DTS ES 6.1/DD EX 6.1 and the HTR 5490 (1 Viewer)

[NickC]

Hello,
I recently purchased the Yamaha HTR 5490 receiver and when I play DTS ES 6.1 tracks all six channels are highlighted on the receiver, when I went to play a DD EX DVD only 5 of the channels were highlighted except the rear center, the dts dvd was gladiator and the dd was The Phantom Menace, from my understanding dd ex is a 6.1 format and the phantom menace was an ex dvd? what am i missing here? what are other dd ex dvds?
nick

 

[John E F]

Gladiator has a DTS-ES Discrete soundtrack. This means info for the rear surround is encoded as an individual channel. Dolby Digital EX and DTS-ES Matrix carries the rear center channel info matrixed into the side surround channels. It is not a true individual discrete channel like DTS-ES Discrete. The term "6.1" is kind of misleading. Many receiver manufacturers use this term to describe 6 channels of amplification, which leads many to think that Dolby Digital EX is a discrete "6.1" format. It really isn't, the rear surround is extracted much like ProLogic creates a surround track from a stereo source. Play The Phantom Menace again with the "6.1 Matrix" setting on the Yamaha, this will give you Dolby Digital EX.

 

[NickC]

The thing is that is won't let me select the Matrix 6.1 option, only the dd standard or ehanced, not the 6.1 matrix or 6.1 enhanced modes. What are some other movies to test this out with? I have to be missing something somewhere, i dunno.

 

[John E F]

It should. I had one for about a week at home and it let me select the 6.1 matrix on all Dolby Digital 5.1 and EX sources. Try The Perfect Storm, Toy Story 2, Harry Potter, or Jurassic Park 3. The Phantom Menace is the one dvd I used specifically to test DD-EX and it worked fine. Make sure you have the rear center speaker turned on in the receiver's speaker set up menu.

 

[NickC]

Yeah, that was the problem, currently I am only using 2 speakers so i turned the rest off, its just weird that it comes up for the Gladiator dvd dts es track and not the dd ones. thanks