Question about Universal RE DTS and extras (1 Viewer)

[Andrew_Sch]

Back in the early days, Universal commonly released two versions of a film on DVD, one with a DD track and some extras, and one with a DTS track and little to no extras. For example, Jurassic Park and 12 Monkeys. Lately, with releases like Fast and the Furious and Meet the Parents, just to name a couple, they've been putting a DTS track and tons of extras, including commentaries, onto the same size disc. What I want to know is, what led to this change? Was it a policy change on Universal's part or did advancements in authoring techniques allow them to fit more stuff on one DVD-9?

 

[greg_t]

Here is my take on this. Originally, DTS dvd's carried an audio bitrate of 1509kb per second, which takes up lots of space on the dvd. This required a seperate dts version of a movie with few extras due to space constraints. Many of the early Dolby digital 5.1 releases had an audio bitrate of 384kb per second, which obvisouly doesn't require near the amount of space as the DTS track, thus allowing room for extras. Not many dvd's were released with DTS tracks due to the costs of pressing seperate releases. DTS then cut their audio bitrate to 754kb per second, to accomidate single dvd releases with extras, DD5.1,and DTS 5.1. By cutting the bitrate to allow for single release dvd's, the number of titles available in DTS has jumped. Whether or not there is a difference in the sound of a full bitrate (1509kbps) release to a half-bitrate (754kbps) release is still the cause of debate. Hope this helps. I'm sure someone else will also join in with more information.

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

Even more recent discs have had half rate DTS and not included extras (Jurassic Park was 1/2 rate, yet omitted extras on the DD version).

I think the issue is reduced video bandwidth. Because that little DTS logo sells discs, and the extras sell discs, they're willing to slaughter the video signal to make room for everything. The video compression is getting better, in terms of bang for the byte, but I think the actual quality of DVD is staying on par instead of improving with the more effecient compression because they've allotted less space for video to make room for other stuff.

-Vince

 

[Jesse Skeen]

I have to wonder if the reduced bitrate DTS makes it any better than Dolby at that point. Seems they think people'll be happy if that "DTS" indicator lights up, even if it doesn't sound any better.

 

[Dan Hitchman]

Obviously you haven't heard the Jurassic Park, Saving Private Ryan, and The Haunting on DTS DVD.

Still pretty darn good.

Although, I still think full bitrate DTS is better.

Dan

 

[Sean Moon]

UUUGGGHHH, here we go again. Seems this is going into another DTS vs DD thread.

 

[Adam Barratt]

Obviously you haven't heard the Jurassic Park, Saving Private Ryan, and The Haunting on DTS DVD.

I've heard the Jurassic Park DTS release. I actually preferred the Dolby Digital version.

Perhaps you mean the re-issue. It's interesting that it sounds so much better yet uses the same bit-rate. I wonder why that could be?

Adam