96KHz/24-bit Audio

Okay, so I need help with something. I have a PS3 hooked up to my Yamaha YHT-590 via an optical cable. Now, I am looking forward to purchasing a Nine Inch Nails (band) box-set and one of the items in it is a Blu-ray with the album in 96KHz/24-bit Stereo. Now my question is, with the hardware I have, is that even possible to hear? Or will it be downgraded? On my receiver description it has: "Audio D/A Converter 24bit / 192kHz." I think that means it CAN support a 96KHz stream, but does the PS3 output at that? And can it pass through optical, because my receiver does not support HDMI audio pass through. I tried finding a Blu-ray I currently own with a 96KHz stream but all of em only say 48KHz at the most. So if anyone can clear this up for me, thanks!

If your reciever says it can support 24/96 then it should be able to receive that resolution of audio over an optical or coaxial audio cable (in uncompressed stereo, not surround though). The problem is almost definitely with the PS3.

Little known to most, regular DVDs support uncompressed 24/96 audio in stereo (although it is seldom used because it hogs a massive amount of the disc's bandwidth), and most DVD players can output it (even the cheap ones) the trick is they are set by default to down-convert the audio to 16/48 in order to remain compatible with receivers that don't support 24/96. If it was on by default everything would work fine when you played a disc that was 16/48 but as soon as you inserted that one 24/96 disc your older receiver wouldn't know what to do with the signal and you would hear no audio at all. So if you have a receiver that does support 24/96 audio you had to hunt through your DVD's menus and switch the output from 16/48 to 24/96.

So I'm sure that just like the DVD players the PS3 is set to down-convert to 16/48 by default. This should be simple to change, but since I don't own a PS3 I can't point you to the correct menu, but hopefully you can find it now that you know what you are looking for, or somebody with a little more PS3 familiarity can point you to it.

I believe the NIN box-sets are uncompressed 24/96 in 5.1 channels. As I said at the beginning optical/coaxial only supports stereo. I'm not 100% sure if HDMI supports 24/96 uncompressed in 5.1 and above, but I think it likely does. But as you said you receiver does not support this.

There is DTS 24/96. If the PS3 can transcode the uncompressed 5.1 24/96 audio to compressed DTS 24/96 which your receiver might be able to decode (receivers that support only regular DTS will ignore the extra bit depth and play it back as 16/48 even if they support uncompressed 24/96 stereo) you would get the benefit of 24/96 but it would be degraded slightly by the DTS compression (especially since the PS3 would be a lousy compressor compared to the pro ones used to make actual DTS tracks).

By far the best option for uncompressed multi-channel audio from Blu-ray is a player with multi-channel analog output connected to the multi-channel analog ins on your receiver. I own the Samsung BDP-2550 which has 7.1 analog outs (which you can switch to 5.1 output for a 5.1 receiver). The audio quality is amazing and the player decodes all the HD codecs (including DTS-HD Master Audio with the latest firmware which is a rarity in players).

Then again, if I am wrong about the NIN box-set being 5.1 and it is in-fact stereo, then your all set with a simple optical cable once you find that setting in the PS3's menu.




Incidentally I ran into the exact same problem trying to play a 24/96 DVD of NIN album The Slip I had made (from the free 24/96 WAVs Reznor posted) in an older DVD player. It's totally worth getting proper output of 24/96 audio, especially with NIN stuff. Reznor likes his 24/96 and takes full advantage.

btw, which box-set are we talking here? Is this the $300 Ghosts set?

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[Post edited by the_dvd_chef on Feb 13, 2009 - CST 2:26 AM]

Yeah well I burned the SLIP files onto a dvd to test it out to see if it output at 96KHz, but it burned as a data disc and when I tried playing the wav files, it said the file wasnt supported. So when I eventually get the blu-ray, I'm gonna have to see if it's compatible. Hopefully it will be. I tried messing with the ps3 settings but I had no idea what to change. And yeah I was talking about the $300 one.

EDIT: How exactly did u make a dvd of The Slip wav's? I have the 96/24 wavs but how do you make a dvd-audio disc?

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[Post edited by VertigoPanic on Feb 13, 2009 - CST 2:28 AM]

Quote:
Yeah well I burned the SLIP files onto a dvd to test it out to see if it output at 96KHz, but it burned as a data disc and when I tried playing the wav files, it said the file wasnt supported.

Even though all DVD players can playback 24/96 tracks not all DVD authoring software can create 24/96 tracks. DVD Studio Pro can, but other than that I think you are restricted to the high-end stuff like Scenarist. Also you have to create a video track to go along with the audio (usually a continuous still image for each song) in order for it to be an actual DVD. These are video DVDs I am talking about. DVD-Audio can support 5.1 channels of uncompressed 24/96 but there aren't that many Blu-ray players that support it (you really need a dedicated DVD-Audio player) and it they are even harder to author. A properly authored DVD-Video with a 24/96 stereo track is 100% compatible with DVD players though.

I can post the DVD image of The Slip for you to download if you like. The album is freely distributable so there wont be any copyright issues with posting it here.



Also note I added some stuff to my first post after I remembered Ghosts was 5.1 not stereo.

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[Post edited by the_dvd_chef on Feb 13, 2009 - CST 2:39 AM]

Ghosts is in Stereo though. From nin.com "and a Blu-ray disc with Ghosts I-IV in high-definition 96/24 stereo and accompanying slideshow." I searched for a torrent and theres one with the .iso file but since I already HAVE the wavs, the guy said he used DVD-Audio Solo Plus Edition. So I'm gonna try burning it with that to see how it goes.

Quote:
Ghosts is in Stereo though. From nin.com "and a Blu-ray disc with Ghosts I-IV in high-definition 96/24 stereo and accompanying slideshow."

Yeah, then I was wrong about the 5.1. You should be fine over optical as long as you can flip that setting on the PS3.

Quote:
I searched for a torrent and theres one with the .iso file but since I already HAVE the wavs, the guy said he used DVD-Audio Solo Plus Edition. So I'm gonna try burning it with that to see how it goes.

It won't work because that is DVD-Audio, and your PS3 definitely won't play that. All of The Slip DVD images circling on Bit-torrent are either DVD-Audio or 16/48 DVD-Video. I guarantee mine is the only 24/96 DVD-Video version. Reznor himself was impressed with it but I have not released it on Bit-torrent yet because I am expanding it to include some cool video features as well as the high-res audio. I could post the old no bells and whistles audio version in the meantime though.

Ohhhhh okay, the yes! Please post! Thank you so much!

I will have to find the disc, and rip it, and upload it. I should be able to do that in the next few days.

I will post a link to this thread once it is ready for download.

Greatly appreciated, thanks!

Just really curious, how is it that Reznor was impressed by it? Do you post on the echoingthesound forums by any chance?