A couple questions (1 Viewer)

First... I have the Superman box set on DVD. Superman the Movie, (the 1st movie) DVD is in full 5.1 surround sound. But for the remainder of them, it sounds like almost all the sound is coming from the center.. there is no surround sound at all in DD 5.1. But I know the receiver is processing it in 5.1 because my Kenwood is auto-detecting it and kicking in once it receives the signal and displays it. Is there a reason for this?? Did they just cut corners and not make full surround audio tracks on #2, #3, and #4??

Also... why don't more DVD's use DTS. It seems like it's almost dropping in use, and I personally think I get better sound out of my system when I have DTS as an option.

Any help with #1 would be appreciated.


thanks

Well, do the other discs have Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Surround or Dolby Digital Mono sound tracks?

A lot of the Dolby Digital discs that I first started buying back in the late '90s were in Dolby Digital Mono and Dolby Surround. A lot of older movies being sold now on DVD are Dolby Digital Mono and that sound would come either from your front speakers only or the center if you have your receiver set up as having a center speaker attached.

DTS uses a lower compression scheme than DD 5.1 uses, hence it takes up more room on the DVD. I have actually seen the opposite where more DVDs are getting a DTS track included. I would agree with you that a lot of DTS sound tracks sound superior to DD5.1, but in my experience that is not always the case. I have heard DD 5.1 soundtracks that are just as good if not superior to their DTS counter parts. Usually it is all in the way the soundtrack is mixed by the engineers.

None of the other movies are 5.1, rather they are presented in their original 2 channel stereo mixes (and when you apply dolby processing such as Pro Logic or Pro Logic 2 to these stereo mixes, you will get majority from center channel as most of the stuff is center image-- although I assume there are some limited stereo and surround effects (maybe more on the last film) you'll get from Pro Logic processing, it won't be like a discrete 5.1 mix).

As mentioned above- Dolby is just an audio format that can include between 1 and 6 channels of audio- just cause the receiver says Dolby Digital, doesnt mean 5.1.

Superman 2 : Dolby 2.0
Superman 3 : Dolby 2.0
Superman 4 : Dolby 2.0

While the original Superman is DD 5.1

On a side note, the remix for Superman is very disrespectful of the original sound design, as new effects and elements were added to create the surround sound mix, and no attempt was made to include the ORIGINAL soundtrack.

To think of is as "cutting corners" on parts 2-4 is incorrect-- as many felt the original superman remixes were a bad idea. There were (in theory) 6 channel surround mixes prepared for Superman 2, but as far as I know no one could locate any stems to use, let alone determine the nature of the 6 channel mix.

Here are the DVD file audio reviews:

Superman 2:


-Vince

Oh, and PS, i you're interested- here is the Superman DVD file review, which talks about the remade effects track:




And here are some links to old discussions about the remix of Superman to 5.1:

http://www.dvdfile.com/news/special_...an/thau_4.html

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htfo...threadid=51995

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htfo...hreadid=140097

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htfo...threadid=92851