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Published Articles - (Issue 40 of Widescreen Review)

	Back To Articles Main Page When DTS®-ES Is Not A Name By Perry Sun There has unfortunately been a great deal of confusion as to the names Dolby® Digital Surround EX™, DTS®-ES and how they are used in relation to the current formats for 5.1-channel digital sound. This confusion has been sparked by some press releases improperly using these names, as well as their widespread misuse by both professionals and enthusiasts. Dolby Digital Surround EX (or just Surround EX) is the proprietary name of the format in which the back surround channel is matrix-encoded onto the conventional left and right surround channels of a discrete multichannel sound mix. Dolby Digital Surround EX has nothing to do with Dolby Digital itself or any of the other digital sound formats for that matter. It is part of the creation of the final sound mix during post-production, from which the digital soundtracks are created, whether for cinema (Dolby Digital, DTS Digital Sound or SDDS®) or for home theatre (DTS Digital Surround, Dolby Digital or MPEG). Dolby Digital Surround EX is therefore an enhancement to what's already available in terms of digital sound for movies. Any digital sound format can carry Dolby Digital Surround EX. For instance, it would be correct to say that Star Wars: Episode I&emdash;The Phantom Menace was presented in DTS Digital Sound with Dolby Digital Surround EX (or Surround EX). DTS-ES is the name of a digitally-based matrix decoder developed by DTS to allow theatres to decode the back surround channel from 5.1-channel audio, which in turn has been decoded from ANY digital sound format. It is compatible with digital soundtracks with Dolby Digital Surround EX, and is a competitor to Dolby's SA10 adapter, which is the proprietary back surround decoder for cinemas. DTS-ES is NOT the equivalent to Dolby Digital Surround EX for DTS soundtracks, as has been widely misinterpreted. I reported in a response to a reader's letter in Issue 39 that DTS-ES is the proprietary matrix-decoding scheme for home theatre receivers decoding in DTS Digital Surround. This is in fact true, and DTS will also be licensing a new 6.1-channel discrete decoder. However, the Yamaha RX-V1 and the Sherwood Newcastle R956 receivers DO NOT feature DTS-ES, as I was led to believe in the press releases. We would like to ask EVERYONE in the industry to please have a clear understanding of the technology and the nomenclature, especially when a press release or any other source of information to be disseminated to the public is being prepared. Back To Articles Main Page