Sound Info

Dolby Digital (also known as AC-3) made its debut in cinemas in 1992 with Batman Returns. Since then, it has become the format of choice in both cinemas and the home. The Dolby Digital format caters for varying sound formats, ranging from mono up to full 5.1 surround sound. It is the 5.1 sound aspect that's most important, as it allows you to reproduce the film's soundtrack in your own home, exactly as it was heard in the cinema.

A 5.1 soundtrack will contain six distinct channels of audio for the positions of left, centre, right, left surround, right surround and the Low Frequency Effects (LFE, bass or ".1") channel. Unlike the analogue Dolby Surround and Pro Logic formats, Dolby Digital has two independant surround channels. This means that a 5.1 system will give a far greater sense of depth and localisation than a Pro Logic system. The LFE channel is a separate channel that allows the inclusion of low frequency bass sounds that are felt more than heard in the cinema. The LFE channel can be routed to either a separate subwoofer or to all five speakers individually. If even Dolby Digital isn't good enough for you, consider a DTS compatible sound system.

Also available, but much rarer, are DVDs with 5.0 Dolby Digital soundtracks. These discs offer the same 5 channel surround sound as 5.1 discs, but don't carry an LFE channel to provide the low frequency bass

Dolby Digital EX
Dolby Digital EX made its debut with the release of Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace across cinemas worldwide. Dolby Laboratories and Lucasfilm's THX collaboration on the new sound format adds a new channel, placed in the central rear part of the soundstage. This new 6.1 sound format allows the audience to be completely surrounded by sound like never before

DTS, full name Digital Theater Systems, made its debut in cinemas in 1993 with Steven Speilberg's Jurassic Park. Like Dolby Digital, DTS is an audio codec (meaning to code/decode) that can allow anywhere between one channel (mono) and six channels (5.1 surround) of digital sound. However, DTS uses less than one quarter the compression of Dolby Digital, meaning a DTS soundtrack is much closer in quality to the studio master. DTS audio offers more subtle nuances, giving individual sounds superb clarity; better dynamic range, meaning the loudest bangs have more depth and the quiet passages are free of noise; and finally, improved channel seperation across the 5.1 spectrum, for greater localisation of sound around the room. But because it's less compressed, the DTS soundtrack takes up more space on the DVD, meaning DTS discs often come with fewer extras or foreign language tracks.

Most DVD players available today will be able to handle DTS, either by using DTS Digital Out to pass the bitstream to an external amplifier for decoding, or by using its own internal DTS decoder. If you are interested in purchasing a player with DTS, or want to check whether your current player supports it, look for the DTS logo, such as the two below, on the player or refer to the player's instruction manual

DTS
Short for Digital Theatre System. DTS works with the same channel configuration as Dolby Digital. The main difference being a higher bit rate in DTS, which gives this system potential for an even higher sound quality.
DTS 96/24
High-quality 96-kHz, 24-bit (96/24) sound playback from ordinary DVD-Video recordings is limited to only two channels and there are also limitations on the picture. DVD-Video recorded in DTS 96/24, however, allows high-quality 5.1-channel sound playback in full-quality, full-motion video. DTS 96/24 lets you enjoy both digital output and video output from your existing DVD player.

DTS ES Discrete 6.1
Discrete 6.1, the latest format, utilises the digital discrete method to record all 6.1 channels, including the newly-added SB channel, as independent channels. A major feature of DTS-ES is its expressive power. Since the SL, SR, and SB channels are fully independent, sound can be freely designed and sound images can move freely and rapidly amongst each other within a background sound that envelopes the room from all sides.

DTS Neo:6
Featuring the newest DTS matrix processing technology, the DTS Neo:6 function provides up to 6.1 channel surround sound from conventional stereo sources, and can be used with virtually any 2 channel stereo source, analogue or digital, such as CD, tape, FM, TV, stereo VCR, etc. Two modes are provided: Neo:6 Cinema is optimised for surround encoded stereo movie soundtracks, while Neo:6 Music mode is optimised for superior surround sound with stereo music sources.

DTS-ES Matrix 6.1
ES Matrix processing, developed by DTS, recreates the original 6.1 channel soundfield by extracting the Surround Back information from the encoded Surround Left and Surround Right channels, and is superior to generic "logic" decoding as the ES Matrix function utilises the professional DTS-ES decoding algorithm as found in DTS-ES equipped movie theatres.

More Disk info

DVD Type
DVD 5 - Single layer DVD
DVD 9 - Dual layer DVD
DVD 10 - Single layer DVD, which must be turned to play the second part of the movie.
DVD 18 - Dual layer DVD, which must be turned to play the second part of the movie.
DTS CD - CD containing a DTS 5.1 soundtrack. You need a DTS compatible System to use this format.
DVD ROM - This DVD can be played in the DVD-Rom drive.