OK, I just feel stupid now

[caniac]

I was strictly a "two-channel guy" for years and just recently got my first "real" multichannel receiver. I never really intended to go out and blow a bunch of money on new speakers right away, but I got a little excited about the prospect of 6.1-THX-certified- Dolby Digital-DTS-neo6-prologicII and all that jazz. :D

So I go today and max out my Circuit City account and get a complete set of matching Infinity speakers (6 Beta 20s and a Beta 250 center channel) and a Velodyne subwoofer, get it all home, hook it up. The little woman seems pretty impressed with the whole thing, and I'm all pumped up for the full theater experience.........so I go to my DVD rack to pick a movie.

Only then did I discover that I do not have one single DVD with a 6.1 soundtrack. NOT A SINGLE ONE. Bummer.

So can anybody tell me which DVD's are out that have a 6.1 soundtrack?

[EdwardGein]

You probably didn't blow that much money because as someone pointed out to me this year most of the latest receivers coming out are 7.1 and not 5.1, essentially so they can jack up the price. Almost all DVD's are 5.1 format so all you have to do is set your 7.1. receiver up into the 5.1 mode which is relatively easy.

[Woochifer]

I was strictly a "two-channel guy" for years and just recently got my first "real" multichannel receiver. I never really intended to go out and blow a bunch of money on new speakers right away, but I got a little excited about the prospect of 6.1-THX-certified- Dolby Digital-DTS-neo6-prologicII and all that jazz. :D

So I go today and max out my Circuit City account and get a complete set of matching Infinity speakers (6 Beta 20s and a Beta 250 center channel) and a Velodyne subwoofer, get it all home, hook it up. The little woman seems pretty impressed with the whole thing, and I'm all pumped up for the full theater experience.........so I go to my DVD rack to pick a movie.

Only then did I discover that I do not have one single DVD with a 6.1 soundtrack. NOT A SINGLE ONE. Bummer.

So can anybody tell me which DVD's are out that have a 6.1 soundtrack?

Fewer than 200 DVDs have any kind of EX or ES encoding on board. DTS ES is a discrete 6.1 format, while Dolby Digital EX is a matrixed 5.1 format in which the back surround output is encoded as a matrixed channel extracted from the L and R surround channels.

If you are using a 6.1 or "7.1" receiver, you can still activate the EX/ES decoder with any 5.1 soundtrack. 5.1 is the industry standard and has been for a while. That's why the majority of movies and DVDs coming out are mixed in 5.1. In actuality, 5.1 gives you the movie theater experience in most cases. You should optimize your playback with that alignment first, and then explore your placement options with the back surround speakers.

Some 5.1 soundtracks are mixed in such a way that a decent back surround channel can get extracted, even if it's not explicitly identified as an EX or ES soundtrack. The only thing you have to watch out for is the EX/ES decoding process collapsing all of the surround sound into the middle of the back soundfield. This will vary from DVD to DVD, so listen and decide for yourself whether or not to keep the ES/EX decoder switched on.

Ideally, you want an effect that gives you a complete encirclement. The back surround channel is only supposed to provide additional backfill. If the EX/ES decoder collapses the sound in the surround channels towards the middle, then you should switch off the back surround speakers for that particular soundtrack.


You probably didn't blow that much money because as someone pointed out to me this year most of the latest receivers coming out are 7.1 and not 5.1, essentially so they can jack up the price. Almost all DVD's are 5.1 format so all you have to do is set your 7.1. receiver up into the 5.1 mode which is relatively easy.

Actually, there are merits to the 7.1 speaker arrangement and 6.1 soundtracks in general, but this benefit varies according to the room arrangement. When receivers were transitioning from 5.1 to 6.1 and then to "7.1" the price points from most manufacturers held steady, so it was obviously not so that they coul "jack up the price." The minute one manufacturer adds 7.1 output and holds the price point, then everybody else has to follow suit in order to remain competitive and avoid losing market share.

The only manufacturer that has moved their price points up over the last couple of years has been Denon. But, they had already gone to 7.1 with their 38xx and 28xx models by the time they moved the price points higher. They are pushing the price points higher because of other features that they've added aside from 7.1.

[kexodusc]

Wooch pretty much said it all...if your receiver allows you to engage the EX/ES processing you can still use the extra channels on a standard 5.1 track. PLIIx allows you to use them all for stereo. I've never had a problem with the surround field collapsing to the back (actually this was the first I've heard of that phenomenon) but as Wooch says, if you hear this, then deactivate the decoder.

I have a large room with more than 10 feet behind my listening position. In my case, those extra speakers are much more than just a marginal improvement. My parents however have their sofa only a few feet away from the back wall. 7.1 in their case is quite impractical, and probably wouldn't yield the results desired.

I haven't seen prices go up at all with the addition of the extra channels. If anything it's been the opposite, reciever prices have dropped quite a bit, to the point that if you bought your receiver 3 or 4 years ago you'd probably feel ripped-off now that you can see newer recievers with more features being sold for less money.

[EdwardGein]

Good posts. I should have clarified mine and said that is why companies aren't coming out with new and cheaper priced 5.1 systems instead of 7.1 systems.

[kexodusc]

Edward: Most companies I've seen still have very low-cost 5.1 offerings, cheaper than the equivalent models from 2 or 3 years ago. Yamaha and Denon are selling receivers around and below the $200 mark, that wasn't happening even just a few years back.
I think the added cost of including processing, and 2 more channels might be just a few dollars per unit, and is probably a lot cheaper to just offer only 6.1/7.1 on their receivers than to run two very similar receivers, $20 apart in price with the number of speaker outputs being the only difference. Easier for stores to order and stock, easier for customers to examine product lines.
For some reason people are quick to blame the receiver manufacturers for being greedy and forcing 7.1 on everyone. IMO, they only responded to Dolby Digital and DTS who after 7 years or so, came up with enhanced sound decoders.
The receiver companies had little to gain from this. The speaker companies are the ones who would benefit most, and for some reason I see very few 7.1 HTIB's out there. They're still pretty much only 5 speakers and a sub (if that).

IMO, PLIIx and DTS Neo:6 are the biggest improvements in the added processing, and probably the biggest drivers of 6.1/7.1 audio. Discrete 5.1 soundtracks were already really good and could present very large, engulfing soundfields. In my experience the conversion of 2-channel to multi-channel (ie: Pro-logic, Pro-Logic 2) only did a moderate job at making wide, coherrent soundfield. Impressive when you consider how much extrapolating was done, but nothing like Dolby Digital or DTS.
PLIIx is quite a step up IMO and makes regular TV watching compete with 5.1 IMO.

[Aldo WIngate]

..... and you look even worse!!!

Could NOT resist!

Who's your DADDY???????

[L.J.]

So can anybody tell me which DVD's are out that have a 6.1 soundtrack?[/QUOTE]

Try going to www.dts.com and searching Home Theater under the consumer option. It has a list of all the 5.1 and 6.1 encoded DVD's.