mikey j Posted January 27, 2005 Share Posted January 27, 2005 The audio standard for high definition television (as far as I have seen) is 5.1. After grazing at Best Buy yesterday for close to an hour ( not a complaint by the way), DVD movies and DVD music is 5.1 (with music DVD's having a 2 channel option). My questions... Why are HT receiver/prossessor manufacturers phasing out 5.1 and producing only 6.1 and 7.1 ? I have heard HT systems being fed a stereo signal and processing it into Pro Logic II and is the most annoying thing to me. Is a 5.1 source being processed into 6.1 or 7.1 going to be as bad as PLII ? I want to upgrade my HT receiver before I buy a HD television and it is slim pickings on 5.1 at this time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Anonymous Posted January 27, 2005 Share Posted January 27, 2005 in a large room a 7.1 or a 6.1 system can sound a lot better than a 5.1 system, bear in mind that the point of home theater is to create a theater like expierence and most movie theaters have more than a 5.1 set up, and to answer your question more recievers have the ability to process a 5.1 to 6.1 or 7.1 but this is also a different type of conversion, meaning you are taking a digital signal and changing the way it is processed, dolby prologcic takes an anolog signal uses that to simulate a digital signal, there are many benifits to having a 6.1 or 7.1 system, alot of people think that blu-ray or hd dvd will be written in a 7.1 format but who knows, and there shold be around a dozen dvds now that are written in 6.1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SCOOTERDOG Posted January 27, 2005 Share Posted January 27, 2005 Just to foolow up on what Gramas stated. there are movies available that are actually in 6.1. That would include DTS ES either matrix or discreet for the sixth channel and Dolby Digital EX which is a matrixed 6th channel. There is no software that has 7.1 and is generally regarded as having 2 rear speakers that produce the same signal, good for very large HT rooms. I personally use a 6.1 configuration for those movies that have this option, and in some cases I have a few DTS music disc that have 6.1. scooter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gcoker Posted January 27, 2005 Share Posted January 27, 2005 In addition, there are more movies comming out in 6.1 which is described as DD-EX and DTS-ES. The DTS-ES is a true 6 discrete channel along with a LFE (0.1). A lot of the Blockbuster movies (i.e. Spiderman, Lord of the Rings, etc) are in 6.1 format. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shade Posted January 27, 2005 Share Posted January 27, 2005 There is no software that has 7.1 and is generally regarded as having 2 rear speakers that produce the same signal ----------------------------------------------------------------- With 7.1, the rears are not necessarily producing the same signal. It all depends on the processor you're using. If the rears are in mono, then yeah it's mostly good for larger rooms or just spreading out that 6th channel a bit. On some processors (Lexicon being a prime example) the processing produces a stereo signal to the rears. It's great in action movies & such where you have a lot of effects, and sound panning down one side of the room stays on that side when it reaches the rear. Much more enveloping for lack of a better description. Some may not like the idea of any extra processing, but done right it can be fantastic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Griffinator Posted January 27, 2005 Share Posted January 27, 2005 See the HD-DVD thread re: software limitations... Once the two new high-capacity software formats come out, you'll see nearly everything on those formats coming in 7.1 (or higher...) channel encoding, and in all likelihood, it'll be uncompressed, since the software will be able to hold 3-6x the data compared to current DVDs. It's literally a limitation of disc space that's preventing 7.1 discrete channel encoding on DVD's right now... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikey j Posted January 27, 2005 Author Share Posted January 27, 2005 ---------------- On 1/27/2005 8:58:53 PM Griffinator wrote: See the HD-DVD thread re: software limitations... Once the two new high-capacity software formats come out, you'll see nearly everything on those formats coming in 7.1 (or higher...) channel encoding, and in all likelihood, it'll be uncompressed, since the software will be able to hold 3-6x the data compared to current DVDs. It's literally a limitation of disc space that's preventing 7.1 discrete channel encoding on DVD's right now... ---------------- Took a look at the HD-DVD thread, thanks. I also saw the articles in Sound and Vision. I guess my problem has been too much Tivo and not enough DVD. More than likely premium channels and PPV will catch up with the 6.1 and 7.1 formats in the future. May as well invest in 7.1, as it's easier to purchase speakers in pairs ( I did get lucky when I purchased a single kg4 to use as my center!! ) Wasn't Dolby also working on an overhead channel? I remember reading something about it a while back. Would that mean 8.1? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Griffinator Posted January 28, 2005 Share Posted January 28, 2005 ---------------- On 1/27/2005 10:52:42 PM mikey j wrote: Wasn't Dolby also working on an overhead channel? I remember reading something about it a while back. Would that mean 8.1? ---------------- Yes, and yes. There have actually been formats assembled and displayed at CES upwards of 21.3 discrete - speakers in the ceiling, in the floor, on all four walls.... I doubt I'll see a mass-implementation of 15 discrete channels in my lifetime, but who knows? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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