Legends of Jazz brings Dolby TrueHD to Blu-ray
By Richard Lawler 
posted Oct 12th 2006 8:28AM
posted Oct 12th 2006 8:28AM
One of the ways Blu-ray has trailed HD DVD so far is inclusion of advanced audio codecs, but that will start to turn around later this month when Legends of Jazz "Showcase" is released. As we noted when the series first aired on PBS, it was produced in HD and 5.1 surround sound to enable viewers to fully experience the musicians featured. This disc will be the first Blu-ray release to include a 24-bit Dolby TrueHD 5.1 lossless soundtrack (along with Dolby Digital 5.1and PCM Stereo options) that Dolby Labs exec Craig Eggers says captures "every nuance" of the performance. In Europe a copy will be included with each Samsung BD-P1000 Blu-ray player, somewhat bittersweet because it doesn't support Dolby TrueHD. The Playstation 3 will, but what other upcoming players can decode the audio format is unclear. Still, especially if you've got a PS3 preordered and an HDMI 1.3-capable receiver at the ready -- who doesn't? -- a better way to experience the 13 performances will be hard to find after its release October 24th, with an MSRP of $34.98.[Via The Man Room]
Are there any AV recievers that can accept TrueHD? If not, then its a moot point for either format (for now).
I can't recall any HDMI 1.3 enabled A/V Receivers yet but you can still have the Blu-Ray player transcode to PCM and send through a HDMI port just the same. Quality should still be damn good.
Ooo, yeah!, PBS special. Can't wait to spend $700 to view this on a PS3.
Putter,
I thought that you could pass TrueHD audio through the RCA inputs of just about any AV Receiver, Although I may be wrong.
you only need an HDMI1.1 receiver, to get the full benefit. HDMI 1.1 will have the player decode it to the 6,7, or 8 channel pcm and pass it to the reciever. Your reciever stills does the digital to analog, and any other digital processing. I have a $6500 Anthem D2 processor and even the Anthem guys said they doubted I would hear a difference with the player decoding the signal or the anthem, the hard stuff is still done in the Anthem.
There are no HDMI repeaters (switchers) available for A/V receivers...yet. Probably this time next year is when you'll see all the major brands hawking HDMI 1.3 switching. Only a handful of HDMI 1.3 output devices are available (most having been already reportedly snatched up by Sony for their PS3). In the meantime, however, uncompressed multi-channel LPCM is pretty sweet (better than standard DD or dts), which only makes sense since most movies audio are mastered in LPCM anyway and then converted over to DD or dts for commercial release.