DTS And DVDs?
Dear Gary: First my system: Sunfire Theater Grand pre-amp, Sunfire Cinema Grand power amp, Sony DVP-S7000 DVD-Video player, KEF RDM2 front speakers, KEF RDM1 rear speakers, KEF 100C center channel, Sunfire True subwoofer, Tara Labs Decade interconnect cable right and left speakers, Monster Cable 850 interconnect center and rear speakers. For the DTS signal, I use the DAT/Tape input on my Theater Grand and I use Vaux1 for my Dolby Digital line. The LaserDisc player (Pioneer Elite CLD-99) gets the LD/DVD input. Why Sunfire doesn’t separate the LD and DVD inputs, beats the heck out of me. With my Sony DVD-Video player, I can play the DTS Digital Surround demo disc #2 (made by Digital Theater Systems) and get a DTS signal lock with my pre-amp. Before the unit says “DAT/Tape” it says “DTS” and the light showing the lock comes on. It sounds and looks great. I then played two recently bought DTS DVDs. You have to select the audio version (I selected DTS) before the discs start to play. When I played the DTS-encoded Waterworld, both the DTS logo/intro and the audio could be heard through all five speakers and subwoofer but there was no DTS lock with the Sunfire pre-amp. I got no sound when switched to Vaux1. When I played the DTS-encoded Eagles When Hell Freezes Over, I got the same result with the audio being heard through all five speakers and subwoofer but there was no sound when the DTS logo/intro was on. Even with the non-signal lock, am I hearing true DTS sound? I noticed when I was playing the demo disc, there was white noise before the DTS lock happened. This did not happen with the two commercial discs. I found this curious and wandered whether the commercial product is being mastered to DTS standards or if it is being tweaked company to company (is this a Dolby conspiracy?). Are the commercial discs true DTS sound? I thought since I could play the demo disc with the Sony DVP-S7000, I should be able to play the commercial discs as well. It does not appear to be the case. I was wandering if you could shed some light on this and have you noticed the same things with your tests of various commercial DTS encoded discs. One side note. I did not have the above problem playing the DTS-encoded LaserDisc 12 Monkeys. Thanks.
Lloyd G Danku
Editor Gray Reber Comments:
Your problem with playing DTS commercial DVDs is the Sony DVP-S7000. This is Sony’s first generation high-end reference player and Sony did not provide for “DTS Digital Out,” which is required for the internal circuitry to recognize a DTS Digital Surround signal from a DVD-Video disc and pass that signal through to the digital output. Unlike LaserDisc in which the DTS signal is passed directly through to the digital output without internal player flag recognition, the DVD Forum standard specifications do not permit a direct pass through. The DVD Forum requires special flag recognition, just as with Dolby Digital, built-in to DVD-Video players before pass through to the digital output. What you heard on the DTS #2 demo disc was DTS Digital Surround passed through as a PCM signal just as with DTS LaserDiscs. The latest #3 DTS DVD demo disc requires the DTS Digital Out recognition to play in the DTS Digital Surround 5.1 discrete format. The commercial DTS-encoded DVDs require DTS Digital Out recognition first to be processed by a DTS decoder. What you heard was Dolby Surround (not Dolby Digital) which is the accompanying audio format on DTS DVDs. Sony has now replaced the DVP-S7000 with the new DVP-S7700. We use both players as reference at the magazine. Readers shopping for a DVD-Video are advised to consider only those players that provide for DTS Digital Out recognition. Such players are required by DTS’ licensing agreement to feature a “DTS Digital Out” logo on the front panel of the player.
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