Question for Denon 3802 owners re: DD-EX, DTS-ES (1 Viewer)

[Matt Taylor]

I have had the Denon 3802 for a few months now and have just gotten around to hooking up the surround back channels so I can now enjoy the 6.1, 7.1 features of this awesome receiver.

When I put in Gladiator and select the DTS-ES soundtrack, the receiver detects the signal, the surround back signal detect button lights up, and the receiver plays back just fine. But for DD-EX titles and DTS-ES matrix titles, the surround back signal detect button does not light up on the receiver.

I don't have the 6.1 channel auto-detect selected, because I read here that it wouldn't pick up the DD-EX, DTS-ES Matrix signal. Is this true? When I play Star Wars TPM for instance, I can set it up so the receiver is in 6.1 Surround mode, does this mean the receiver outputting the rear-center channel as it should?

I am confused further by the fact that I can select 6.1 surround when I am watching movies on HBO or Showtime (or DVD's) that are played back with 5.1 surround. Is the receiver simply taking the information from the two rear channels of the 5.1 soundtrack and matrixing them into the rear center channel?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Matt

 

[RyanDinan]

I believe that's exactly what's happening -
It's taking the left and right rears, and creating a rear center, in the same manner DPL works with your left/right mains - In fact, you can "create" a DD EX receiver by feeding your decoded rear L/R channels (RCA)into an old DPL receiver's L/R inputs. When you'd connect your speakers, you'd connect the rear L/R/C speakers to the L/R/C speaker terminals.
This works because with a DD EX mix, the rear center is matrixed into the L/R rears - meaning, there's still only 5.1 channels to decode - So any DD 5.1 decoder will work - you just need the extra amplification and steering to get the info to the speaker(s). All you need to do is press the 6.1/7.1 button on the remote, and you should be golden. The same goes for the DTS ES matrix mixes... Whereas a strict DTS ES mix requires a special decoder to extract the rear channel.
I need to get a rear speaker now
-Ryan Dinan