I'm beginning to become a "DTS GUY". (1 Viewer)

[JeremyFr]

One other thing that may help this debate is that there is a website that you can download audio tracks I'll be it most in swedish that are encoded both 640Kbps dd and if I remember right 1.5Mbps DTS that are guaranteed the same master etc and would make a good comparison. In listening to them on my system and having other people over doing the same the DTS mix definately has more spaciousness to it.

 

[greg_t]

Jeremy,

I agree that Warner brothers 384kbps doesn't sound real good. The Harry Potter dvd's are a good example. There are some good rear sound effects and good bass, but there is not much in the way of a spacial soundfield and the music is pretty weak.

However, Dolby Digital on LD was 384kbps and The Phantom Menace and Mission Impossible on DD LD are two of the best soundtracks you'll ever hear. My opinion is that it has more to do with the mix than bitrate.

 

[Daniel Becker]

Recently i've aquired two dvds that gave me a very clear example of this "spaciousness" that everyone keeps mentioning in regards to DTS vs. DD.


Road to Perdition and Apollo 13 are both movies with quiet as well as loud scenes and for me the difference was dramatic when comparing the DD to the DTS versions. In many of the quieter scenes you'll hear sound from all directions and it gives you that feeling your "in the room" with the actors. Those two movies are great examples of that when listening to the DTS tacks. When your hearing those movies in DD you just doesn't get that "in the room" sound field.


Dan.B

 

[MarkHastings]

Can anyone explain the process on which DVD's get a DTS track?

Is it possible that the benefits of DTS compression just don't make a big enough difference in most soundtracks (which is why we don't get a lot of DTS)?

Do they analyze each soundtrack to figure out if the lower bit rate of DD is enough to carry the soundtrack without adding any clarity at the DTS bit rate?

Or do they just figure a title like "Harry Potter" will be bought by families who won't really notice (or care about) a missing DTS version?

 

[Jeff Kleist]

The studio decides to put DTS on the disc basically

Road to Perdition and Apollo 13 are both movies with quiet as well as loud scenes and for me the difference was dramatic when comparing the DD to the DTS versions.

Apollo 13 was cooked by DTS themselves, and Road to Perdition, being a DreamWorks title is an automatic cooked disc.

 

[greg_t]

Apollo 13 was cooked by DTS themselves, and Road to Perdition, being a DreamWorks title is an automatic cooked disc.

Could you quote your source on this? How is Apollo 13 DTS cooked? Could you site some examples of specifically what scenes are cooked? And how are Dreamworks titles automatically cooked? Perhaps the Dolby digital versions are dumbed down for compatibility sakes and the DTS is more true to the original intent? I guess that couldn't ever be.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

greg,

Whether DD is dumbed down or DTS is "cooked" is not the question. The fact is the mixes are different. So you cannot use these films to determine the DTS codec is superior, only that the DTS mix is superior. Listen to a film where the DD mix is the same as the DTS (Lethal Weapon series, for one) and blindly have someone switch between the two. If you can pick out the DTS, you have better ears than me.

 

[greg_t]

Whether DD is dumbed down or DTS is "cooked" is not the question. The fact is the mixes are different

Can you point me to a source that verifies that the mixes are different? No offense to Jeff, but show me the proof. We know a few Dreamworks titles were different mixes, but now that means that ALL of them are? Until you show me a legitimate source that says that all DTS dreamworks titles are automatically cooked, it's just talk that can't be verified.

 

[RobertR]

Until you show me a legitimate source that says that all DTS dreamworks titles are automatically cooked, it's just talk that can't be verified.

Given that Steven Spielberg has a major financial interest in both Dreamworks and DTS, it's not unreasonable to say that the burden of proof should be to show that they WEREN'T cooked.

 

[greg_t]

Given that Steven Spielberg has a major financial interest in both Dreamworks and DTS, it's unot unreasonable to say that the burden of proof should be to show that they WEREN'T cooked.

It doesn't mean they ARE cooked. You're speculating. You have no legitimate proof the Spielberg is sitting there telling sound engineers to cook DTS mixes. As for Apollo 13, it's not a dreamworks or Spielberg film, so again I ask, give me specfic examples of where in the film where it's cooked. These blanket statements about cooked DTS are just as silly as "DTS is always best" statements. Both formats offer great sound. Why can't we just deal with it.

 

[RobertR]

You have no legitimate proof the Spielberg is sitting there telling sound engineers to cook DTS mixes.

It's a known fact that the DTS mix for Saving Private Ryan is different from the DD mix. Since it was done for that film, it's reasonable to think it's likely it was done for others. I'm simply "playing the odds" here, just as I would with a medical study conducted by a company with a financial interest in the outcome.

 

[Carlo_M]

Saving Private Ryan - Dolby Digital version only has one DD track (5.1) right? (at least that's what it says on the back of the box at DVD Empire).

Anyone say conclusively that the difference in the two mixes (DTS and DVD) isn't due to downmix-safe Dolby Digital 5.1? Proof of that assertion?

So we can't assume anything (and I'm no Spielberg lover). If the difference is because they made the DD downmix-safe, then this is a clearcut case of where we would rather have the DTS version.

 

[David Judah]

Some of you guys are too much--conspiracy theories and all.

Well, I have one too.

Warner Bros., a heavy political hitter in the industry and a vocal critic of DTS from its inception, caves in to public pressure and realeases a few titles with a DTS soundtrack. As the tracks are being prepared they whip up some studio voodoo to make the DD and DTS versions sound as much alike as possible so they can come back and say, "See we told you there wasn't much difference."

Does that sound reasonable? Well about as reasonable as Spielberg making sure that the DTS versions from Dreamworks are all cooked. Oh and since he worked alot with Universal he made sure that they cooked their DTS tracks as well. And since he has alot of contacts at other studios, because he's a heavyweight in the industry, he pulled a few strings and now all of their DTS versions are superiorly prepared compared to the DD tracks.

Given that Steven Spielberg has a major financial interest in both Dreamworks and DTS, it's not unreasonable to say that the burden of proof should be to show that they WEREN'T cooked.

Obviously, the burden of proof is on those making the claim.

DJ

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Private Ryan has a seperate 2.0 DD track, the DD is not dumbed for downmix.

Apollo 13 is from the era when DTS prepared all DTS titles, and since they stopped, it's been seen again and again with people complaining about how DTS tracks "no longer sound different" or "both tracks sound the same". This phenomenon started exactly when DTS started making encoders.

 

[RobertR]

the burden of proof is on those making the claim.

I'm not claiming proof of anything. I'm just saying there's a not-completely-unreasonable basis for saying it happens, given the fact that it DID happen with SPR.

 

[David Judah]

...it's been seen again and again with people complaining about how DTS tracks "no longer sound different" or "both tracks sound the same"

Actually, it started and ended with Warner's brief foray into DTS, not after DTS made encoders available for sale.

DJ

 

[greg_t]

Jeff,

If you go back and do a search on Apollo 13, many of the forum members actually don't notice a difference between the DD and DTS tracks on this dvd. There was a thread on this not too long ago. I would still like hear which specific scenes in Apollo 13 were cooked for DTS. I have both the DD and DTS versions of Apollo 13 and I don't hear any glaring differences that would suggest cooking.

Robert,
I understand what you are saying. It is not completely unreasonable to think that it could happen. Lets take a hyptothetical criminal law example. Lets say in 1999 I robbed a bank and served time for it. Yesterday, I was in a bank making a deposit and it was robbed. The prosecution charges that I robbed it because I've done it before and I was there. They have no hard evidence, only the above to go on. Would you as a judge convict me based solely on that with no other evidence? You're right, it isn't unreasonable to think, but just because the circumstances may look one way, doesn't mean there is any reality to it.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

I still say if you can pick out the DD from the DTS in a blind test where you know the mix is the same, I will concede that DTS is a better codec. It is known Gladiator had a different mix (see threads on this). It is known SPR had a different mix. It is not known whether other Dreamworks have different mixes, it is also not known if they are the same, but I lean towards the former, given the past treatments by Dreamworks and the differences between the sound which is the equal of the differences in Gladiator and SPR. One thing is known - the Lethal Weapon series has the same mix for DD and DTS. Blind test anyone???

 

[greg_t]

I'll do a blind test anytime you want to set one up. I'm willing to bet that sometimes, I'll pick DTS, and others, I'll pick DD.

My argument is not which is the better codec. It really doesn't matter. No matter how much stupid arguing we do on here, neither DTS or DD is going away. Understand that, DTS is not going away. DTS just did it's first IPO of it's stock last week and it did very strong. I'm not saying that DTS is always better. What I am saying is that statements that all dreamworks DTS mixes are automatically cooked without any evidence to back it up other than saying "they've used different mixes in the past", is ridiculous. Give me some real evidence that all dreamworks dts mixes are cooked in DTS's favor.

 

[DeanWalsh]

I'd choose the DD version, to avoid any risk that the inclusion of the redundant DTS track required additional compression of the video, thereby degrading the quality of the image.

Then if it was a day and date title where both DD & DTS versions were offered, you'd probably be selling yourself short by going for the DD only version. It's likely that if the dvds were authored at the same time that exactly the same video stream was prepared and used on both versions. Road To Perdition is a recent example of this, both versions share exactly the same transfer and video stream bitrate. It makes complete economic sense to not run the video through the encoder twice, and just prepare the one encode that will fit both versions.

And furthermore while people will argue that the higher bitrate of dts provides no immediate benefit, I could also argue that the .7 of a mb taken up by a half rate dts track will have no immediate effect on a SD resolution m2v file. All decent transfers these days are of a consistently high bitrate to begin with, regardless of what audio options are included. And even when there is no dts track that is no guarantee that the full extent of the bandwidth will be used anyway.