Jeff Killion

ESPN HD - what is "Circle Sound'

And WHY does it only come through my stereo in L-R stereo? I get that sweet 5.1 surround sound from the games on CBS and sometimes from Fox, but my receiver only recognizes the ESPN HD broadcasts as stereo. Yet they advertise that they are in this "circle sound".

help?

KevinJ

circle surround is a way of getting 5.1 from a stereo source but you need a receiver with the decoder to truly get the 5.1 effect

Don S

There is a detailed explanantion in one of the AVS threads here: Circle Surround

Don

Andy Anderson

Jeff--

It's essentially a matrixed surround format like Pro-logic. Note: It does NOT provide 5.1 discrete channels, but it will provide 5.1 channels of sound.

Over at AVS, the discussion is heated. Most of the frustration comes from the fact that ESPN has essentially forsaken DD for a lesser format.

You need a reciever equipped with a SRS Circle Surround decoder--you'll likely to have to force the decode by setting your receiver to the Pro-Logic setting, or whatever setting your receiver uses to decode CS. Consult your manual.

Andy

XBL Gamertag: Anderpants
My DVDs are cooler than yours.

Jeff Killion

Wow...so I read like 7 pages of that thread and my head hurts!

OK, so my receiver (Yamaha HTR-5660) does not have an SRS decoder. But it seems to me like I can force it into PLII. Will that work just about as well as CSII would? ...even if I'm going optical in? When I do this right now (during Playmakers...I can't believe I'm watching it just to figure this out! ) bot the Dolby and PLII lights come on and the receiver says PLII MOVIE. Is this going to do the trick (at least a halfway decent job) or do I have to run an RCA cable in and then set my receiver to PLII?

If I flip to a true 5.1 broadcast, I cannot get my receiver to use PLII...so it seems to me like it might actually be working correctly on a broadcast that is in CS.

Also...that thread is 4 months old. Has there been any recent news of ESPN maybe switching to 5.1 with the "new building"?

Wayne Bundrick

If your receiver says PLII then it's probably doing PLII.

The reason you also have a Dolby light is that all HDTV, whether it's stereo (with or without a matrix encoding like PLII or CS) or 5.1, is encoded in Dolby Digital. Your receiver has to decode the Dolby Digital 2.0 bitstream into stereo audio, then apply the PLII matrix decoding to extract 5.1 channels. So it makes sense that it is showing both Dolby Digital and PLII lights.

Wayne Bundrick

\"It tastes like there\'s a party in my mouth and everybody\'s throwing up!\" -- Philip J. Fry

Jeff Killion

Well, seems to be working alright. Definitely getting a "surround" sound right now for the Ravens/Titans game.

Thanks for the help.

Peter Kline

Game over. Titans win. Great battle.