Blu-ray Digital Output

I have an Oppo BP-83 blu-ray player. What kind of signal does it output via its digital ports? Would I be able to feed it into an external DAC and retain "blu-ray audio" quality?

 

From their website: http://www.oppodigital.com/blu-ray-bdp-83/

Output

Analog Audio: 7.1ch or 5.1ch, stereo
Digital Audio: Coaxial, Optical
HDMI Audio: Stereo, up to 7.1ch high-resolution PCM, up to 5.1ch DSD, bitstream or LPCM conversion of Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD, DTS, DTS-HD High Resolution Audio, and DTS-HD Master Audio.

 

I know it has coaxial and optical outputs, but there is no mention of what comes out of those ports.

 

PCM, Dolby Digital, the usual

 

I guess the short answer would be "not lossless". If you want that its gotta be either HDMI or analog out.

 

You can send up to 24/48 stereo out of the coax/optical jack from Blu-ray material.

 

Thanks! I'm guessing I'm better off with the analog outputs into the pre-amp.

 

Or use something like this (from Octava or similars) to split of digital audio from the HDMI-signal when Oppo is setup to output lpcm over HDMI:

HDMI 1x1 Audio Converter

 

If you run stereo interconnects from the Blu-ray to the preamp, you're relying on the DAC in the Blu-ray, which might not be as good as your external DAC. I run the optical digital output from an entry-level Blu-ray to my DAC and get better stereo sound from it that way.

 

But only from a BluRay DTS signal or other low resolution track; it won't be a high-resolution lossless track you are hearing.

 

The original poster was asking about his OPPO BDP-83 player, which will pass up to 24bit 48kHz from the optical or coax connector from stereo hi-rez Blu-ray material.

For example, if he were to play the hi-rez 24/96 stereo Dolby TrueHD track from The Police:Certifiable Blu-ray, the player would send out 24/48 from the optical/coax jack to his DAC.

 

So, for anything better than 2448, you must stay HDMI for any format?

 

With the Oppo BDP-83 and most other Blu-ray players, HDMI or analog is required for SACD, DVD-A, and the various Blu-ray advanced codecs (lossless uncompressed LPCM, DTS-HD MA, Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD HR, and Dolby Digital Plus). It is possible to down size the various codecs for use with optical or coaxial digital and whether or not that can be better than 24kHz/24-Bit would be a matter of personal opinion, I would assume. You can also play the 1.5Mbps core stream from DTS-HD MA and DTS 96kHz/24-Bit over coaxial and optical. Some players may be able to convert Dolby Digital Plus to DTS and send higher resolution audio over optical or coaxial, I recall doing that with an HD DVD player.

There may be some proprietary digital connections with various other models such as those from Denon or Marantz, that can handle some of the audio possibilities at full resolution when connected to an amplifier that can handle that but I don't believe that is possible with any of the Blu-ray advanced audio codecs.

The simple answer is use analog or HDMI for the high resolution lossless audio codecs.

Chris

 

As a general rule, yes. The execptions would be 24/96 DAD discs or 24/192 HDAD discs from Classic Records. These can be output at full resolution over optical/coax.

 

On my concert videos there's a 2-channel PCM program. PCM is an uncompressed format.

 

Yes, are many of those greater than 48kHz/24-Bit? I can't recall any concert videos I own that are above that but it is possible and that can be played over optical or coaxial digital out.

Chris

 

I believe the Oppo (and most DVD/Bluray players with any quality pretentions) will output 24/96 2-channel LPCM over coax of non-copyright material. Much copyright material will be limited (downsampled) to 24/48 over coax, although not material where the copyright tag is left out of the data (e.g., the above mentioned Classic Records releases)

 

I hadn't thought of that. I believe 24-bit is the max.

 

24-bit word length is always the max, but Chris suggested that 48kHz sampling rate might also be the max and that would make it a standard resolution recording and not a high-resolution recording.
All players will play standard resolution (44.1 or 48 kHz) music over digital outputs. It is only high-resolution recordings (88.2 / 96 / 176.4 / 192 or DSD) with copy protection that will be downsampled for playback over digital output or may only be playable over analogue outputs.

 

That looks very interesting!

 

I do believe that's true. I think you cannot get the high-resolution program from the digital output. I am still wondering though about whether post #7 is true...better off using the Blu-ray's analog outputs.

 

No more hi-res component video output

Consider the following if you are on the fence regarding buying a Blu-ray player:

After December 31, 2010, manufacturers will not be "allowed" to introduce new hardware with component video outputs supplying more than an SD resolution (480i or 576i). If the manufacturer has existing models in its line-up, it will be able to continue selling that model until the end of 2013.

Also: After January 1, 2011, the manufacturers of Blu-ray discs will be able (at their option) to insert an Image Constraint Token into any Blu-ray disc. This is a sort of "digital flag" that will turn off the high-definition component video output in the player (effectively turning it into a low-resoluton 480i/576i output). The goal is to make sure that all high-definition video will only be made possible through "secure" digital connections like HDMI.

 

You can get the full hi-res signal up to 24/192 from blu-ray and DVD Audio out of the Oppo and send it to an external dac for the best sound. To do this you need to purchase an Atlona HD 570 HDMI audio de-embedder. Amazon have them and cost is about $155. The Oppo then becomes a high end digital transport.

 

Yes, you can do that but that has absolutely nothing to do with the OPs original question. He specifically asked about the S/PDIF outputs of the Oppo 83. This is a neat option though.

 

The Atlona looks interesting. How is it different from the Octavia previously mentioned?

http://www.octavainc.com/HDMI 1x1 Audio Converter.html