prodriva

Looking for suggestions to expand my DVD collection with the DTS option now that I have a quality home cinema system.

So far I've only got Band of Brothers box set, Chicken Run, Toy Story box set, and a few others I cant remember.

Any suggestions welcome. Type of film doesnt matter as I like all types of films Action, Adventure, War, Animation etc....

RB170

Saving Private Ryan region 1 is DTS, not sure if the special edition region 2 is.

stevem2k

U571 has a quality DTS track.

Bumpster

Any of the "My Plaything" series

Seriously though have a look for your favourite films in Region 1 cause they're more likely to have DTS.

wrxsmo

Gladiator if u can only play Reg 2

messiah

Star Wars DVD's & Gladiator.

Newbie123

2 Fast 2 Furious

Great way to demonstrate DTS sound.

hail-hail

Could someone give me a quick overview on what DTS is, I am looking to upgrade my DVD as my current one does not have Component output cheers

TIFF-C20WTH

Dynamic Theatre Sound

A deeper,richer higher quality of sound all round

Markus

I was about to post up asking about DTS, so this is handy for me too.

have a look here

Reason for my question would have been that my AMP (Denon something or other) supports DolbyDigital, and also DTS, but not just DTS 5.1, but DTS 6.1 Neo, and i was wondering if that meant that DTS was actually 6.1 rather than 5.1, but it's not, well, kinda.

DTS 5.1 is as it says, 5.1 (Front Left, Center, Front Right, Rear Effects Left, Rear Effects Right, and the .1 being the Sub-woofer)

DTS 6.1 is that, but the 6 is a center rear effects speaker (I think!)

DTS Neo is some extension on this I think.

Many friends of mine who are serious home cinema nutcases say that DTS is better than Dolby Digital. I'm still looking at my DVDs to find which ones are DTS and not just DD.

Graz

Yep Gladiator,

First DTS DVD I owned. Blew me away first time I heard / watched it in DTS. The opening battle scence in incredible, arrows flying all around the room.

Also got Seven in DTS, not very exciting on the special effects side of things but as a lot of the film is shot out in the rain it really brings out the atmospheric qualities of DTS. Really feels like your there.

stormyuklondon1

any of the super-bit discs. specifically fifth element. awsome sound tracks and picture quality, and if you go to play.com theyve got loads for £9.99. ******* bargain!

Adam M

dts es is 6.1 as is dolby dig ex.

neo is a fake 6.1 based on 5.1 and creates a psuedo back surround from the rear signals. dts 6.1 discrete is true 6.1 channels.

These only work on dvds which are encoded with 6.1 channels and they are currently the best you can get. machines so equipped will auto switch to 5.1 if your dvd doesnt have a 6.1 signal.

All dvd players which can output 5.1 can output 6.1 via their digital output (optical in some cases too).

7.1 does exist but this is merely splitting the single back centre channel into two mono speakers at the rear as the ears arent great at hearing sound from directly behind them, so it is said to work best when you split the centre channel over a wider area. The surround back speakers should be at most 45 degrees behind your head starting frmo a line drawn between your ears.

rear surround (not surround back but your what you used to refer to as surround speakers) can be shifted foward now, and ideally should point in from the sides, being located level with the plane of your ears.

Mine are tripoles which are intended to be mounted up high close to the ceiling.

corradoboy

The Haunting DTS is superb.
Either of the LOTR EE's.
Jap R2 Superbit Jurassic Park.
Jurassic Park 3 (not a good film, but superb sound).
Gladiator
Saving Private Ryan
Black Hawk Down

If you like good music, The Eagles - Hell Freezes Over.

Pete Croney

Adam

How does dts 6.1 compare with THX?

I can select sound modes on some of my special editions and a few have THX. I've only ever played them in 6.1 so far so don't know if I am missing anything.

InvisibleMan

THX - best picture best sound - as the trailer says

If you have the option of selecting THX(youve got way too much money so give some to me) then go for that. Its not an either or, thx is supposed to work alongside dd/dts not compete

Pete Croney

Thanks IM. I got a very good deal on the kit, so got a lot of kit for a medium level budget

Adam M

Pete IM is right,

THX just give their certification to certain standards of dd and dts decoding. If your equipment meets with their standards you get to put their trademark on your equipment.

Some dvds are recorded with thx picture and sound, and accredited hardware can make use of this "improved" method of decoding.

I knew nothing about all of this so asked on avforums website.

There are some damn clever people over there and it is far easier to get lost than even the most technical of threadsw on here.

Just don't start talking about hdmi and 3:2 pulldown with deinterlaced progressive scanning or your eyes will glaze over forever.

GTB Limited

dts = digital theatre systems

DD is compressed, dts is realtime.

Some people says it sounds warmer.

Mark

IWatkins

Behind Enemy Lines is also good to listen to on DTS. Film ain't all that though

I'm a little confused on the THX thing though. My understanding was that THX isn't anything on the actual disk (picture or sound) rather it was just a certification to say that the disk was mastered at a quality that THX says is good enough ? And you have to pay to get THX certification. I can't see that THX is anything actually encoded especially as you can buy some crappy PC speakers systems that have THX certification. Confused.

Cheers

Ian

TopBanana

Both DD and DTS are compressed. DTS is less compressed, and uses a different compression system.

InvisibleMan

dts is a sharper cleaner sound. dts is encoded at 48khz but you can get 96khz sample rate. dts uses discrete channels, as in 6 seperate channels, 1 for each speaker.dts-es is the only one that uses true 6 channel sound. matrixed sound is sound that is merged into the left and right surround channels. you need a true dts-es decoder to get that true rear centre sound, if not then it will matrix it across the rear speakers.

THX is all about quality control ensuring a constant high standard of sound and picture quality. you can tell(with a keen eye) that each dvd you look at is slightly different, majority are v.good and you dont notice, but you also get some pretty appalling transfers. Its a production standard that has to be met to ensure top-notch mastering and they have to pay for on-site thx engineers to monitor the whole process. basically getting a thx certified dvd you can guarantee its going to be the best.

_Terzo322_

THX is as InvisibleMan says more about certification than anything else, so while a piece of THX Ultra equipment may seem the best you can get another non THX approved piece may be better (and cheaper since they didn't have to pay for accreditation)
After all the Odeon in Leicester Square isn't a THX approved cinema but lots of people agree it's damn good, and probably better than some other THX approved places. (In case you're wondering they can't get THX approval because they can't install an infinite baffle since they need to be able to lift the screen out the way)
THX in home cinema equipment does however mean the hardware will support a few extra post processing effects THX developed. These are generally intended to make your Home Cinema sound more like a real cinema, they work equally well on THX and non-THX approved software.

DTS and AC3 (Dolby Digital) are both compressed but using different bitrates and different encoding schemes. Most people acknowledge DTS as being able to offer the best quality because it's based around an encoding scheme intended for higher bitrates than AC3. DTS in the cinema and on Laserdiscs was around 1,500Kb/s whereas AC3 in the cinema is 448Kb/s. Some early DTS dvds used the full 1,500Kb/s track but most newer ones tend to be 750Kb/s tracks since they put AC3 tracks, commentaries and extras on and can't afford the extra space. Most early AC3 dvd's were using 384Kb/s tracks but almost all use 448Kb/s tracks. The difference in quality between a 448Kb/s AC3 track and a 750Kb/s DTS track is a lot closer than a 384Kb vs 1500Kb track as on the early discs. In fact some people think the AC3 track is better on some newer DVDs.

Dolby Digital is a 5.1 format, Dolby Digital EX is a pseudo 6.1 format where the rear center channel is derived from a matrix operation on the rear left and rear right channels.
DTS is 5.1, DTS-ES is another pseudo 6.1, DTS-ES Discrete is true 6.1. Although amusingly the DTS-ES Discrete is actually just the DTS-ES track with an extra bitstream for the rear center. On non ES Discrete hardware you get a plain DTS-ES playback, on the discrete capable hardware they extract the rear center from the rear left and right with a matrix as per normal. They then subtract that from the rear left and right and then playback a discrete rear. All that hassle to make in backwards compatible

Oh and DTS Neo is like Dolby Pro-Logic II all about deriving 5.1 sound from a plain stereo soundtrack.

Blake.

p.s. don't get me started, I'll go on for hours

InvisibleMan

does anyone know whether the Wycome cinema is still thx as its logo has gone?

messiah

For THX accreditation (or whatever) the room you install it in has be "acoustically suited" - meaning that you cant just stick a THX system anywhere - you might have to build the room from scratch!

Also 6.1 systems aren't proving too popular and 7.1 systems are now becomming more available (4 speakers along the back rather than 3). the single rear centre speaker was said to focus the sound too much...

paulr

There is a great scene in "sum of all fears" when the bomb go's off if you want to impress anyone with your home cinema.

ScoobyDoo555

THX is Lucasfilm's standard for cinema viewing/listening. It is a rigorous standard (moreso in the commercial cinema) that dictates not just equipment specs, but also room design and speaker manufacture and placement!!

They're sneaky though - for the proper THX, you lease the proper THX standard equipment off Lucasfilm - you don't buy it!!!

For most people in the know, THX is an expensive option, that isn't widely embraced by the general public.
I've had the pleasure of mixing audio for Surround Sound (DTS and THX) - what a larf. Such a different mix to "boring stereo"

The mixing console used was a Neve Capricorn (about £450K ) and the band were UB40. The film was, ahem, Speed 2, ahem!!

DTS is the way forward - for Joe Public

Dan

dba

Usual Suspects is utterly fantastic on DTS,