6.1: Dolby Digital Surround EX & DTS ES Explained
Jul 08 '00 (Updated Jul 09 '00)
6.1: Dolby Digital EX & DTS ES Explained
Few things bring more joy to a techno-freak than a good movie with good sound. To see the Dolby Digital Surround EX trailer before Ridley Scott’s Gladiator awoke to me to vast new sound universe.
Dolby Digital EX is an enhancement to the very popular Dolby Digital. Dolby Digital contains a 5.1 sound format with 3 speakers in the front, 2 in the back/rear (called the surround), and a single bass unit. The EX adds a third channel to the surround giving a listener a 3 in the front, 3 in the back, and 1 sub listening experience.
For those of you not interested in reading about the various levels of techno-babble, I would give the simple advice that EX/ES sound formats are better than their 5.1 Dolby Digital and DTS relatives. Thus, if you have the option of seeing a movie with or without EX/ES, choose the one with the EX/ES.
Dolby Digital EX is also often referred to as Surround EX, Dolby Digital Surround EX, EX, and DD-EX, DDEX, and Dolby Digital 6.1. From what I have seen these are all synonyms. Just the same, DTS ES is also DTS-ES.
DTS ES – The DTS Version
DTS has its version of Surround EX called DTS ES. The differences DTS/DTS ES and Dolby Digital/Dolby Digital Surround EX are basically the same. Interestingly, although DTS directly competes with Dolby in 5.1 format, DTS pays royalties to Dolby and Lucasfilm/THX for the 6.1. This is almost like Pepsi paying a royalty to Coca-Cola, I’m not sure why DTS does this, but it does.
Some DTS ES titles as of 5/11/00 include: Pitch Black, Mission to Mars, Gladiator, and Mission: Impossible 2.
Some Dolby Digital Surround EX titles include: Toy Story 2, Mission to Mars, Bats, The Haunting (also on DVD), Gladiator, Chicken Run, Spooky House, James Bond: The World Is Not Enough, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (also on DVD), The Messenger: The Joan of Arc Story, Fight Club, Star Wars, Episode One, X-MEN, Minority Report, Pitch Black, The Bone Collector, Perfect Storm, and The Art of War.
Gladiator – Experience I
My first experience with EX was with Gladiator. When I first saw “the future of sound” bubble across the screen I immediately turned around and looked for the surround center speaker. I read about this EX thing and was excited to actually experience it.
Like many critics, I would agree that the only scene in Gladiator that significantly uses the center surround channel is the chariot fight. Hearing the horses trample around the theater from one side to the other and around the back seemed very smooth. The movie is great and the sound is equally spectacular.
In all I would also agree with Stuart M. Robinson when he writes that Surround EX “ . . . sounded like conventional 5.1 until a deliberate SB event occurs, at which time the channel springs into life, adding that bit more to the whole experience.” (Audio Magazine February/March 2000).
Scary Movie – Experience II
For those who have not seen the Wayan’s parody “Scary Movie,” it is comedy based upon the Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer, The Matrix, and The Usual Suspects (among many others). For some reason the film was encoded into an EX format. Not that I prefer it not to be, but that it did not have many background screams, creaks, or anything else necessary for surround speakers. Assuming that all seven channels were working properly in the THX certified theater, I still heard nothing. It could have been pure Dolby Digital and I bet no one would have noticed the difference.
How Do I Get Surround EX? – The Expensive Way
First, you need a recording that is encoded in Surround EX. Some of the first DVD titles to include this feature are Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, The Haunting, and The Astronaut’s Wife. Now that you have the proper data you need a DVD player (without a decoder), six speakers, a sub, a TV (only if you want to watch the movie), and most importantly, a receiver with an EX decoder. The last piece of hardware is by far the most difficult to obtain.
For the “average” home user, the only receiver with true surround rear encoding is the Denon AVR-5800. (Future EX receivers are planned by Marantz and Pioneer--they should also be THX Ultra Certified.) This $1,000 (or so) device is not for the faint at heart. It encodes a large variety of formats including traditional Dolby Digital, DTS, Dolby Digital Surround Ex, and DTS ES, unfortunately it does no decode SDDS, but then again where are you going to get an SDDS encoded film?
How Do I Get Surround EX? – The Cheap Way
Given the fact that most home theater buffs prefer not to spend such an exorbitant amount of funds to hear one additional channel there is the cheap option:
To make Surround EX fully backward compatible (new stuff works in old machines) with Dolby Digital, the surround center channel is encoded into the surround left and right. The signal is then “extracted” by a Pro-Logic decoder. Thus, part of the hardware manufacturing process involves obtaining permission from Dolby Laboratories and/or THX to install a 3 channel Pro-Logic decoder to the rear channels. The manufacture is then given permission to display a Dolby Digital Surround EX logo on the machine.
Stop. I’d just like to say that the actual hardware configurations I will be writing about are logical rumors that I have heard. In other words, I’m not sure if they work and even if they do I’m not even sure if they sound decent.
The simplest way (or simplest way for me to explain) is to have a DVD player with a Dolby Digital decoder, a Dolby Digital Ready receiver (DDR), a Dolby Pro-Logic receiver (DPL), 6 speakers, a sub, and a TV.
If you hooked up everything correctly you should have six wires crawling out of the DVD player for sound. One for the sub connected to the DDR, a front left, front right and front center connected to the DDR. The DDR should have the sub, the front right, the front left, and the front center speakers connected to it. This is the set-up for the front speakers.
Next, the surround left and the surround right should be connected to the DPL. The surround left, surround right, and surround center speakers should be connected to the front channels of the DPL. This system will power and encode the three rear speakers. Thus, the DPL receives a two-channel signal, decodes it into three channels, and outputs it to what the receiver “thinks” to be three front channels (which are to the viewer the three surround channels).
If this set-up seems overly complicated, it’s because it is. First, a user must deal with the various problems that some receivers may have with outputting channels to non-existent speakers. Next, the delay and sound styles may change with separate receivers. Lastly, the large number of seemingly excess equipment just screams “headache.”
Conclusion
As one can see, the growth in “quality” of movie sound has greatly increased its complexity. Personally, from my experience, the additional benefit of one surround center speaker is far out weighted by both the cost and difficulty to install such a system. All things being equal I would prefer EX over mere Dolby Digital, but for today I’ll stick with my Dolby Digital/DTS system.
Other Random Related Thoughts
One of the biggest disappointments in the world of DVD was the sudden cancellation of the Episode I release on DVD. People speculate that George Lucas got nervous when the DVD decryption program DeCSS got released on the net, but I think otherwise.
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace was the first film from Dreamworks to bear the Surround EX logo. I think that Lucas, with his THX certification and other high standards, was unsure of DVD’s ability to properly encode seven channels. It thus seemed easier for him to release it on tape and wait for the technology to grow . . . but then again, this should be the discussion of another epinion.
--SirMontego, look for me on battle.net
**I believe all information to be current as of early July. If I have any errors PLEASE e-mail me . . . you’ll get a prize or something.
End Notes/Statistics:
As of 6/15/00, 28 films total have currently been mixed or plan to be mixed in the EX format worldwide and 4,600 screens worldwide have been equipped for Dolby Digital Surround EX playback.
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