DPLII mixes (1 Viewer)

[Sean Moon]

It was just announced that Star Wars Rogue Leader for Gamecube will be the first game to ever be encoded in Dolby Pro Logic II, taking full advantage of the format. Link Removed

 

[Kevin M]

Okay, now I'm confused.
It was my understanding that Dolby Pro-Logic II was intended as a more up to date/advanced way of decoding Pro-Logic matrix soundtracks and enhancing stereo tracks in order to attain a "5.1 feel" from most 2 channel sources, not a new audio surround format with it's own matrix formula. Am I wrong?
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-Kevin M.
I can brave the nastiest weather, even when it's twenty below.
My Pa was an Elephant, but that's irrelevant,
My Ma was an Eskimo." - Cannibal the Musical.
[Edited last by Kevin M on September 28, 2001 at 07:44 AM]

 

[GregK]

Kevin your not wrong at all. DPL-II's left and right
rear decoding points are for material positioned midway
from the left or right and the surround channel, along
with material positioned center back (the original DPL
surround encoding point). The reason DPL-II is able to
pull convincing split surrounds out of DPL-material is
that the midway points are still 'in the circle' so to
speak, and merely fills in the holes where phantom
imaging would have come into play.
Where DPL-II encoding comes into play is when mixers
take advantage of the mid-surround encoding points.
For example, let's say a mixer wants a sound to come from
the left rear speaker, he would simply position the
source midway between the surround channel and the left
front channel. In standard DPL, the decoder would position
the sound in both the left and surround channels, but in
DPL-II, the sound would be in the left rear channel.
Material positioned in the hard center back position
would be reproduced the same in either DPL or DPL-II
decoders.
I'm sure Roger Dressler or Jim Fosgate could describe it
better, so if they're reading this, feel free to chime in.
Below is Dolby's Brief rundown on DPL-II (pdf format) http://www.dolby.com/tech/l.wh.0007.PLIIops.pdf
Dolby's licensing agreement on DPL-II and videogames. http://www.dolby.com/trademark/co.in...rksOnGames.pdf

 

[Roger Dressler]

GregK, you've explained it about as well as can be done! All I'll add is that whenever a new decoder is made, it opens the door to new ways to more fully exploit its capabilities. Rogue Leader is just the first to "go there".
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Roger Dressler
Dolby Laboratories

 

[Craig Lafferty]

But in order to see er, hear the advantage of DPL II you would have to buy a new DPL II capable decoder! It won't provide any improvement for those with a current DPL/DD 5.1 decoder?
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--Craig

 

[Sean Laughter]

And with PS2 games already using DTS which is a "real" discrete surround format I fail to see the big deal of RL's implementation of DPLII.

 

[Brent Cantrell]

Are there any outboard decoders for DPLII?
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http://www.dvdprofiler.com/mycollect...lias=BCantrell

 

[Scott_MacD]

What Brent said..

 

[Brian]

Sean,
I'd imagine that the advantage is that DPL II can be mixed and encoded real-time. This would allow use of directional surrounds in actual gameplay, and not just the prerendered scenes.
-B

 

[Sean Laughter]

Brian,
EA's NHL 2002 uses DTS during gameplay, and SSX:Tricky is going to use DTS during gameplay as well. It was announced a few weeks ago by EA that they had made proprietary tools that allows them to use real-time DTS surround sound in gameplay. NHL 2002 is the first to use it (though I doubt it would make very good use of it given the way the game is played).

 

[Sean Moon]

Review of NHL over at IGN said the DTS was subtle differences, nothing too drastic at all. Besides, Factor 5, the team behind Rogue Squadron, are wizards with sound on videogames, so no matter what Rogue Leader will sound amazing I think.(For a game)
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[Sean Laughter]

As I said, a flying fighter will make better use of surround than a hockey game that is basically played from a wide angle view of the hockey arena. There obviously isn't going to be all that much surround activity in the hockey game. I'm pretty sure SSX: Tricky will use it better, at least in terms of the races with other people on the track. EA's implementation is still true real-time DTS regardless of whether the game has a good "mix" or not.