What is better? DTS or Dolby Digital? (1 Viewer)

kurt_fire · Feb 19, 2003

my receiver can decode them both, which spr dvd should i buy, DTS or dolby digital? which one sounds better?

Lee Carbray · Feb 19, 2003

It is probably a matter of preference, but DTS is less compressed so it should sound better. Also the DD and DTS tracks are not always mixed the same so that throws every thing for a loop.

JeremyFr · Feb 19, 2003

DTS is definately better if you ask me, less compression better frequency range than D.D. also less noticable compression artifacts with DTS. its just IMHO an all around better sound quality. DTS has 2 compression rates, 1.509Mbps and 754kbps where as DD is set at 640kbps on DVD Format so even the lower quality DTS is higher than the only DD format.

Michael Reuben · Feb 19, 2003

Sigh.

This "more compressed, less compressed" nonsense is getting old. (And Jeremy, at least one of your figures is wrong; 640kbps isn't officially part of the DVD spec.)

The real answer is that, after thousands of messages back and forth on this and numerous other forums over a period of many years, there is no agreement on which sounds "better". Both should be capable of reproducing the original master with little or no loss of fidelity. Many of the differences that people claim to hear are attributable to either different mixes or a lack of comparable volume levels when doing the comparison.

Bottom line: If you have a choice, choose whichever sounds best to you.

M.

JeremyFr · Feb 19, 2003

excuse me Dolby runs typically 448kbps and 384kbps, the demo stuff I have is recorded at 640k DD

Adam Barratt · Feb 19, 2003

better frequency range than D.D

A typical Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack (448kbps) has a greater frequency response than a typical DTS 5.1 soundtrack (754kbps).

Adam

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JeremyFr · Feb 20, 2003

I hate to tell you your wrong on that last one

http://www.dtsonline.com/dtsposition.pdf

Read Points 2a and 2b and you will see that DTS is actually better.

DD combines frequencys above 15khz at 448kbps and above 10khz at 384kbps, dts does not combine frequency at any range or data rate, and offers up to 19khz response at 48khz sampling and 784kbps and up to 24khz once again 48khz sampling at the 1.509Mbps rate.

Jeff Pounds · Feb 20, 2003

Read Points 2a and 2b and you will see that DTS is actually better.

*sigh*

I know that this has been done to death, but frequency response doesn't matter if the soundtrack is poorly mixed.

Which is "better" all depends on each individual DVD.

For example, you will be hard pressed to find any DTS mix anywhere that is better then the DD mix on the Attack of the Clones DVD.

OTOH, the DTS mix on Saving Private Ryan is still one of the best sounding DVDs out there.

Click to expand...

Adam Barratt · Feb 20, 2003

Read Points 2a and 2b and you will see that DTS is actually better.

DTS doesn't use joint-frequency coding at the two common DVD datarates (but does at lower rates), but its absolute frequency response is still less than that of Dolby Digital in the above example. Joint-frequency coding isn't the same as joint-stereo, so no-one should be able to detect its use.

754kbps DTS has a theoretical frequency response of 3Hz-19kHz, but the most common DTS encoder (CAE4) rolls off all frequencies above 15kHz.

Adam

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BobAZ · Feb 20, 2003

Here's more fuel...

Dolby's response to DTS:
Dolby evaluates DTS

Cees Alons · Feb 20, 2003

A big disadvantage of DTS is of course that it's less compressed and thus takes much more space on a recording medium.

And about the "automatic pilot" argument that more compression is always bad soundwise, let me add a different angle:

The video colour signal is one of the most badly compressed and altered signals we ever had. Mind you: of all the infinite frequencies of the visible spectrum, we compress it to... only three (and even tamper with that). It's like representing a whole octave of sound by well-chosen mixtures of the notes C, F, and A. That's terrible!

Or is it? In fact we use a peculiar property of our vision, namely the fact that it is only sensible to three distinct colours (the "cones" in our retina), to reproduce almost all perceived colours with great "accuracy and crispness" (etc.).
Someone who would be able to see the real colour-frequencies (with an eye like our ears) would not, or hardly, recognize the colour images we project or display or print. But most of us even know no better than that "all colours are made up of three basic colours". Yeah, you bet. That's only how we see them.

Conclusion: the amount of compression of a signal provides us with no absolute indication for its perceived fidelity.

Fact is, you can compress
(1) lossless
and/or
(2) lossy, but with great regard to the physiological properties of our senses
with no perceived loss.
So, please, DTS advocates (and everyone who wants to has a perfect right to be that), stop using that silly argument.

Cees

JeremyFr · Feb 20, 2003

Here's more fuel...

and even more fuel.

http://www.dtsonline.com/dtsposition.pdf

http://www.dtsonline.com/dolbyrvu.pdf

I understand this is an arguement that will never be settled but I can tell you this from my own personal experience, in listening to both formats I've noticed many times compression artifacts simliar to what you get with mp3 encoding in DD content and have yet to experience this with dts so I'm going to personally side with the dts camp that is a better compression coded than DD. But thats me. In almost every movie I've purchased that has both soundtracks on it I have always prefered the DTS track over the DD track.

Click to expand...

Blake R · Feb 21, 2003

Dolby actually has a DD/DTS listening comparison report on their web site if anyone's interested.

As far as data rates are concerned there is a little known codicil of information transmission theory which stipulates that any analog signal can be accurately reproduced in the digital domain if that signal is sampled at a rate two times the highest frequency present in that signal. Once you've oversampled twice you're really overdoing it. After that, your bandwidth is being consumed by things you simply cannot hear.

Vince Maskeeper · Feb 21, 2003

Which of course has zero to do with this particular argument. This idea, which is commonplace digital theory, simply relates to sampling rates (how many samples per second are made when creating and digital representation of an analog waveform to achieve a certain freq response).

The issue of data compression and codec use comes after this sampling stage. It's a matter of taking these already digital audio info and reducing it to a more manageable size by discarding dynamics and masking things based on psychoacoustics.

-vince

JeremyFr · Feb 21, 2003

yeah we know about the dolby site and I posted the links to DTS's responses to Dolbys "test" of sorts.

Greg_R · Feb 21, 2003

Get the DTS version of SPR (The DTS version used a better mix of the soundtrack). For other films there is not a huge difference between DTS and DD (when the same masters are used).

Cees Alons · Feb 21, 2003

As far as data rates are concerned there is a little known codicil of information transmission theory which stipulates that any analog signal can be accurately reproduced in the digital domain if that signal is sampled at a rate two times the highest frequency present in that signal.

That's not an original codocil of information transmission theory, it's the theory behind the Fourier Analysis. And it applies equally to digital sampling as to the analog signal processing it was developed for. And, yes, it says that it's questionable what you're doing if your sample rates go way above 44000/sec (assuming our ears cannot possibly hear above 22 kHz).
But it has nothing to do with compression theory, as Vince correctly states.

Cees

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Ted Lee · Feb 21, 2003

hey, what's that in the corner?

looks just like a dead horse....

David Giesbrecht · Jun 1, 2003

I don't know why people have to argue about this, the difference is clear

DTS: 96 khz, 24 bit, 108db dynamic range

DD: 48 khz, 16 bit, 100 db dynamic range

DTS has the POTENTIAL to sound better than Dolby Digital period.

Michael Reuben · Jun 1, 2003

DTS: 96 khz, 24 bit, 108db dynamic range

On the vast majority of DTS DVDs, DTS is encoded at the same 48 khz and 16 bits as DD. Some of the earlier DTS releases (the so-called "full bitrate" discs) used 20 bit or 24 bit word lengths, but AFAIK none of them were encoded at 96 khz. And of course, all of this begs the question of whether those specifications translate into audible improvements in movie soundtracks that have been EQ'd and remixed to the point where the notion of "fidelity" is barely applicable.

As for the dynamic range figures, I'd be interested in your sources.

M.

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