Watching 5.1 DVD's in 6.1 (1 Viewer)

[Shane Martin]

So I only use Ex/ES anymore with discs, that are specially encoded for it

This has been my preference as well.

 

[CraigF]

Don't mean to be argumentative here , but I don't see (hear) how using EX/ES on a 5.1 source is going to make it *worse*. It doesn't change (at least on mine) the 5.1 channels at all, but creates a touch of ambiance/fill for the two back speakers. But yeah there's all sorts of other things, sometimes the back amp(s) are crap in some receivers and the speaker(s) not well-positioned, or not set up for proper delay according to their position, or set too loud etc. Now, I'm not commenting on any specific setup, but it's very important, and none of my friends even have their 5.1 speakers positioned anywhere near properly...in my case room decor/looks definitely came second (or third)...that ceiling speaker should look particularly ugly someday...

 

[Jeremy Anderson]

Actually, on any EX/ES decoding, it DOES alter the surrounds. Basically, anything identical or in-phase between the left and right surrounds gets redirected to the rear center channel and subtracted from the left and right surrounds. For most stuff this works great... but older movies that use essentially monaural surrounds (Predator 2 comes to mind) tend to collapse to the center completely and have no left and right surround data at all.

However, for modern movies in 5.1, I almost always leave my receiver forced to EX/ES. There have only been maybe 3 movies so far that noticably collapsed to the center on my system. Lawrence Of Arabia was a major culprit, but again... older movies tend to have less discrete surround information, so forcing EX doesn't work so well. Naturally, mixes made specifically for EX/ES will sound better... but a lot of people get nice results from forcing it for non-EX/ES material. But then, I'm one of the few people who thinks Saving Private Ryan (DTS) sounds better in forced DTS-ES. The rear soundstage isn't as wide, but placement between speakers in the rear becomes more precise and directional. Hey, maybe it's just me.

And of course Hulk is in EX. All of Gary Rydstrom's mixes since The Haunting have been EX/ES.

 

[Lewis Besze]

Don't mean to be argumentative here , but I don't see (hear) how using EX/ES on a 5.1 source is going to make it *worse*

You're more then welcome to try the Dolby trailers I was telling you about[the best collection of them is on Dolby's "We've got the whole world listening" DVD],run them in 5.1 first to get an idea how they supposed to sound,then repeat it in forced EX,see what you think.

 

[CraigF]

I don't have that trailer disc, but I have an Avia disc with a bunch of Dolby trailers on it that I can try. I don't remember if I played with it with this more sophisticated decoder than my previous receiver. Anyway, I'm still watching Hulk right now and I quite like it, got a late start, different in ways I like than any other similar genre movie I've seen, but it's EX (yes, my decoder does detect EX after all, I forgot..., shows differently on the display than when I force "EX"). Now, some decoders can do different things, and my understanding is that mine derives the back channel from the surround channels only, when it's not a true EX disc, and the other 5.1 channels are *not* changed at all. They don't sound changed...there's just some fill-in in the back, which is about 6' behind me when I'm watching alone. Also, this is a THX EX decoder here, which Dolby EX is derived/descended (?) from...I always forget the difference between the two (slight) even though I've been told a thousand times...

 

[TedD]

Most of the Dolby films made before discrete Dolby 5.1 became the norm used MONO surrounds.

99.99% of the 70mm Mag films and 100% of the 35mm Mag films (read: everything before Dolby Stereo (read: essentially everthing before Star Wars)) carried MONO surrounds.

Running any title with MONO surrounds through a 6.1 decoder essentially makes any and all side information dissapear, leaving the rear center as the only source of surround information.

I know I certainly don't want that, and I suspect most of those reading this topic don't want it either.

Ted

 

[CraigF]

Whoa, that's assuming the 6.1 decoder *changes* what comes out of the 5.1 channels, which seems to be what some contend, rather than leave them intact and derive a back channel. Mine doesn't appear to (above). I would suspect from what you're saying, if I'm interpreting properly, with mono surrounds into the 6.1 decoder there'd be no out-of-phase surround info so you'd possibly get nothing out of the back channel??? Now obviously I wouldn't do this stuff if the sound was worse, I didn't buy this stuff to get worse sound, so you'll just have to believe me on this one with my gear! OTOH, I can also do that Lexicon Logic 7 thing on 5.1 sources and it *does* change the 5.1 channels and it *is* sometimes much worse, but also sometimes much better.

 

[GregBe]

Ted,
Maybe I assumed wrong, but I thought the back surround channel was derived from information on the surrounds. Wouldn't it, at its worst play too much or not enough info, but leave the surrounds the same. It sounds from the different responses that different receivers decode this differently. I always thought that companies like Dolby and DTS were pretty strict about setting one standard for things like this.
Greg