Dolby Podcast Episode 25, October 11, 2007
All about new products from the CEDIA - Custom Electronic Design & Installation Association – show including Jack and Craig’s favorite Blu-ray and HD DVD players, a couple of HD projectors and the VUDU box for Internet HD movie and TV show streaming. Prompted by listener, Jason, Jack and Craig also talk about the different HDMI specifications and how to choose what’s best for you.
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Mentioned in this Episode
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.
Craig: Well, Jack Buser, welcome back to Dolby San Francisco.
Jack: Yeah, back in the U.S.A., man.
Craig: Back in the U.S.A. I have to say, first of all, I need to apologize to all of our listeners. You know, usually we ask for listener mail. I actually got a listener phone call the other day.
Jack: [laughing] You did.
Craig: Yeah, he goes — and he was a guy, he called up and goes: "You know, Jack just keeps talking and talking and talking about being at Abbey Road, we got sick and tired and we actually turn the podcast off and stop listening!"
Jack: No. Nobody did that.
Craig: Yes, yes, yes, yes.
Jack: [laughing]
Craig: So, I have to tell our listeners, with one exception, we're not going to talk about Abbey Road today.
Jack: Yes. No talking about Abbey Road although I easily could.
Craig: Except for one thing, Jack.
Jack: What's that?
Craig: Now, all of our listeners, I wish you were here because I'm looking at a picture of Jack Buser walking across a crosswalk, Jack, in the wrong direction.
Jack: In the wrong direction.
Craig: In the wrong direction, Jack.
Jack: With my shoes on.
Craig: With your shoes on, so —
Jack: I don't know — that intersection was incredibly crowded. I was like – you have to dodge traffic to try to get a picture of yourself on those zebra stripes and there's a —
Craig: In your zest to make me feel jealous and bad that I wasn't there and you were. You still didn't get it right [laughing].
Jack: At least I didn't get hit by one of those London cabs.
Craig: There you go. There you go.
Jack: Well, listen to this, the topic of today's episode is actually one of my favorites because it's the post-CEDIA time frame, isn't it? And at CEDIA - if you don't know the CEDIA trade show, it is possibly my favorite trade show where they announce all the cool new gear, lot of high-end gear for custom installers and stuff like that.
Craig: For our listener's identification, CEDIA stands for Custom Electronic Design & Installation Association. It's all those professionals that bring you the very best in home theater and leading edge products. You know, I know from your perspective and my perspective, it is the trade show.
Jack: It is the trade show.
Craig: Because this has all the fun products.
Jack: Oh, absolutely. I mean, this trade show will cover everything from - it'll have a lot of the kind of stuff you'll find in your local retailer, but it'll go all the way up to $20,000 media servers and stuff like — I love that stuff.
Craig: There you go. So, do we have a question?
Jack: We do have a question, actually, it is CEDIA related somewhat. It's from our friend, Jason, who writes us again and he says that he needs to get a new receiver to take advantage of Dolby TrueHD, which those of you that have been listening to us talk about HDMI 1.3, you would know that you don't necessarily need a new receiver if you have one that has multi-channel analog ends.
Craig: And we'll get to that later, yeah.
Jack: Or even an older version of HDMI, but this particular listener, actually, wants to get one of the new receivers because they wanted to do the bitstream pass through. So he wants to get a receiver that could take advantage of and I should change it to the bitstream pass through functionality.
Craig: So we should probably call this "The Jason Show" because we're really going to hammer that subject today.
Jack: We're really going to hammer that subject today because there's so much confusion out there. We're going to clear that up.
Craig: So, Jack, why don't you tell us what Jason is asking?
Jack: Well, Jason is asking - he says: "My question now for you is when am I going to be able to get my hands on a receiver with Dolby Volume that will provide me with enough multiple HDMI inputs and the Dolby TrueHD experience?" So that's the question. "Any info on price you might also have would be great." So I think it's a very timely question. [indecipherable]
Craig: Well, as you know, Jack there were a lot of announcements at the CEDIA show of AV receivers that had Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby TrueHD decoding built-in. We saw receiver products from Sony. We saw receiver products - a variety of receiver products from Onkyo. Pioneer introduced products at the show, Denon, Marantz, Sherwood introduced products at the show with Dolby TrueHD and Dolby Digital Plus decoding built inside the AV receiver.
Jack: That's quite a lot of receivers. What is that? 5, 6 receivers —
Craig: Well, I missed Yamaha, too, one of our favorite companies, too.
Jack: Absolutely. So, what is that? 5-6-7?
Craig: Almost 7.
Jack: Unbelievable. That is a heck — now, all these receivers all have HDMI 1.3 —
Craig: And that's what they have to have, remember? Because if you want to transport that bitstream from your player to your AV receiver, one of the things we said was it's got to have HDMI 1.3 because that has the bandwidth necessary to deliver the TrueHD bitstream to your receiver.
Jack: Right. Now, if I have a player with HDMI 1.3, it doesn't necessarily mean it will be able to pass the bitstream.
Craig: Not necessarily. That's the interesting thing about HDMI 1.3, there's a lot of feature sets that are part of HDMI 1.3. Things like deep color, lip sync capability, the ability to pass SACD, DVD-Audio bitstreams.
Jack: Pass TrueHD, pass Dolby Digital Plus bitstreams.
Craig: Exactly. Now, all HDMI 1.3 has the capability to carry all those things but it literally is up to the option of the hardware manufacturer to decide which of those features they're deciding that they want to integrate into their product.
Jack: Right. So HDMI 1.3 is essentially the specification that has all these optional features.
Craig: Exactly and it's a great spec because it enables us to transport high definition video and high definition audio.
Jack: Yeah. Now, this is the point that I always love to bring up because I have an older receiver with HDMI 1.2, so what I did is I made sure on both my Blu-ray and HD DVD player had multi-channel TrueHD and Dolby Digital Plus decoders built into the player.
Craig: And the majority of the players that have been announced to date that have Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD - in fact, all of them, except one, have Dolby TrueHD and Dolby Digital Plus decoding built into the player.
Jack: Into the player and then it decodes in the player and it passes the decoded uncompressed audio known as PCM over the older HDMI connections.
Craig: Or even the new HDMI 1.3 connection.
Jack: And it doesn't make any difference in terms of audio fidelity. That's one thing —
Craig: You're doing digital to digital decoding inside the player and you're passing that uncompressed bitstream over to the AVR so you're getting the full bandwidth performance of TrueHD or Dolby Digital Plus.
Jack: Absolutely. We get so many questions about this. We're going to continue to hammer these points home because it's certainly something that requires some clarification out there. I know a lot of our reader questions are on this topic.
Craig: This is really, really important and we got to constantly remind our listeners, if you're purchasing a product today and it has HDMI 1.3, look to the specifications of the product.
Jack: Yup.
Craig: Understand what the performance capabilities of the product are and give kudos to the people from Silicon Image, they're the people who invented HDMI 1.3. They're actually telling people: "Well, maybe you shouldn't be promoting HDMI 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, but instead you should be telling your purchaser —"
Jack: What are the features?
Craig: "This product has XYZ features, et cetera."
Jack: Absolutely.
Craig: So to our listeners, when you see a product with HDMI 1.3, that's a good thing, but make sure to check that feature spec sheet to understand what the specific performance capabilities of that product are.
Jack: Absolutely. Well, listen, on that note, let's go to a break. When we come back, let's cover all those new cool products that were at CEDIA. This is absolutely one of my favorite topics. So, we'll be right back.
[music]
Braden Russell: Hi, I'm Braden Russell.
Ara Derderian: And I'm Ara Derderian and together we're the HT Guys.
Braden: You're listening to the Dolbycast and if you've got a question about audio, where do you send it?
Ara: To dolbycast@dolby.com.
Craig: And we're back and hey, Jack. We were talking about AV receivers with Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD decoding built inside the receiver. I've got the perfect product for you.
Jack: Yes.
Craig: It's a product by a company called Krell, you're very familiar with them, right?
Jack: [laughing] That's right.
Craig: Where's your credit card?
Jack: I think that's a little outside my budget.
Craig: The Evolution 707. Now, you've got to have this, because it's only $25, 000.
Jack: Only?
Craig: Only.
Jack: Oh, wow. OK.
Craig: And you know, you have to have this.
Jack: One for the main room, one for the bedroom, why not? [laughs]
Craig: You know what? It'll be a great product.
Jack: Absolutely. I'm sure it will be.
Craig: There's no doubt about that.
Jack: Listen, if I could have that Krell and take it home, it would be unbelievable. [laughing] Unbelievable.
Craig: Cool.
Jack: But listen. On that note, cool products at CEDIA. Boy, I wasn't at CEDIA, but I was following all the news coming out of the show, and what an exciting show it was. I was actually over in Germany at IFA. IFA was a great show, but CEDIA, boy, what a lot of news.
Craig: Well, as you know, Dolby had a nice exhibit at CEDIA this year. We had a dedicated theater where we were bringing people in and letting them audition for themselves Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital Plus.
Jack: Cool.
Craig: And the response was incredible. There was a line outside the theater.
Jack: I bet.
Craig: And in the line in the theater, we had some really positive reviews, from people like Widescreen Review, Wes Phillips from Stereophile, on Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital Plus. And then we had some of the new products that we're talking about today featured outside the exhibit itself. So people who were standing in line to get this great experience in the theater also had a chance to see some of the new cutting-edge products that incorporate our technologies.
Jack: Very cool. Now, the one product that I think a lot of buzz came out of the show on was the new LG combo player, the LG BH200 [video player –Ed.]. Did you get a chance to check that out?
Craig: LG was the first company to actually build a combination product, their BH100 they introduced at the CES show in January.
Jack: That stole that show. [laughs]
Craig: It sure did. There was a lot of talk about it. But here at the CEDIA show this year, they introduced the BH200, which will incorporate the full complement of Dolby TrueHD and Dolby Digital Plus decoding technologies built-in for not only HD DVD, but also Blu-ray playback.
Jack: Is that right? So it has the full decoding capability for both formats.
Craig: Exactly.
Jack: And now, as I understand, it's also capable of 1080p.
Craig: 1080p.
Jack: That's too cool. So this is really the first full-fledged combo player that we've seen hit the market.
Craig: Well, that, and we also had a product announcement from Samsung.
Jack: Yes, I saw that, too.
Craig: Who also has joined the combination business. They'll have a product out in October-November. It'll be priced approximately $999 to $1, 099.
Jack: Not too bad, considering you get both HD DVD and Blu-ray.
Craig: Exactly. Exactly. And there was a lot of excitement when Samsung announced that earlier this year. And they actually showed some of the prototypes of the product at CEDIA, and that's exciting.
Jack: Is this going to be a trend that we're going to see more of, now that we have multiple companies putting out combination players out on the market?
Craig: I think it remains to be seen.
Jack: Yeah.
Craig: I think it remains to be seen. One of the points I made when we did the AVS Forum dinner and party, I said, "Don't think format wars. Go out and support the manufacturers."
Jack: Absolutely.
Craig: There's only one product that I know of that can bring full 1080p into your home today, and that's a Blu-ray player or an HD DVD player, right?
Jack: That's exactly right, yeah.
Craig: So go out and support these manufacturers. They're bringing the very best in video quality, and now they're bringing the very best in audio quality with Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital Plus.
Jack: Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, listen. A name that's almost synonymous with video quality, Sharp's AQUOS brand. Actually, the AQUOS Blu-ray player was out there. Now, that's the first Sharp product where they're using that AQUOS brand on something other than a TV, as I understand.
Craig: Exactly.
Jack: And the player's actually priced quite reasonably: $549 for the Sharp Blu-ray player.
Craig: $549. I think they'll be marketing it with their successful AQUOS line of television sets. And it is the first Blu-ray player from them, and it has Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD decoding built inside the player.
Jack: Built-in, yeah.
Craig: So, with the Sharp player, and you connect it to your AVR, HDMI 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, you're doing decoding inside the player and getting the full benefit on your receiver.
Jack: That'd be a slick little setup: AQUOS Blue-ray player with an AQUOS LCD.
Craig: Hoo-ha!
Jack: [laughs] That'd be too slick.
Craig: Get out the credit card, Jack.
Jack: Now, that's 1080p as well.
Craig: I believe so, yes.
Jack: And one thing that you'll see with a lot of these players, talking about 1080p, they're not just saying 1080p. They're saying what's called 1080p24. Maybe you should talk a little bit about what is 1080p24.
Craig: Well, 1080p24 is the ability to identify the 24-frame core element of the actual film capture.
Jack: Right. And a lot of film is captured in 24 frames.
Craig: Yeah. In fact, all film is captured in 24 frames. And then what we do is we use a system of conversion, something called 2:3 conversion, that takes the first frame of that 24 and reproduces it twice, takes the second frame of that 24, reproduces it three times, to get us to the 30 frame, 60 field that we have with our current television system here in the United States.
Jack: The 60 Hz, yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, if I have a 24p player and a 24p display, I can bypass all the conversion, right?
Craig: Actually, your display would not a 24p display, because you'd probably experience flicker. So, what you would want in your display would probably be a 96.
Jack: Is that right?
Craig: Yeah. A 96 Hz display, or even a 120 Hz display.
Jack: Now, I know, because I'm a big projector guy, a lot of the projector guys are talking about having “1080p24 in”. So I assume that's just what they're referring to, that it's compatible with it.
Craig: Yeah, compatible. Exactly. Exactly.
Jack: Got it. Got it. For listeners out there that don't know, Craig is a hardcore TV guy. [laughs]
Craig: [laughs] Best answer.
Jack: Well, no, actually, you've been doing a lot of TV stuff recently. And we're going to be talking about that in the future.
Craig: Sometime soon, yeah.
Jack: Yeah, absolutely.
Craig: So, our friends from Sony and Pioneer both introduced new players at the show.
Jack: Yeah.
Craig: Pioneer introduced their second-generation player with Dolby TrueHD, the BDP95? Is that the model number, Jack?
Jack: I'm not sure. I'm not sure.
Craig: BDP95HD, I think, is the model number.
Jack: Listeners should be able to hear me flipping papers back here.
[laughter]
Craig: That's it. I got it right. And then we also saw Sony introduced a next-generation product, the BDP-S500.
Jack: So that's their third Blu-ray player now.
Craig: That is their third Blu-ray player.
Jack: PS3 aside.
Craig: And then they also introduced a step-up model, the 2000ES.
Jack: Cool. Now, do these have multi-channel Dolby TrueHD decoding built-in?
Craig: These have Dolby TrueHD decoding built into them.
Jack: Good, good. Now, these are the first Sony standalone Blu-ray players with the decoding built-in, or did the last generation have it?
Craig: The second-generation Sony.
Jack: The second-generation did?
Craig: Well, actually, it's our understanding right now that the first-generation Sony is upgradeable to TrueHD.
Jack: Is that right?
Craig: It's our understanding. We're checking on that right now, as we speak.
Jack: Oh, interesting.
Craig: But what was really, really cool and really captured the enthusiasm at the show was the Dave Matthews/Tim Reynolds disc that finally came out on Blu-ray.
Jack: You've been buzzing about this. Yeah.
Craig: Sony BMG introduced this disc at the show, and it is 2 hours and 45 minutes of an acoustical concert with Dave Matthews/Tim Reynolds. And they selected Dolby TrueHD.
Jack: Cool.
Craig: And the reason why is this is a 24/96 capture.
Jack: Is it?
Craig: And so, when you're listening to it on Dolby TrueHD in your home theater, you're going to get 24/96.
Jack: It's 24/96?
Craig: Yes, it is.
Jack: Oh, cool! That's a must-have disc.
Craig: It is absolutely incredible. And what turned out was, since this was a 2 hour and 45 minute concert, there was no way that Sony could have put that out with uncompressed PCM audio.
Jack: Interesting. We should explain to the listeners: what is 24/96? Why are Jack and Craig jumping up and down about a release that's 24/96?
Craig: Talk to them, Jack.
Jack: 24/96. That talks to the bit depth and sample resolution of the soundtrack. So, 24-bit means that is the accuracy of the loudness of the signal, if you will. And 96 has to do with the sample frequency, which essentially deals with how much of the bandwidth...
Craig: How many slices of that analog signal you're taking.
Jack: Correct. How much audio bandwidth can you capture? Traditionally, on Blu-ray and HD DVD, as well as DVD before it, everything was sampled at 48 kHz, meaning that you could capture the entire range of human hearing. But with 96 kHz, you can actually capture frequencies far beyond what humans are even capable of hearing, meaning that you're getting all kinds of sound reproduction that's far beyond even the greatest audiophile's ability to resolve audio.
Craig: A lot of people say that with 96K, you get a lot more airiness and presence.
Jack: Absolutely.
Craig: So you capture the whole room environment. But one of the things we've been preaching for a long time to the studios is, instead of using uncompressed PCM, use Dolby TrueHD, because it gives you the same experience as uncompressed PCM, but, as in the case of Sony here, you can reduce the size of those files. I mean, if this disc was uncompressed PCM, it would be multiple discs.
Jack: Absolutely. Well, that's the thing. To do 24/96, we're talking about a lot more data and a lot more sound.
Craig: Exactly.
Jack: So you'd better use Dolby TrueHD, otherwise you're going to have an audio-only disc, I guess.
[laughter]
Craig: The Sony disc was absolutely the highlight of the Blu-ray camp at the show. And I have to also add: we had products from Denon as well as Marantz introduced in Blu-ray at the show.
Jack: Yeah.
Craig: And we probably should go one step further and mention that some of the first bitstream-out players were also announced at the show.
Jack: Yes.
Craig: You saw product announcements from Toshiba, from Onkyo, in their HD DVD format, Denon, Sony, Pioneer—all introduced players with bitstream-out capability.
Jack: Now, here is a common source of confusion with a lot of people. They say, "Look, if I have a player that has bitstream-out for Dolby TrueHD and Dolby Digital Plus, does that mean that the player does not have decoding built-in?"
Craig: No, that does not mean that. In fact, every player that's out there that has Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD bitstream out also offers you the option of decoding inside the player.
Jack: Inside the player...
Craig: So, Jack, why would I want to decode inside that player?
Jack: For me, I'm always going to be decoding inside the player. And the reason why is because I want to make sure I get all that interactive sound. If you do bitstream out, you're just going to get the primary soundtrack, the soundtrack of the movie.
Craig: You're going to get the native soundtrack that was part of the movie.
Jack: Correct. But I love all the button sounds and interactive sounds on Blu-ray and HD DVD. Those are key features for me in these new formats. I want to hear them. That means you have to decode in the player, because the player has to do all that cool mixing and stuff like that. So, if you're into those interactive sounds, you want to make sure you miss nothing, make sure you get a player that has decoding.
Craig: So, Jack, we spent a lot of time talking about Blu-ray.
Jack: Yes.
Craig: Let's take a break and come back and talk about some of the new Toshiba products.
Jack: Absolutely. We'll be right back.
[musical interlude]
Announcer: Jack and Craig would love to answer your questions. Email them at dolbycast@dolby.com. That's dolbycast@dolby.com.
Jack: HD DVD. It has been a wild month for HD DVD, hasn't it, Craig?
Craig: Some new product announcements from Toshiba...
Jack: Three new ones.
Craig: As well as Onkyo, at the show.
Jack: Absolutely.
Craig: And a new competitor, believe it or not. There's a company called Venturer...
Jack: Really?
Craig: That said they will be introducing a model called the SHD7000. And right now, it sounds like, in looking at some of the industry stuff, it might be a $199 [laughs] HD DVD player.
Jack: Are you kidding? That'd be too cool. Think about it. This is actually really significant, because this is the first time we've seen HD DVD players from manufacturers outside of Toshiba. Toshiba's done a great job of providing the market with a lot of selection of different players, but I was really excited to see some HD DVD players from some other manufacturers. That was very, very cool.
Craig: Well, the other thing I was excited to see was you're starting to see players at below that $499 price point, in both the HD DVD and Blu-ray format.
Jack: Yes.
Craig: And that's really important to try to really drive this into the mainstream audience, if you will.
Jack: So we've got 3 new Toshibas they announced at CEDIA: the A3, the A30, and the A35.
Craig: Which one are you going to buy?
Jack: Well, I have to buy the A35. [laughs] Why don't you break it down? What's the difference between the A3, the A30, and the A35?
Craig: I'm going to leave that to you.
Jack: Alright, let's see.
Craig: [laughs]
Jack: This is going to be hard. No, let's see if I got it.
Craig: Come on. Let's see if you remember.
Jack: I can tell you the last generation. I can do the A2, A20, and XA2. Let's see if I can do the third generation.
Craig: I'll help you with the A35. It has bitstream out.
Jack: Oh, it does?
Craig: Yeah.
Jack: OK.
Craig: So it's 1080p and bitstream out.
Jack: So my guess is that the A30 and A35 are both 1080p24.
Craig: Yes.
Jack: They both support all of the Dolby stuff.
Craig: Oh, all of those. In fact, they all do.
Jack: Meaning decoding in the player.
Craig: Decoding in the player.
Jack: In fact, there is no HD DVD player from Toshiba that does not decode multi-channel Dolby TrueHD and Dolby Digital Plus.
Craig: That is 100 percent true, my friend.
Jack: Which is very, very cool. But now, my guess is the A3 is kind of like the last generation, where it's...
Craig: It's like the A20.
Jack: It's 1080i. It doesn't do the 1080p thing. OK. And I'm sure the A3 is much more affordable. Is that possible?
Craig: You're looking at price points, basically, Jack, from $299 to $499.
Jack: $299.
Craig: Isn't that amazing?
Jack: That is so cool.
Craig: I mean, when you think about it, if you're going to spend $79 or $100 for a good quality DVD player that does up-conversion, another $100 to $150, you can get something that really reproduces the quality that your display device is capable of plus introduces these two new incredible audio formats into the home theater.
Jack: Now, I just got myself an XA2, and I was excited to hear that Toshiba—who is very, very good about firmware updates, I must add—has actually released a firmware update for the XA2 that allows it to do 1080p24.
Craig: Hey now.
Jack: That's very, very cool.
Craig: Do you have a 1080p24 projector yet, Jack?
Jack: I do not.
Craig: But you're always looking to the future, right?
Jack: [laughs] That brings me to...
Craig: That brings you to the next point.
Jack: I am now torn.
Craig: What a segue. What a classic segue that was.
Jack: [laughs] Two new projectors. Two new projectors. [laughs] Two new projectors at CEDIA, and I've got to talk about it.
Craig: All right. Go for it.
Jack: The VW60 from Sony and the AE2000U from Panasonic.
Craig: All right. What's so special about these?
Jack: These are two great 1080p projectors, man. I'm telling you.
Craig: Yeah. OK.
Jack: These things are red hot. They both do 1080p24 in.
Craig: Are they LCD, or are they LCOS?
Jack: The Sony's is LCOS, which they call SXRD.
Craig: SXRD.
Jack: And the Panasonic is LCD.
Craig: Right.
Jack: And both are 1080p24. And, oh, these projectors are just coming down in price and just looking so good. And it might be time to upgrade.
Craig: Add the Panasonic or the Sony with your Krell AV receiver, and you'll be in business, Jack.
Jack: [laughs] There is one other product we should talk about, and this was at CEDIA.
Craig: Talk to me.
Jack: We would be remiss not to talk about the VUDU box.
Craig: What is VUDU, and what does VUDU do?
Jack: Well, VUDU is actually this cool new company, and they're making this little set-top box. It'll cost you $399. You plug it into your Internet connection, and it'll allow you to rent or buy movies over the Internet.
Craig: OK.
Jack: Which is the coolest thing. I mean, how long have we been talking about movies being delivered over the Internet? And here's a box coming out on the market for $399, where you can just go, choose whatever movie you want to watch, and boom, you're up and running and watching a movie.
Craig: So, does it download content from the Internet onto a hard drive?
Jack: It is what's called progressive streaming, as I understand, meaning you press click, it buffers a little bit, and off you go, kind of like watching YouTube or one of those things.
Craig: Interesting. Is there a high-definition element to this?
Jack: They're going to begin shipping on October 1st, they say. They're going to have 5,000 SD movies. And then they were telling the press there that there will be HD films before Christmas. That's what I was reading in the press, anyway. So that would be very cool.
Craig: Interesting.
Jack: What's coolest about this box though—and you can go up on their website and check it out...
Craig: Tell them. Tell them.
Jack: It's using Dolby Digital Plus.
Craig: As the audio codec.
Jack: As the audio codec.
Craig: And what's the benefit of that?
Jack: Meaning you can deliver movies over the Internet with 5.1-channel Dolby sound. And that's like the coolest thing.
Craig: Got to love it. Got to love it.
Jack: I know. I'm really excited about this box.
Craig: And you know what's cool about that, also, is the fact that, since they're doing Dolby Digital Plus, if you've got one of these next-generation AV receivers we talked about.
Jack: I don't know if it has bitstream out. Does it? It might have decoding in the box.
Craig: It might. We'll have to check on that.
Jack: We've got to check this out. October 1st, it comes out, which is in a matter of days. In fact, by the time this podcast launches, it should be after the date that they've released this thing.
Craig: But one of the things we've been telling our listeners is one of the reasons for buying a next-generation AV receiver is you are going to see set-top boxes in the future that are basically going to output a bitstream of Dolby Digital Plus.
Jack: You will. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Craig: Whether it's cable, DBS, IPTV, or near video-on-demand.
Jack: Absolutely. This product does have HDMI, so I guess. I don't know. We'll find out, I guess. Yeah.
Craig: We'll have to check and give our listeners a full report.
Jack: The name of the company's VUDU. It's the coolest thing. It's kind of a glimpse into the future, if you will, the idea of movies being delivered over the Internet. I thought that was very, very cool. And they were showing that off at CEDIA. But, Craig, as much as I hate to say it, I think that might bring us to the end of today's show.
Craig: Yeah, we don't want to bore them too much, do we?
[laughter]
Jack: There's so much new stuff to talk about!
Craig: And we don't want to say anything about Abbey Road again, do we?
Jack: No, no Abbey Road. No Abbey Road.
Craig: No, we don't want to do that. We're not going there.
Jack: I'll razz you about it, though, after we get off the air here. Listen. I'm Jack Buser.
Craig: And I'm Craig Eggers.
Jack: And together, we form a big robot named Dolbycast!
Craig: Dolbycast!
Jack: [laughs] All right. Talk to you next time.
[music]
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