List of DD/DTS-ES 6.1 movies??? (1 Viewer)

[JeremyFr]

no DTS-ES discrete is not and who knows why they dont since they could just as easily fit it on the CD's as the 5.1 DTS but life goes on.

 

[Michael Reuben]

Why wouldn't they play DTS-ES Discrete?

DTS-ES 6.1 Discrete was developed exclusively for the home market. AFAIK, there has never been any attempt by DTS to develop it for theaters. I'm sure a major part of the reason is technical, since DTS in theaters and at home is not the same format (different codecs, different bitrates). The theatrical version of DTS may not even be capable of supplying the additional discrete channel. (Adam, do you happen to know?)

Technical considerations aside, there's a big economic factor. Theater owners are unlikely to buy new hardware just for a discrete rear center channel supplied by one format. Think how few theaters have yet to spend the money to add a matrixed rear center channel, which can be done with a single box that will work for DD, DTS and SDDS 5.1. (Note that the specs on the DTS-ES Surround decoder to which JeremyFr posted a link make a point of saying that the decoder is "Fully compatible with all current 5.1 digital formats and systems".)

M.

 

[Adam Barratt]

As Michael rightly points out, theatrical and domestic DTS are quite different beasts, requiring very different decoders. Changing over from one to the other would require theater owners to replace their current decoders, which I'm sure they wouldn't be thrilled about.

In any case, theatrical DTS is a modular system and there are no technical restrictions preventing the addition of any number of extra channels (although, again, the cost of hardware upgrades would give anyone pause for thought).

Theatrical DTS is already available in an eight-channel format (DTS70mm) with the same channel configuration as SDDS-8 (five channels across the front soundstage rather than three).

Adam

 

[Michael Reuben]

Thanks, Adam!

M.