HD-DVD PCM Audio Distortion Through HDMI

michaeltee · Post by **michaeltee** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 7:33 pm

I've done a bit of experimenting with VS11's ability to author and burn HD-DVD content to standard DVD-R media. My Toshiba HD-DVD player instantly recognized the standard disc as HD-DVD and the video playback quality was spectacular. However their were some issues with the "QuickTrack" audio.

For reference, the playback scenario is:

Toshiba "A30" 1080p HD-DVD player connected via HDMI to a Mitsubishi 1080p DLP (native video mode).

The audio results were as follows:

I/O:

HDMI, Auto mode: Audio highly distorted
HDMI, PCM: Audio highly distorted
HDMI, PCM downmix: Audio highly distorted
Toslink Opto, bitstream mode: Audio excellent
Toslink Opto, PCM: Audio good, perhaps a tiny amount of distortion

Also worth mentioning, my DVD menu background audio, a standard mp3 clip, played clearly regardless of audio I/O mode. Also, the VS compatible QuickTrack I used was purchased directly from SmartSound a few years ago, not one of the tracks included with VS11.

Anyway, just curious if others have encountered anything similar. Comments, questions, suggestions welcome

Thanks,
-Mike

etech6355 · Post by **etech6355** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 10:17 pm

Mike,
What audio format did you burn on the HD-DVD?
Lpcm/mpeg/dolby?

michaeltee · Post by **michaeltee** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 10:29 pm

In this case, Stereo LPCM @ 48000 Hz. Maybe I should give DD or MPEG a try.

-Mike

etech6355 · Post by **etech6355** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 1:55 am

You know I had similar problems and there was a configuration setting in the player that said "Convert To BitStream". After changing this setting so it displayed "Convert To BitStream" if fixed the problem(s).
So the problem was on the players side.

I've read on the web where usually this should be PCM, but one most of my configurations the "BitStream" setting seems to work better.

michaeltee · Post by **michaeltee** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 2:23 am

I'm thinking that might be the case. I don't believe the PCM track is corrupt as the quality is fairly decent through Toslink. Apparently my A30 player can't output bitstream via HDMI as the only setup options are PCM and Downmix PCM. Or perhaps my DLP is disabling the bitstream option at it's HDMI port. I dunno... it's a mystery

-Mike