about special effects and explosions. Surround sound is cool, because it can create an ambiance; it can create an environment. You know what? In music videos, and I'm going to sound like a broken analog tape machine, but in music videos, you can really capture the ambiance. The air of the room of a concert, of a night club event. So Joe, thanks for validating my previous comments to Jack.
Jack: all right moving on this is another question, then we're going to go to break.
Craig: A different Joe?
Jack: Joe says "I just started listening to you guys and I must say this is the geekiest podcast for the rest of the geek world." [laughter] So eat your heart out, other podcasts.
Craig: There you go.
Jack: "Only true geeks would play around with surround panning on the air. I Love it" he says.
Craig: Thanks, Joe.
Jack: Actually John our producer back there [laughter] he's blowing air on his knuckles, [laughter] proud of himself for doing surround sound on a podcast. He says "My question is this. I've been mixing surround sound for the past 3 to 4 years. A few of my clients actually want it. Other times I'm just remixing my favorite fan films in 5.1 channels. I've recently been having more difficulty with dialog being quieter than music.
Would you be able to explain dialnorm a bit on your show and how someone might be able to balance music effects with voice?" Great question. First of all I got to say if you're mixing in 5.1 and you're having trouble hearing the dialog then I don't know necessarily if it's a problem with what's called dialnorm. For those of you who aren't professional mixing engineers I'll explain what dialnorm is in a minute.
Essentially you might want to check your mix. Just check where your dialog levels are and if it happens to be lower than the music, well crank up the gain a little bit, you know, maybe you'll be able to hear the dialog a little bit better.
Now, if you're remixing fan films from a stereo master, I don't know, maybe your matrix unwrapping the stereo master...hopefully you're getting the original stems...If your getting the original stems, no problem just turn up the dialog a little bit.
Dialnorm, what is dialnorm? Dialnorm is what's called “meta-data”. Meta-data is the special data that goes along with the audio in a Dolby Digital soundtrack. Essentially dialnorm says “hey, this is the level the dialog is at.” That way when you're going from TV station to TV station, or going from your cable box to your DVD player and both things are using Dolby Digital, it will adjust the level of the soundtrack such that it doesn't blow you out of your seat.
It was an early attempt by Dolby to solve this widespread problem in the living room of changing channels and one channel is totally louder than the next channel or switching from your DVD player to your game console and one's totally loud and blows you out of your seat.
Craig: Now, dialnorm is not on analog signals.
Jack: Yeah. Really only in Dolby bitstreams, as part of our meta-data.
Craig: Right.
Jack: So, setting dialnorm, if you want more on that, you should definitely check dolby.com. We have a section there for professionals, and you should be able to find a little bit more information on how to set your Dolby meta-data. So that's what dialnorm is, listeners. Let's go on to the next question.
Craig: Jack, I have got the coolest email that we're going to start the next segment with.
Jack: Alright. Sounds good.
Craig: It is so absolutely appropriate. You're going to love this!
Jack: [laughs] You know what else I realized?
Craig: What's that?
Jack: Those two Joes were the same Joe. [laughs]
Craig: Oh, man!
Jack: I just looked. It's the same.
Craig: So we've got two Chris's and two Joes.
Jack: We've got two Chris' and two Joes. Listen, when we come right back, we've got Craig's coolest question ever.
[musical interlude]
Announcer: Got questions for Jack or Craig? Email dolbycast@dolby.com.
Craig: And we are back at Dolbycast. That's dolbycast@dolby.com for you listeners.
Jack: Please send in your questions, although we're buried under questions right now. [laughs]
Craig: Please send in your questions.
Jack: I'm looking at the stack.
Craig: Jack, Jack, Jack...
Jack: We're 20 minutes into the episode, and we've got so many questions left. Let's keep going, Craig.
Craig: Jack, this is from a gentleman from your home state.
Jack: Kentucky ?
Craig: From Kentucky .
Jack: All right! It's going to be a good question.
Craig: No, it's not. [laughs]
Jack: Yes, it is! Yes, it is.
Craig: This is from Devon . Hi, Devon . So, Devon, by the way, he says a couple things that I have to relate to you here: "Why the strict limitation on time? My attention span is much longer than the 20 to 30 minute self-imposed restriction."
Jack: That's true, self-imposed.
Craig: "I'd gladly listen to more."
Jack: Producer, are we taking notes back there? He's sticking out his tongue. [laughs]
Craig: Producer! Producer!
Jack: He's like, "I can only take you guys for 20 minutes!" [laughs]
Craig: Yeah. And then Devon continues. He goes, "You say on the show you love emails."
[laughter]
Craig: "But I have never heard you answer more than one per show."
Jack: Oh, no! Oh, no!
Craig: "I'm assuming that you personally reply to as many as possible." Devon, we're replying. "But your audience would benefit more if they could take more time to be discussed on-air."
Jack: Well, I certainly agree with that, John, the producer. [laughs]
Craig: Let me continue here. Let me continue here, because it gets even better, Jack. "Nitpick: if I weren't lazy, I'd document how many times you guys say, " Jack...
Jack: Oh, no. Here it comes.
Craig: "Listen, I've got to tell you." [laughs]
Jack: Listen, I've got to tell you! I knew that was coming! I knew that was coming!
Craig: "It gets a little old, that's all" Devon says.
Jack: I feel like we're going to change the name of our podcast from Dolbycast to "Listen, I've got to tell you."
Craig: But you know what?
Jack: Devon, you're from Kentucky ...
Craig: Devon compliments us at the end. He goes, "Honestly, I don't think there's a more lucid outlet for surround sound information anywhere." Thanks, Devon . We appreciate it.
Jack: Thanks, Devon . And listen, I've got to tell you...
[laughter]
Jack: I'm sorry!
Craig: You're a dog.
Jack: You can take the boy out of Kentucky, but you can't take the Kentucky out of the boy. Or should I say colonel?
Craig: That's for sure. That's for sure.
Jack: We're going to move on to the next question here, from David. Oh, yes. You need the stack here. Here you go, Craig. David is writing in, oh, from Ohio . Again. Wow, we've got a lot of Midwest going on.
Craig: Ah, an Ohio boy.
Jack: I like this. I like this.
Craig: This one will be a much more lucid question, right, Jack?
Jack: Yeah.
Craig: Listen, I've got to tell you, Jack.
Jack: [laughs] I'm never going to hear the end of this.
Craig: These guys from Ohio ... [laughs]
Jack: OK. "Jack and Craig, you guys rule!" Alright. Thank you. Thank you, David. "Well, you wanted questions, and I have a doozy. Back in January, Leo Laporte did two..." Leo Laporte is a very famous podcaster, previously on TechTV.
Craig: Yeah.
Jack: And we were very fortunate to work with Leo. He is both a source of inspiration as well as just an absolute pleasure to work with. "Leo Laporte..." And wonderful. If you don't listen to his podcast, you really should. "Did two Dolby Headphone podcasts on his show, MacBreak Weekly, which I love, episodes 23 and 24, live from Macworld 2007. Wow! I was blown away by the sound." We actually worked with Leo to do that podcast, where I believe he was covering the launch of the iPhone at Macworld. Yes, he was.
Craig: Was it the iPhone?
Jack: We did that podcast pre-encoded in Dolby Headphone. So you hear a round table of people talking. This is MacBreak Weekly, episodes 23 and 24, from Macworld. And yeah, it's great. You hear this whole room full of people, all talking. They recorded it live at a bar. So you hear the ambiance of the bar behind you with Dolby Headphone. Anyway, check it out, listeners, if you want to hear a cool podcast.
“And wow, did you get my wheels spinning.” And basically, he says, "I live in Ohio, which is well-known for its high school football. People in Ohio can't get enough, so I got the idea to put together a video for a year-end DVD about my local high school football team. And it's OK, but..." Oh, but now, "And I, the head coach, see a bigger picture for the coming football season. We're looking at seriously considering shooting 60 to 80 percent of the video—football camps, some practices, all football games—in HD, for a year-end HD DVD or Blu-ray disc." Wow!
Craig: Cool.
Jack: "And if the video is in HD, why not make the sound just as awesome and record most, if not all, of everything in Dolby?" David, you just made my day. This is wonderful. This is wonderful. So here's the question: "What Dolby multi-channel hardware should we use to record the sounds with for multiple mics for mastering later in Dolby? And what minimal Dolby software should we use for mastering, since the Media Producer may be too cost-prohibitive for us?"
For the listeners out there, what is Media Producer? Media Producer is our software that professionals that author Blu-ray and HD DVD discs use to create the new Dolby TrueHD and Dolby Digital Plus bitstreams on those discs.
Craig: Correct.
Jack: And yes, it is quite expensive. That said, John, I might have to have you, the producer, help me out here. Tell me if I mis-speak.
But essentially, you just need to figure out some way to capture those games in 5.1. And if you want a good introduction to how to do that, we have a great podcast with a guest, Jim Hilson, where he talks about how the pros do it in the NFL, right? And I think you could take some concepts from that podcast to come up with, I don't want to say rudimentary, but a scaled-back version of what the actual NFL does to mic the field.
I know you're going to need multiple microphones. You're going to probably need some kind of laptop with a multi-channel audio interface that can accept multiple microphones. You're going to want to record different points in the field so that you get a nice 5.1 ambiance. I would love to hear this, if you actually are successful in pulling this off.
Craig: Yeah.
Jack: Capture it into the computer just as PCM—PCM being the raw, uncompressed audio that something like Pro Tools or Logic or Cubase or any of the digital audio workstations, most of which you can even buy at Guitar Center, should be able to capture.
And then, when you go to combine that multi-channel audio with the video, this is going to be the hard part. Actually, to create the Blu-ray or HD DVD discs, you're probably going to have to send it off to some kind of authoring house. You might need to call in some professional help to help you line up the audio-video and get it actually encoded and mastered in the proper way. Again, making Blu-ray and HD DVD discs is very, very new. We're actually in the process of doing it here at Dolby, creating a demo disc for HD DVD and Blu-ray, and I can tell you, it is no small feat.
Craig: Oh yeah.
Jack: But if you can pull it off, I do recommend getting some professional help. But in terms of capturing the audio, that should give you a start. John, are you nodding in the back? Is that good enough? He's giving me the nod. David, good luck.
Craig: John's nodding. I want to take this in a little bit different direction.
Jack: Yeah.
Craig: Two weeks ago, you and I were in New York City, where we did a press event.
Jack: Uh-huh.
Craig: And the hit of the press event, quite frankly, was 5.1 home movies.
Jack: Yes.
Craig: Now, if you're familiar with camcorders, you know that there's a new format out there called AVCHD. And Sony has a number of these camcorders that either record on a hard disk drive or, in our case, actually record onto a 3-inch DVD.
Jack: Oh, absolutely! And they're high-def.
Craig: They're high-definition, and they capture a 5.1 Dolby Digital signal.
Jack: Right there on the camcorder.
Craig: And I've got to tell you, all the members of the press were just blown away, because I took this camcorder out on the street in New York ...
Jack: David, use one of these cameras.
Craig: Literally sat on the street and captured the entire ambiance of the street scene in New York City .
Jack: There's your answer.
Craig: And so, if you're looking for a low-budget way to get into this that captures it immediately...
Jack: That's the way to do it.
Craig: Something like the Sony, I think it's UCX5.
Jack: One of the new Sony or Panasonic.
Craig: It's less than $1, 000.
Jack: That's the way to do it, absolutely.
Craig: And it records incredible high definition images.
Jack: And 5.1 sound.
Craig: You take the disc out of the camcorder, pop it into your Blu-ray player, and voila: high definition video.
Jack: There you go. And there's hard drive-based ones as well that are out.
Craig: There's hard drive.
Jack: That's absolutely the way to do it. Why didn't I think of that?
Craig: Exactly. That would be very, very cool.
Jack: Absolutely. Well, David, good luck. Listen. We are well into the podcast. We should probably do one more question.
Craig: One more?
Jack: I see there, Craig, that you have a stack of paper still in your hand. [laughs]
Craig: So, what does that mean, Jack?
Jack: That means we're going to have to do this again. Listeners, I hope you enjoy these question and answer podcasts.
Craig: [laughs]
Jack: Please write us in at dolbycast@dolby.com. Let us know if you enjoy these podcasts, because we'll do more of them. Certainly, for those of you that are writing in with questions, I hope that you find this stuff valuable. Craig, why don't you do one more question? And we'll call it a wrap...
Craig: Yeah. I just want to elaborate on that. I mean, we make efforts to bring in, really, a diverse variety of guests. We have our games people, Matt Tullis. We had Ioan last week. We had...
Jack: Guys from Monster Cable.
Craig: Monster Cable.
Jack: HT Guys.
Craig: Let us know if we're doing the right thing, if you'd like more questions answered on-air...
Jack: Or you want me to say "well, listen" some more. [laughs]
Craig: Well, actually, one of my big gaffes was the word "precisely."
Jack: Precisely. You love the word "precisely." [laughs]
Craig: If you listen to some of our first podcasts, it's like every other phrase is "precisely."
Jack: Our listeners are going, "Yes, you do say..." So you're "precisely." I'm "well, listen." What have we got? We've got one more question.
Craig: OK. So we've got one more question, from a gentleman by the name of Jay. He's from Los Altos, California . Hi, Jay. Very close, very close.
Jack: Los Altos ? Very cool.
Craig: "Hi, guys. Love the podcast. Discovered you guys from the HT Guys." So, thanks, Ara and Braden.
Jack: HT Guys. Cool. Thanks.
Craig: "Is the subwoofer, LFE, really a separate channel? I thought I read it isn't a channel per se, but it gets the low frequencies depending on what you set it to."
So, the question is: is the LFE a channel? And the answer is: yes, it is indeed a separate, discrete channel of information in the digital stream.
Jack: Yes, it is.
Craig: It's called the 0.1 signal because you only require one-tenth of the bandwidth to deliver the low frequencies that go to the subwoofer, if you will.
Jack: Yeah.
Craig: As compared to a full-range speaker, where you're going from 20 cycles all the way up to 22,000 cycles. So, yes indeed, it is a separate channel. And yes indeed, wherever you set the roll-off frequency...
Jack: The crossover.
Craig: The crossover frequency, that's going to really affect the impact and performance of the subwoofer, too.
Jack: That's right. And if you want to hear the history of the LFE channel, we just did a podcast with Ioan Allen, which should be the podcast right before this one, where he talks about how the LFE channel was born as a separate, discrete channel. Very, very interesting stuff.
Craig: Exactly. Exactly.
Jack: Well, everyone out there, listen, this concludes this episode of Dolbycast. I'm looking here at this stack. We did make a dent, didn't we, Craig? We did make a dent.
Craig: I think we made a dent.
Jack: We made a dent, [laughs] but we've got a long way to go.
Craig: Well, listen, I've got to tell you. [laughs]
Jack: Listen, I've got to tell you, huh?
Craig: We've got more to do.
Jack: This is precisely the kind of podcast we should do again, and sooner rather than later.
Craig: Precisely.
[laughter]
Jack: So we're going to be back, actually, here. If not the next podcast, then the podcast after that, or soon thereafter, we're going do a podcast where we continue to hammer away at this stack of questions. Again, our email is dolbycast@dolby.com.
Craig: I'm Craig Eggers.
Jack: And I'm Jack Buser. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.
Craig: Bye now.
[music]
Back to Top
Back to Dolbycast main page