karzkar

CAR: 2007 IS 350 with Mark Levinson Audio/NAV

I own four DVD-AUDIOs' :

1. Crystal Method- Legion of Boom
2. Seal- Best
3. Metallica- Black Album
4. Beatles- Love

All these titles are either Dolby Digital or DTS capable.

I will refer to these titles as discs 1,2,3,4 in the following:

Here is the problem:

Discs 1, 2 play in DTS or DOLBY digital. If it doesnt show up as default, all i have to do is either goto the top menu and choose the sound format as DTS or DOLBY (or) use the touchscreen and choose 'Audio' button and then change it to DTS or DOLBY digital.

.....But, Discs 3,4 start playing in stereo mode(PCM). When i goto the top menu, disc 2 has a surround playlist option, which if i choose still plays in stereo(PCM). I try the 'Audio' button in the touch screen and it shows me the 'no go' sign (red circle with \). Disc 4 doesnt have any such option in the top menu and it does the same when i try the 'Audio' button on the touchscreen.

Please help me with this problem. Does anyone own titles 3,4 and have played it successfully in 5.1 surround on the ML? Please Advice.
Thanks in advance for your help.

BlitzIS350

i have the linkin park dvd-a and i know that it has 15 tracks in dts and the same 15 tracks in regular stereo. might check the disc to see if it has that option.

karzkar

The Metallica DVD-A i have has about 12 tracks in surround and the same in stereo. But even if i choose the surround, it still plays it in stereo mode(PCM). Let me know how ures work.

r1lee

Ok, here's your problem.

1. Why are you using DD or DTS as your format's for disc 1 + 2. The DVD-Audio part of the Mark Levinson sound system should automatically default to the DVD-Audio layer of the disc. You should not be able or shouldn't be listening to the DD or DTS soundtracks, as they are inferior in terms of sound quality. The Disc's should automatically play similar to a CD when inserted, this is what SACD and DVD-A is supposed to do. The only reason why a DD or DTS option should appear is if the deck itself does not support DVD-Audio.

2. Does the system tell you what bit rate and sampling rates it's currently playing in stereo mode on disc 3+4? If it's playing 192khz/24bit then you are indeed listening to DVD-A. As that's the highest sampling rate. The DVD-A still uses's the PCM format for recording music, but at a much higher rate then CD's which is 44.1khz/16bit.
But I'm looking at the spec's of the beatles - love DVD-Audio and it does support multichannel surround sound for DVD-A. At Multi channel you should be listening to 96kHz/24bit.

Here are the spec's of DVD-A on wikipedia. If you scroll and read it through, you will notice under player compatibility, that it will also have a DOlby Digital or DTS sound track for copmatibility. But in no way should you guy's be using these as an option!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD-A

I honestly believe, that the DVD-A in the 2IS's are defective or not working. As it seems to be in your case. I have a collection of SACD and DVD-Audio disc's for my collection and play them in my home system without any hiccups. But it seems like the ML deck is not doing it properly. Let me know what your outcomes are!

karzkar

r1lee,
Thanks a lot for the response. I chose to play Discs 1,2 in DD or DTS since i get a better surround sound effect(5.1 or 6.1) in them versus playing them in stereo(2.1). For example, disc 1 is a 'DTS' disc.

http://www.avrev.com/music/revs/legionofboom.shtml


The system does tell me what bit rate and sampling rates it's playing in stereo mode on disc 3+4, but id have to run to the car to check on that. will post information on that shortly.

If the DVD-A is capable of DTS or DD 5.1 or 6.1 surround then id rather listen to it in that mode instead of 2.1 stereo mode.

I might have made some assumptions in my response which might be wrong, please correct if any. Please advice me further in this issue. Thanks.

r1lee

Sorry if my response is a little all over the place.

Majority of all DVD-A disc's are multichannel DVD-Audio. Meaning, you should be playing disc 1+2+3+4 in multichannel DVD-A at a sampling rate of 96kHz/24bit (as that is max PCM rate for multichannel). If you look on the back of the disc, it should tell you what DVD-Audio supports. Multichannel, 2.1 or 2.0.

As I'm researching all your materials (the four listed) all your DVD-A should support multichannel without having to use DTS or DD.

DD and DTS should only be used if DVD-Audio is not supported. So in cases where a dvd player does not support DVD-Audio you have the option of using DD and DTS as surround sound.

DVD-Audio is a surround sound standard. But some older material was only made in 2.1. All your materials are not. If you click on that wikipedia link i sent you it will tell you what the sampling rates/bits are used for different DVD-A setups. ie. If a disc is only recorded in 2.1 then you should expect a higher PCM rate. If it's recorded in surround sound you should expect something less. Surround sound at 96kHz/24bit will always be better then DD or DTS.

Like I said before, your DVD-A disc's should pop in and play in surround sound DVD-Audio quality. You shouldn't have to use DD or DTS sound track. In the case of disc 3+4 let me know what quality you are getting. As it doesn't seem right to me either.

r1lee

I cut this off of the Wikipedia site. The Mark Levinson system is not doing something right. It's playing the DVD-Video portion of the disc.

"Because the DVD-Audio format is a member of the DVD family, a single disc can have multiple layers and even two sides that contain media. A common configuration includes a "DVD-Video" zone on a DVD-Audio formatted single sided disc. The high-resolution, multichannel audio losslessly encoded using MLP is only playable on DVD-Audio hardware but the DVD-Video zone, which can contain Dolby or DTS 5.1 mixes and even video makes the disc compatible with all DVD players. Other configurations include double layer DVDs [DVD-9] and two-sided discs [DVD-10, DVD-14 or DVD-18]. Some labels are releasing DVD titles that are formatted as DVD-Audio on one side and DVD-Video on the other."

karzkar

r1lee,
So are you saying, although it is playing in PPCM 96khz...it is still 5.1 surround sound?

r1lee

DVD-Audio standard is just a higher sampling rate then normal CD. Take a look at that wikipedia site. It still uses the PCM technology.

Here is how you will define if you are getting DVD-Audio quality.

1. CD quality (best) = 44.1kHz/16bit (so if you see 44.1kHz are you just getting CD quality)

2. Anything higher then this is DVD-Audio quality up till the maximum sampling rate of 192kHz/24bit. At that high of a sampling rate though, you will only get 2 channels.

The question is, what sampling rates are you getting? Why are they only playing in stereo mode?

Something is wrong here. I can't pin point it for you as I think the ML deck is defective. But all your DVD-Audio discs are multichannel DVD-Audio. So there is no reason to be listening to any of these in DD, DTS or stereo mode.

Are you getting 96kHz? If so, then turn off your front speakers and listen to your rear's only. Tell me what you hear.

Irishman06

Maybe the deck is only designed to play the DVD-video layer/s. I don't know the exact specs, but it seems like, from your wikipedia quotes, this would explain what's going on.

r1lee

According to this website it supports DVD-Audio.

http://www.marklevinsonlexus.com/overview.asp?model=is

karzkar

r1lee/Irishman06,
Thanks for your responses.

It does play at 96kHz...which is good, so tomm i will try cancelling the front speakers and listening to the rear.

If surround works: I shouldnt hear the complete music in the rear

If surround doesnt work: Then i should hear the song as normal(complete) in the rear speakers also.

Is this assumption correct?

karzkar

The problem is..on Discs 1,2 i can clearly make out the different sounds from different speakers...versus 3,4 which sounds more like 2.1 although it plays at 96 khz.

But i will try cancelling the front speakers tomm and get back to you guys..thank you so much for the help.

r1lee

If the mixes were done properly. DD, DTS and DVD-A all should have the same sound. The DVD-A track should sound sharper.

clubfoot

Actually, DVD-Audio may sound smoother because of the higher sampling rate making it sound closer to analog. But, yes I agree that if the mixes were done right they will sound pretty close to each other.

Are you sure you have "surround" mode selected in the ML audio setup menu? Not the disc menu!