DVD player w/ Digital 5.1? or just Dolby Digital? (1 Viewer)

[BryanWeaver]

I'm a little unsure here. I just returned a Pana F-85 (or F-84 I've already put it out of mind). The manual said that if I use the digital audio output I would only get two channels. Until today, I thought that if the DVD player had digital out, that I would be taking advantage of all dolby 5.1 DVD's.
My question is: if I want to take advantage of the 5.1 (new Onkyo xt-sr 701 6.1, new speakers) on DVD, do I have to be sure it says it will be dolby 5.1, or is there something else (like Dolby Prologic II) that essentially does the same (5 channel/1 sub)thing that I am missing on the features list?

Thanks

Bryan

 

[Brian L]

I think the manual is wrong, or you misinterpreted it.

I would wager that virtually all current DVD players with a digital out will pass a DD 5.1 signal.

You may have read a part of the book where they describe a feature that allows you to downmix DD to PCM for decoding in a receiver or other device that lacks Dolby Digital capability.

BGL

 

[Jeff Gatie]

Good wager. It is part of DVD specifications that the player be able to pass a DD stream. All DVD players have to have an optical or coax out and pass DD 5.1. The poster was probably looking at the section on PCM downmixing, like you surmised.

 

[brentl]

Bryan; I hope you got a very good deal on that since it's a deleted item!

Just a heads up.

Brent

 

[BryanWeaver]

Thanks,

I misinterpreted the DVD-Audio, a different animal than DVD video, which I was incorrectly assumed that the DVD-Audio was the soundtrack portion of the disc. It is different, or Panasonic thinks it's different.

Bryan