Does DTS "Fold-Down"?

Hello all,

I just recently purchased a Panasonic DVD-RP91K and am really enjoying the sonics of DVD-A. I have a stereo setup so I cannot really take advantage of the multi-channel capabilities of the medium at this time.

I have two Grateful Dead and one ELP DVD-A that have the ability to take the multi channel DD mix and fold it down to two channels. Great, fine and works for me.

Yesterday I bought Moody Blues - DOFP DTS thinking it was a DVD-A, but in reality it is only a DTS CD. Fine, I guess this really isn't a problem. The problem is that the mix sounds like it is meant to ONLY run on a multi-channel system. It sounds as if certain instruments are not playing and some sound really far away.

My question is: Does DTS have the ability to fold down the multi-channel mix into a stereo mix?

Please help. I would like to enjoy this CD but I might just have to stick with the stereo MFSL release.

 

If you are hearing music (not white noise) then your DTS decoder is functioning, and you are hearing only the front channels. It's an interesting listen, but there are definatly bits missing from the rears.

What you have is basically a DTS CD, which only has a DTS track.

To hear it correctly, you need to add 2 additional speakers.

If you do NOT have a DTS decoder, then I do not know what you are hearing!

 

No, they usually don't fold unless there is the capability within your decoder/receiver.

It' would be quite an experience listening to only two channels - it is very w i d e quad mix. It is also one of my favorite DTS/Quad discs.

 

The Panasonic RP91 does have built-in DTS and DD decoding. I'm not hearing any noise, just sounds as if certain elements of the mix are missing. I guess ultimately in order to enjoy the DTS tracks I will need to upgrade to multi-channel...which is kindof a hassle considering my current space and financial limitations.

 

Looks like it'll be the DAYS MFSL for you; you're only going to get the two front channels. It has to be assumed your receiver has DTS encoding, otherwise you'd be hearing white noise--or nothing.

You would need a fold-down for the ELP disc, since that one doesn't have a stereo hi-rez or DD stereo track. The two Deads, on the other hand, DO have separate stereo tracks, so you should be able to go into the menu and access those. No reason to listen to a fold down when you can have a genuine stereo mix.

ED

 

Excuse my frankness but to take a DTS signal and pair it or make it stereo would defeat the purpose. Sell it (the disc) on eBay if you cannot or have no plans to do DTS correctly. You will get your money back that way..

Unfortunately, DTS is not downmix forgiving, and either the stream works or it doesn't depending on your setup. DTS will not "almost" work. With that, the effort to have a DTS signal correctly is exact. In some cases, some DVD players can decode DTS automatically. Some cannot, but in many cases, it's the receiver's job to decode.

The disc you speak of, is a great disc, but can only be enjoyable if you set up DTS all around, literally.

To add, downmix of a DD mix will do alright, but the original stereo mix as well as the proper set up of the surround DD mix makes listening to a downmixed DD mix seem foolish. Ironically, the ELP "Brain Salad Surgery" has no stereo indipendent mix, although the case says it does. It was a flub that Rhino explained as "The stereo mix is meant to be heard when you downmix the DD mix yourself." It was a primitive DVD-A, unfortunately.

Your Panasonic is a DVD-V and DVD-RAM player in large, no? I'm saying this assuming the player is not a bonifide DVD-A unit...

Trust me, you ain't heard nothin yet.

 

My DVD player (RP82) will downmix DTS to PCM stereo.

My 4-year-old Onkyo receiver will downmix DTS if you plug headphones into it. None of the sounds are missing.

That said, I would never listen to a folded down stereo version; if you want to listen in stereo you should listen to the original, intended stereo mix.

 

DTS is a surround only format. There is no point in trying to listen to DTS discs in stereo. On top of being a surround only format, DTS is a LOSSY compressed format. Unless you do want to listen to the surround mix, do yourself a favor and replace your DTS discs with their standard stereo CD counterparts. Your ears will thank you.

 

My Yamaha receiver has a setting for "EFFECT OFF" which seems to downmix the selected surround format to stereo. I initially thought that for dts I was only hearing the front channels (as I have always heard that dts doesn't "downmix") but with this very wonky surround mix, lead vocals are often in the rear channels. I am positive the receiver is downmixing this signal.

I know that downmixing requirements are part of the Dolby Digital specification, and I guess that there is no equivalent requirement in the specification for dts. It does appear that some equipment does downmix the signal, but I imagine the lack of a standard makes the results less than consistent.

 

Scott,

The Panny Rp-91 he has IS a DVD Audio capable machine. I have one myself.

 

Thank you all for sharing your knowledge and experience. The Panasonic RP91 IS a true DVD-A player. Sckott I did notice that the ELP Brain Salad Surge does not have a dedicated stereo track and that the "Downmix" indicator is lit on the front panel...nonetheless the downmix sounds excellent. Michael St. Clair I am quite jealous about your RP82...it can downmix DTS to stereo...how could a "lower" model actually have a feature I consider greater than the so-called "higher" model? Vex the only reason I am listening in stereo is because that is all I have now...should I hold on to the disc until I get surround which may be a couple of years...or should I sell it and repurchase it later?

Again I thank you all so much for your enlightening and educational thoughts.

 

If future plans include a surround-sound setup, by all means hang onto your DTS discs! Despite the lossy compression, DTS surround-sound discs can sound fantastic. Of course, the hi-rez tracks on your DVD-A discs are a quantum leap forward from DTS, and you're sure to enjoy those even more. However, for many titles, DTS is the only surround option available (for now).

 

Gamma,

A friend of mine also had an RP82. He called me over and said that even when he chose DTS on the disc that his H/K receiver would go into Pro-Logic 2. I went over and looked at his menus and saw that he had the DTS output set to 'PCM' instead of bitstream. Sure enough the player was downmixing it and passing it as stereo (complete with phase information for matrix surround decoding) via the S/PDIF and Toslink outputs.

 

Can one downmix on computer? As DTS files are just specially-encoded WAV files, I'd assume that there would be a program out there that could "decompress" the file into two stereo WAVs (or, perhaps, a CEP plugin that could wrap it into multitrack mode?)

-D

 

Not yet. DD you can though. Then you can send the 5-6 wavs to a software DTS encode.

Only other way is to use analog, that I know of. Once it's in DTS, it's done. You can't un-stream the multiplex unless you played it back in real time and in A.

 

Sckott is correct. Once it is a DTS wav file, that is it. You need decode it and record the analog channels to get it to a normal wav file again.

 

That really surprises me...as some piece of digital equiptment's doing the decoding, it should be trivial to keep the data digital and output it into four files...

-D

 

I don't buy any DTS CDs although my DVD player does have DTS features on it, the standard CDs and LP go a long ways with me.

 

Although I can see why you would say so, I don't necessarily agree.

DTS starts out with higher-than-CD resolution. I know it is bit rate reduced, but to my ears it still ends up sounding better than CD. I play dts tracks on my Sony SACD player, which does a good job of downmixing to two channels when I want to listen that way (i.e. in headphones).

 

Yowza. It must be one of those cases where the mastering of the lesser format outshines the mastering of the better format. All other things being equal, a regular CD should sound better than a 4:1 compressed DTS CD.

 

It ain't necessarily so. The dts signal starts out at a higher bit and sampling rate. I don't believe it's just a question of mastering because it's consistent.

(Er, is this trashing the thread? If so, sorry.)

 

No it's not trashing the thread.

If you're talking about DTS CDs made by MFSL/Miller/Nevada's, those are captured at normal 16/44 rates of transfer from waveform. There are DVD-A that do have a 24/96 sampling, but the core signal is only slightly higher. Weird, huh?

A DTS signal actually only occupies 25% of the "core" signal used, specifically DTS Cds. DVD-A is only slightly higher but 24/96 is absolutely possible.

DTS is a wonderful medium for 5.1, but it is still a lossy compression. A normal redbook CD "has" the potential for more transferable data in stereo than DTS has in a 5.1 form in a DTS CD. DTS will actually play and sound much like the bandwith you would expect, but data reduction in DTS is actually 4:1 @20 bit and Dolby Digital is a fairly amazing 11:1 @ 18bit.

Dolby digital is actually quite good for its size. But that's as far as I'll go

Not knocking either, because both are good fun. It doesn't have to even be said.

 

The DTS disks claim to be captured at higher resolutions than redbook. But regardless, whatever the reason, my ears like them *a lot* better than regular CDs.

Of course we could start a whole new argument about whether or not you can prove the one to be more *accurate* than the other....