Is DTS important?

I just bought an inexpensive DVD player which cleans up a lot of the artifacts that were bothering me (esp in menus, documentaries, etc.). It wasn't rated in the DVD Benchmark, but passed my own informal tests (some of them taken from the benchmark).

However, when trying to play Flight of the Phoenix last night- I turned on DTS... and... *nothing*. My old artifact-prone DVD player did play DTS.

I read through the specs and it doesn't mention DTS. Models above and below it in the manufacturer's lineup do have DTS, so I don't know why this one was left out.

But, my question is- since I'm going Blu-Ray in the future- do I really care that I don't get DTS?

If a movie is in DTS, I'll always choose it.

Check out the lightning scene in War of the World in DD and then DTS. I was testing and watching it in DD on accident. I came away thinking it was sounding kinda flat and disappointing. Then I realized my mistake and flipped to DTS and it comes to life! I've heard people say that DTS is just a few dB hotter than DD, and I would tend to agree. Still, if I just turn it on an listen at whatever volume, I think I can hear a distinct difference -- including better surround "presence" and better dynamics. I'd never had DTS until this year, and I'm glad I have it now.

Too bad it's rather limited.

-- Otto

---

-- Otto

There are audible differences but its not night and day.

Dolby wrote a paper about why there are differences and they say it has nothing to do with the codecs, but instead there are other changes made to the soundtracks. (DTS hotly debates their claims.)

1. Dolby claims that they use a feature called 'diaglogue normalization' which usually reduces overall volume by 3dB. Since DTS does not use 'normalization', the DTS material may sound more dynamic to listeners.

2. Dolby claims that differences listeners notice in sound quality are down to changes made to the digital master, rather than differences in codec efficiency between DD and DTS.

3. Dolby claims differences between DD and DTS material may also be explained by remixes of the source material. Some DTS ES versions were remixed to add the extra discrete channel.

article

---

Hi All,
I always use DTS when available. It was my understanding that the DTS signal uses a different compression algorithm and is nowhere near as compressed as DD. So, as a result, DTS sound is more dynamic, as it contains more information.

A good example of this is the movie Pitch Black with Vin Diesel. If you watch the scene when the space ship crashes in DD, and then DTS, you will notice a definate difference ie: The DTS track has more spatial information and more seems to be happening on the audio level regardless of volume.

This is a direct quote from a DTS Wiki (link below)

One advantage of DTS (for DVDs) is that it has a much higher bitrate than equivalent Dolby tracks. DTS 5.1 typically uses 768-1536 kbit/s (overall), while Dolby 5.1 uses 384-448 kbit/s. Proponents claim these extra bits give higher fidelity and a greater dynamic range, providing richer and more life-like sound. They also claim that DTS is louder and has less hiss at the same volume.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Theatre_System

Of course I could be wrong.

YES!! If one can't hear the difference in DD and dts, one must be deaf.. It's been some time since I've checked the difference so I put Hero in the 'ol Sony and selected the dd track and then the dts track. Not only is dts louder, there is noticebly less hiss, more definition and I could hear things that I couldn't hear with the dd track.

Receivers and pre-pros should account for the 3dB difference between DD and DTS. I remember my Yamaha RX-V1400 would always show a -3dB on the display panel when I used DTS to account for the difference. Otherwise, in general, people think the same thing is better if the only difference is volume. Maybe some processors aren't doing this.

The few instances where I have read anecdotes of double-blind comparisons between DD and DTS indicate the listener could not tell the difference between DD and DTS. If you've got a friend, you owe it to yourself to conduct a double-blind comparison if you really think DTS is that much better. The only movie where I can really say there's a significant difference is in Appleseed, and that's because it seems they messed up the DTS center channel level during the mixing.

I'll take the challenge. Not only will I do it with a friend but my husband and my grandmother. She'll be over tonight for a going away dinner for the old man and I'll do a blind test tonight, I'd like to see the results myself.

I always go for DTS - it's a few years since I did an AB, but it always sounded significantly more dynamic particularly with for concert DVD's than DD.

It occurred to me, if the audio information is +3dB on DTS versus DD, that would obviously explain a higher SPL on DTS with the same amount of background noise (due to your gear, not the audio track). If you are playing at SPL levels such that +3dB on your receiver will make the noise audible (when no audio is playing back).

I think that DTS is a must have as a choice - but not necc the end all solution for all DVDs. The mix could sometimes be better on the Dolby soundtrack, although most report a better film audio mix being done on the DTS track (to satisfy those picky users with better audio systems who bother to select the non-default DTS option on the disc menu). BTW it is not necc to have it in the player if your AVR supports it. Just set the player to bitstream and let the AVR fed by a coax or toslink S/PDIF connection decode it. IMHO DTS is more of a AVR/Pre-Pro requirement

I've read Dolby's and DTS's material describing their codecs and personally I like the DTS approach better. Throwing higher clock sample rates at the problem means less tricky compression tricks needed. IIRC Dolby Digital tops out at 640 kbps whereas DTS goes to 1509 kbps.

Bob

Really? Let me dig through the menus and try that...

Yes. I checked the equip that you posted you use. Your Pioneer VSXD814 supports DTS decode. And I never heard of any DVD player that does not have the ability to choose between PCM or bitstream (data) output.

Bob

The follow information is based purely on hearsay, gobbledygook and similar detritus..

My understanding is that DD is what the director/sound engineer/etc want as the official sound mixing for the movie/DVD. The DTS tracks are usually created without all of the input from the people listed and are usually created to make the sound more "dramatic".

I haven't done an A/B comparison for a long time to see where the differences are, but I will choose DTS when the mood strikes me.. particularly when watching some action flick.

For straight sound, my understanding is that the two compression schemes are pretty identical.

JCD

Aside from all the other possibly subjective influences, speech is definitely clearer to my ears via DTS. I used to try both soundtracks and then note which sounded better, again to my ears, but found after a while that I either prefered DTS or found no difference. I never prefered the DD soundtrack so now I always select DTS if it's available.

Ayreonaut mentions the dialogue normalisation being a DD feature, but even when I select DTS my 3806 briefly displays the dialogue offset (usually -2 to -4dB) as the full multichannel mix cuts in from the DD 2.0 used during the menus.

The two bottom PDFs here make interesting, if technical reading from when Dolby puplished it's "findings" on DTS. It would appear to refute JCDs understanding as regards to the original directors/sound engineers/etc input or not in the DTS mastering process. I am not saying this is any more or less true than anything Dolby might say though.

Russell

I was trying to remember where I received the information I presented above.. took me a while to remember, but it was located in this thread on another forum. Scroll down to the response by "Soundhound". As a short bio, he's a sound engineer for (I believe) both movies and music. And everything he's posted that I've read has been pretty impressive. Of course, that's just my opinion. Anyway, as a completely disinterested party, I've adopted his opinion into my audio belief system.

All that being said, I will still pick the DTS soundtrack over DD sometimes. Usually I don't really care one way or the other though. As for equipment, all things being equal, I'd pick one with both DD and DTS over one with just DD. I'd even pay a little bit more.. I don't know how much more though.

JCD

You and me both. For some obscure reason, R2 disks don't always get the DTS soundtrack, so I buy the R1 where this is the case. After the earlier release times of some DVDs in the States, this goes a long way to explaining the popularity of multiregion DVD players in Europe.

Regardless of Soundhounds assertions, no amount of any goosing or boosting makes Gandalf sound clear as he enters the minds of Moria when using DD. DTS reduces the sibilance and everthing is crystal. The opening restaurant sequence in the 1500th aniversary/directors cut/weird box/peoples choice/ blessed by the Pope edition of Pulp Fiction benefits exactly the same way. If I weren't drunk, I'd remember others.

DTS all the way for me. It could be, as I've suddenly gone all introspective, that my preference for DTS over DD is a simple manifestation of the same personality flaw that made me buy a MAC rather than a PC, an Aprilia rather than a Ducati, an Alfa Romeo rather than a Ford, an Olympus rather than a Canon (shudders!), Uma Thurman rather than Charlize Theron. Hang on - I didn't buy that last one, but you get the drift. I like the underdog, especially where I appreciate a certain quality that can overide all other rational considerations. Weirdo?

Russell

Aprilia

(2000.5 Mille)

I'm still trying to get my DVD player to passthrough the DTS signal.

Things to check.

You have selected the DTS track from the DVD and have tried multiple DVDs to be sure that something isn't amiss on one DVD.

Audio is connected with either coax or optical. Your audio isn't hooked up with 5 analog cables.

I'll have to check that one out.. like I said, I haven't done any a/b comparisons for quite some time.

And yeah, I root for the underdog too.. must be some sort of instinctual thing.

JCD