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  • The Last 5 Years (2002 Off-Broadway Cast)

    • 10 out of 10
    • Jason Robert Brown
    • The soundtrack to this moving off-broadway musical is heart moving. The lyrics follow a couple in a relationship for five years, one point of view going forward in time, and the other tracing time fr
  • Plans

    • 8 out of 10
    • Death Cab for Cutie
    • With the introduction of Plans, Death Cab for Cutie became a new addition to many user's Artist list after the single "Soul Meets Body" became a hit on iTunes. Offering a fresh alternativ

  • Billy Miles

    • 10 out of 10
    • Billy Miles
    • Take the voice of a young Billie Holiday and stuff it into a svelte, petite body with the face of an angel, and you have some idea of what it's like to experience the music of Billy Miles in her self-
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Once More, with Feeling

    • 10 out of 10
    • Various Artists
    • Most musical episodes of TV shows frankly stink. They are usually little more than ill-conceived vehicles intended to let the stars show off what musical talent they have. Once More, With Feeling,

  • Jagged Little Pill (Acoustic)

    • 6 out of 10
    • Alanis Morissette
    • Ten years after the original release, comes the traditional celebratory acoustic re-recording. The album has held up remarkably well. While it is not as meaningful to me as it was when I was sixteen,

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The Fireside Guide: Moving to High Definition, Audio Selection

If you’re already an audio enthusiast, you may already have a Surround Sound system with many speakers and a high quality sound system. However, for many who’ve just been watching SDTV through the TV speakers or even a basic stereo receiver with two front speakers, now is the time to consider moving from simple stereo TV sound broadcast with SDTV to the Dolby Digital 5.1 sound transmitted with HDTV signals.

Recall that the "5" means five channels: left and right front channels, a center channel in the front (which carries most of the dialog), and left and right in the rear. The additional ".1" refers to the low frequency effects of a subwoofer, typically under 80 Hz.

At the very least, you should consider a five speaker system with HDTV. Whether you want to add the skin pounding effects of a subwoofer is optional depending on whether you’re, to put it somewhat informally, into "explosion TV."

The thing to remember is that you won’t get the high quality HDTV audio sound out of the traditional red and white RCA audio jacks on the back of your source, say, a satellite or cable box. To get that high quality sound, you’ll need to use the digital optical audio port (sometimes called Toslink) or a coaxial digital port or the HDMI port.

There really isn’t any fundamental difference between the quality of audio sent over coaxial digital audio cables or optical digital audio. The optical mode is recommended in a noisy RF environment (lots of power wires nearby) or for long cable runs (over 10 feet). On the other hand, the caxial audio cable is an RCA-type plug and will tend to remain more securely attached. However, just because its an RCA-plug doesn’t mean any old RCA audio cable will do. You’ll need to visit a home electronics store and specifically ask for a "coaxial digital audio cable." It can trip up the best of salesmen. A three foot cable will set you back $15. A three foot Toslink digital optical audio cable will be about the same.

Older DVD players, those with component video out will likely have both optical digital and coaxial digital outputs. Some older set top boxes with component video out will also have the same. Of course, if you have a very new satellite or cable receiver with HDMI, then you won’t need either.

Selecting an A/V Receiver

Regrettably, many HDTVs have sample wiring diagrams in the manual that omit the key component, a good audio/video (A/V) receiver that serves as the nerve center of your HDTV system and can drive all the speakers. Instead, they show the audio wiring going right into the TV, even if it’s HDMI. The result, of course, is that all that wonderful Dolby Digital 5.1 sound is two-channel downmixed to two tiny, pathetic 10 W speakers in your HDTV.

Don’t do it.

Modest A/V receivers, designed to accept component video, switch between two HDMI sources, and drive six speakers with a modest output can be had for a few hundred to five hundred dollars. It makes sense that if you’re going to spend $1,000 to $3,000 on an HDTV that you invest in a modern A/V receiver. Those with internal video scalers that can upconvert 480i inputs will be closer to $1,000. Less expensive models will pass the signals through and let the HDTV handle the conversion. In general, high end A/V receivers will have better scalers than low end TVs. TANSTAAFL.

Also, middle of the road receivers with a scaler don’t always cross feed and scale S-video and component video to 720p or 1080p into the HDMI output. You may end up with both component and HDMI cables going into your TV. Pay attention to this. Some research here will pay off.

In summary, you’re going to send your HD video and audio out of your HD source either via component video + digital audio or a single HDMI cable into a an A/V receiver. Solid brands to consider are Denon, Onkyo, Sony and Yamaha. Make sure it has plenty of component video inputs and at least two HDMI inputs. The receiver will then send a single audio/video pair to the TV, again either via component video + digital audio or HDMI. Now, your receiver can drive a whole bunch of speakers, your choice, from a mere five up to possibly eight, depending on how far you want to go with Surround Sound. For starters, I would say start with a 5.1 system.

Sound Formats

The next thing you’ll be confronted with is the plethora of confusing sound formats that are associated with the A/V receiver. It’s really a shame that Dolby (and DTS) have generated so may different formats, and it is indeed confusing. However, the only thing you need to remember is that the standard for HTDV system uses what’s called Dolby Digital 5.1. Sometimes, less capable formats are encapsulated within that format when broadcast, but all receivers for the last 15 years or so have always been able to handle DD 5.1. More exotic formats are used on HD dics, such as Blu-ray and HD DVD.

Another thing to note is that, in order to conserve broadcast bandwidth, DD 5.1 is a highly compressed format. It’s compressed by a factor of about 12:1. Without that compression, the six audio channels would require a bitstream of about 6 Mbps. After the compression, and other techniques, the net bitstream is 448 Kbps. Much more palatable for over-the-or broadcasts. The carriers like it too.

Dolby Digital provides up to left/right front, left/right rear, a front "center" channel and a low frequency effects (LFE). These five channels plus the LFE channel form that "5.1" nomenclature. However, not all program sources populate all these channels.

Unfortunately, there are some wrinkles which I need to cover briefly.

1. Dolby Digital is also used for SD satellite and cable broadcasts, but only the left and right stereo channels are populated.

2. Because the six channels of Dolby Digital 5.1 are highly compressed, it’s practical for delivery in bandwidth constrained systems such as over-the-air, cable and satellite. However, when there are fewer limitations, such as an HD disc, like Blu-ray or HD DVD, there are better alternatives.

3. Dolby Digital is also called AC-3 (Audiocoder 3).

4. A competitor to Dolby, DTS, is on equal footing. Each camp has periodically leap frogged the other with exotic compression techniques. Finally, each camp has arrived at lossless formats which could be used on HD dics, but are not yet used.

For the sake of simplicity, and to maintain our sanity, I’ll just take a quick look at some other more advanced, less lossy Dolby formats that you will run across. Here’s a tutorial if you want to learn a little more.

Dolby Digital Plus. This is a relatively new format that allows for a higher bit rate, up to 6.14 Mbps. It is mandatory for HD DVD discs, optional on Blu-ray. Currently, Blu-ray delivers 1.7 Mbps and HD DVD 3.0 Mbps. Another feature is that up to 13 channels are supported, however, only seven are supplied on current HD DVD/Blu-ray discs

Dolby TrueHD. Dolby Digital and Dolby Digital Plus are lossy formats. While the compression mechanism, takes into the account the human psychoacoustic principles, we have the storage capacity now to support a lossless format. That’s what Dolby TrueHD is. It supports a data rate of up to 18 Mbps. It is mandatory on HD DVD and optional on Blu-ray.

These last two formats won’t be found on over the air broadcast which is limited to about 19 Mbps total, audio plus video. Cable and satellite providers, pressed for bandwidth, settle for Dolby Digital which only requires, as I mentioned, 448 Kbps.

Speaker Selection

You’ve arrived at the point where you have the sound coming out of an antenna, cable or satellite set top box. You’ve sent that sound into a decent A/V receiver by, for example, Denon, Onkyo, Sony or Yamaha. Now it’s time to connect five (or maybe six of a subwoofer is included) speakers. And you’ll need speaker wire.

Radio Shack is a great place to buy speaker wire. Home theater stores may over charge for this item. Get good quality, 16 guage, (not 18) color coded copper wire. It’ll work fine.

Speakers are another matter. Like optics, computers and cars, it’s possible to spend arbitrarily high anounts of money for audio speakers. Unless you’re an audiophile expert, your beginner HDTV system will do just fine with front speakers in the $200-$300 range each. A good center channel speaker will be a little less, maybe $150-$200. You can probably get by with smaller rear bookshelf speakers for $125 each. Anything up from there will be better, depending on the training of your ears.

Fireside HDTV Rule #5. The jump to a five speaker system is more important than infinitely fine details of expensive, exotic speakers.

High Definition Disc Players

Finally, down the road, you may consider purchasing a high defition disc player, either Blu-ray or HD DVD. When purchasing such an HD player, one must be mindful of what formats it can decode and the current and potential formats likely to be placed on HD discs. A good place to start is the Wikipedia entries for each format which has a chart of the mandatory and optional sound formats for Blu-ray and HD DVD. These Wikipedia entries also show a list of player models so you can research price vs. capability.

On one hand, studios will likely elect to stay with traditional baseline formats to avoid customer confusion and maintain compatibility. On the other hand, in the Blu-ray HD DVD war, there could soon be a race to the lossless HD formats which can’t be exploited on older, first generation HD players. Or low-cost, Christmas-special, loss leader players.

Moreover, if your A/V receiver can’t decode the more advanced, less lossy formats, then it doesn’t make sense to invest in a player that could play those audio formats in the future. They’ll be ignored and the fallback format will be selected. Just like with computer’s memory, disk, and bus speed, you’ll want a well-balanced architecture.

You’ll pay much more for components that will allow you to upgrade later to movies that (may) have lossless sound. Middle of the road A/V receivers at about $500 and low end HD players found at discount chains will have adequate decoders, that is DD 5.1 and DTS, that will be acceptable until you learn more and want to upgrade.

As an experiment, take a look at the back of any DVD package you have in the house. You’ll likely see a common thread: Dolby Digital 5.1. While expensive HD players and receivers can do more, if you start there, watch DVDs with video upscaled to your HDTV, you’ll have a great starting experience with HDTV video and audio.

Fireside HDTV Rule #6. It’s more important to get started with a basic Dolby Digital 5.1 system and start to enjoy it than to fret about the more exotic sound formats.

A Starting Point

I would recommend calling a company called Crutchfield. (800-555-9507, crutchfield.com) Ask for their catalog. We’ll talk about mail order sales later, and looking at their catalog is a good way to start matching components. Crutchfield doesn’t showcase everything, just a good selection of solid components, A/V receivers, HDTVs, and speakers. You’ll get a feel for the state of the art and be able to conceive of a baseline system -- even if you change your mind later on specific items. It’s a agreat place to start.

After Thanksgiving: HD source selection.


Here are the links to all six articles in the series.

Nov 7th:The Fireside Guide: Moving to High Definition, Introduction

Nov 13th: The Fireside Guide: Moving to High Definition, Display Selection

Nov 16th: The Fireside Guide: Moving to High Definition, Audio Selection

Nov 29th: The Fireside Guide: Moving to High Definition, Source Selection

Dec 6th: The Fireside Guide: Moving to High Definition, Installation

Dec 14th: The Fireside Guide: Moving to High Definition, Sample Systems

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