TW Blog :: Archives for December 2004

Surround Sound Experience with DTS

Relates to Movies

This afternoon I chose to watch a film on my Sony DAV offering a DTS sound track, instead of Dolby Digital 5.1 which seems to be the standard on most DVD's. I chose Master and Commander, a superbly shot film and one of only two DVDs I currently own offering DTS encoding.

To me the difference in sound was phenomenal. Occasionally I switched the encoding but generally found the Dolby Digital to be a little flat with muffled bass throughout while the DTS produced impressive bass and treble at the appropriate times, as well as distributing the sound in a way that gave the sensation of actual being inside the ship. When the early encounter with the Acheron took place, I was diving for the remote before my own walls blew in! Of course, any audio interpretation is heavily subjective and dependant on the acoustics of the environment - in my case a room no larger than nine square metres. Web-wise, the consensus on the two encodings seems to be undecided but this interesting forum entry comparing DTS and Dolby Digital enlightened me on the differences with considerable favour towards DTS.

I will certainly be looking for DVDs offering both encodings from now on although unfortunately this is something that Amazon UK does not always make clear. I assume the reason The Lord of the Rings Trilogy currently only lists a Dolby Digital 5.1 EX soundtrack, whereas each individual film lists DTS as well, is because Dolby is a more familiar label to many people and not that these are actually slightly different releases.

Posted on Sunday, Dec 05, 2004 at 21:01:02.