StarThoughts said:

Question: How does the theatrical DTS standard differ from the home video incarnation (assuming 1536 kb/s)? How much advantage is gained by presenting it in DTS-MA? Or is it just being done in this manner to avoid any possible transcoding issues?

I agree with Jetrell Fo insomuch as that I cannot speak for how TeamBlu are processing their audio, but from a purely factual point of view I can answer this question.

Theatrical DTS is not 1536kbit/s, in fact its not even close. Its encoded at 882kbit/s so that it can fit onto two CD-ROM's (some longer films use three), so its not lossless. It also has a sample rate of 44.1KHz @16-bit compared to DVD's 48KHz@16 or 24-bit sample rate. The audio on the discs is also mastered for cinema, so its very loud compared to a home-media DTS track.

That said, my opinion (having extensively worked on the whole trilogy last year) is that they do sound excellent, certainly better than the 1997 Laserdisc audio and are the best way to experience the '97 SE's.

There is absolutely nothing to lose by encoding them to DTS-HD MA because its backwards compatible with DTS. If the lossless 'extention' is not used, then the DTS-HD file will be the same size as a regular DTS file because thats what the 'core' of a DTS-HD MA audio track is, meaning its backwards compatible with DTS. There are no transcoding issues because the audio can only be extracted directly to WAV before you can do anything with it, so from then on it is 'lossless'.

I'm just looking forward to hearing it all along with the best visual representation possible (even if it is the SE!). I'm sure TeamBlu have done a first-class job, as usual!