I want my 7.1 (and a whole lot more...) :-)

[digital]

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7.1 Surround Sound in the rental shops?

I see all kinds of Dolby 5.1 Surround Sound movies for rent /sale in my local BlockBuster and Rogers outlets, but I have - never - seen a 'factory' 7.1 surround movie notation listed on the back of any packages...

Has anyone ever come across this forgotten technology? Is it listed as something else aside from THX encoding that I have simply not noticed or has the format been all but ignored in Hollywood?

Additionally, I very rarely see systems advertised in flyers etc. as being 7.1, they inevitably seem to be pushed as 5.1 Surround.

I for one, am a big fan of surround sound! Heck, I greatly look forward to 9.1, 11.2 and whatever else 'they' come up with in the future! At this point in time, I strongly believe that there should be a standard for two more channels: (one) centered directly above and behind the listener and another (one) in front of and above the television.

These two new mono-channels could use a matrix circuit to provide the illusion of the sounds emanating from all spaces above, behind and most importantly, vocals directly 'behind the glass' as is done in a theater with its more or less acoustically transparent screen.

Comments?

Andrew D.
cdnav.com

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[brucek]

I have - never - seen a 'factory' 7.1 surround movie notation listed on the back of any packages

That's because the 7.1 encoding format doesn't actually exist. There are some 6.1 encoded titles, although not many. The only discrete 6th channel encoding is DTS-ES, while Dolby EX (a.k.a. THX Surround EX) relies on a matrixing technique to produce the 6th channel. The 7th channel is basically a copy of the 6th channel intended to widen the soundfield in the back.

I personally like the addition of the 6th back channel and find it adds quite a bit. Mostly, my 6th channel comes from matrixing (read faked), because there are very few titles that use the encoding. Dolby EX forced and DTS-Matrix do a good job of creating a 6th channel when one doesn't actually exist and I find all the DPLllx and NEO:6 decoders do a fair job too.

Not likely anything will ever come of a wish to expand past the 7.1 systems. It's hard to get most people to accept 5.1, which is really the standard in the industry today, and will likely remain that way. Anything more is just too **** many speakers in the living room.

brucek

[Andrew Pratt]

I'm expecting a push to add ceiling speakers next in some way shape or form...though I doubt many will bother with them for the reasons Bruce mentioned above.

[bobgpsr]

brucek wrote:

That's because the 7.1 encoding format doesn't actually exist.

The new lossy audio codecs (DD+ and dts-HD HR) available on high def shiny discs (Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD) do allow discrete7.1 audio tracks to be encoded. Also the lossless codecs Dolby TrueHD and dts-HD Master Audio are allowed to have 7.1 tracks on BD and HD DVD.

But I have yet to see any examples. Perhaps the new Digital_Video_Essentials (DVE test disc) for HD DVD will have some 7.1 tracks.

Bob

[garcianc2003]

This won't answer the original question but a while back I found this handy list of DTS-ES and DD-EX titles in another board: http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htf/...ad.php?t=17262.
No 7.1 titles on that list yet. I can't believe that there are 9.1 receivers out there...

[SteveCallas]

Layering Dolby Pro Logic IIx on top of a DD or DTS stream will get you something very close to discrete 7.1. The original 5.1 channels stay unaltered, but the rear left is matrixed from the surround left and the rear right is matrixed form the surround right. It's not directly mirrored, rather, it uses phase ques and determines how much is similar and how much is different between the surround right and left to piece together the rears. It works extremely well, and I'd say it is the standard for 7.1 at the moment. In movies that don't put the surrounds to very good or very much use, it won't be anything special. In movies that do put the surrounds to good use, it definitely enhances the experience.

[bobgpsr]

^^^ Excellent point Steve!

[Ayreonaut]

There's no 7.1 in the commercial theaters yet, is there?

I use four surrounds and let PLIIx (Music) do all the work. The envelopment of having four surround speaker locations is probably more improtant than having a discrete rear channel (or two).

Who's actually heard a "height" channel to say how important it is? Does it exist in any theater?

[garcianc2003]

Ayreonaut wrote:

There's no 7.1 in the commercial theaters yet, is there?

I believe SDDS supports up to 8 discrete channels plus sub. However, I can't tell much difference between discrete and matrixed surround channels anyway, so it's all lost in my cheap ears I guess.

[Ayreonaut]

garcianc2003 wrote:

...so it's all lost in my cheap ears I guess.

What? Aren't your ears pointed backward like mine?

[Hakka]

I currently run a 7.1 system, I play back all 5.1 material in forced EX/ES. I'm keen to get into HD-DVD, only problem is I will need to connect it through the 8ch analog input of my Denon 3803, and all the players I've seen only have a 5.1 analog out. My Denon cannot do any post processing on the analog input.
I also have a Yamaha DSP-A3090 receiver lying around. I was thinking of running the RS/LS preouts from a HD-DVD player to the Yamaha front channels and using pro logic to extract the surround back channel, the LCR and sub would be conected to the Denon. It will be a pain volume matching the 2 receivers but it should give me DD+/DolbyTrueHD 6.1, instead of just duplicating the rears in the surr back chanel.

Before I bought my Denon I ran a similar setup to this using 2 Yamaha amps, a 5.1 amp and a pro logic amp, I used the pro logic amp to decode the EX/ES channel.

Can anyone forsee any problems with this setup?

[Josuah]

I think the thing everyone's missed is that you need two rear speakers for the single rear channel to deal with the psychoacoustic problem of identifying directionality. So even though everyone's talking about 6.1 channels, you need 7.1 speakers to reproduce those 6.1 channels correctly.

The problem is if a speaker is located directly behind your head, then as a point source, you cannot tell if the sound is coming from directly behind you or directly in front of you. That's why you need two speakers, separated, behind you, so that your brain can figure out that the sound is directly behind you.

[garcianc2003]

I thought we were talking about discrete 7.1 surround formats, not how many speakers we had.

[SteveCallas]

.....It will be a pain volume matching the 2 receivers but it should give me DD+/DolbyTrueHD 6.1, instead of just duplicating the rears in the surr back chanel.

You'd go through all that just to get a discrete rear surround? Do you have the capability to layer Pro Logic IIx over DD and DTS?

[Josuah]

garcianc2003 wrote:

I thought we were talking about discrete 7.1 surround formats, not how many speakers we had.

Oh, maybe. It seemed the OP wasn't sure why 7.1 existed, since movies aren't labeled as such, and then people started talking about 6.1 as what was in movies. Just didn't want anyone to walk away from here thinking 6.1 speakers is the correct number for watching DTS-ES or DD-EX content.

[Hakka]

SteveCallas wrote:

You'd go through all that just to get a discrete rear surround? Do you have the capability to layer Pro Logic IIx over DD and DTS?

Yes.
I have compared a discrete rear to duplicated RS/LS, no comparison in my book.
I've been thinking about the volume matching, its really just a matter of doing calibrations at a few different levels, eg Denon = -10db Yamaha = xxdb, Denon -20db Yama = xxdb etc and then write down the volume settings. I mainly watch movies at -10db unless it's late at night. I already own all the hardware needed so it's not gonna cost me anything.

My Denon 3803 doesn't have PLIIx, only PLII. I'm planning on upgrading to te 3808 when it's relased.

Harry.

[punkrokr1701]

Umm i haven't really wondered much into the whole surround sound concepts and the technology behind then yet (being I'm 15 and still working out the kinks in the basics and fundamentals of building speakers ) but I love surround sound and I hope that there is some technology/decoder filter made that will have something like 11.1 surround, like digital was saying definitely they need to have an upper channel for sounds like birds, planes, ships, gunfire etc overhead and a sorta of center for the back and the I'd love to see another pair of speakers playing even better decoded audio on the direct left and right of listening position