DTS-CD copied digitally to DAT tape. Will 5.1 surround transfer to DAT?

Hi everyone. I just discovered from the classifieds that there DTS-CDs that present the music in 5.1 surround sound, but only if you use the digital optical outputs and connect them to a 5.1 DTS decoder (AV receiver). Now, if I were to copy the DTS-CD to DAT, using the digital optical connections, will the DAT copy preserve the 5.1 encoded sound, when it is played back and connected to a 5.1 DTS decoder? Or will it just get down-mixed to 2 channel stereo? Thanks.

 

It should preserve it if it doesn't alter any of the data considering it is simply data specially encoded in a 2 channel 16/44 waveform. I can't imagine why you would want to do this though.

 

It would be nice to see that magnetic tape can play music in 5.1 surround.

 

It's definitely doable. The digital tape is acting as a transport for the data, no different than the data coming off hard drive, solid state memory, CD, laserdisc, etc. all comes down to the decoder to do the deed.


The masters for DTS titles are often magnetic tape anyhow so it's even doable in a professional setting, although not really intended for playback, just transcription.

 

Why not go the whole hog, and get 48-track digital tape?

 

That's not practical in a home sound system. DAT is the way to go...

 

I have cloned DTS CDs to CD-Rs. Unless there is some kind of sample rate conversion going on, you should be fine.

For giggles, I once copied the AC-3 stream off of a laserdisc and my DAT machine locked to it at 48k and played it back fine.



Dan

 

Did the cloned CD-R playback in 5.1 surround sound?

 

Mine did, yes.


Dan

 

You can rip a DTS-CD to flac or ALAC and if you play it back bit perfect to a decoder it decodes the DTS also. Bits are bits, if you don't mess them up along the way.

 

Excellent! I wonder how much people will pay for a DAT with 5.1 encoded sound?

 

I'd have thought more people would have the facility to play DTS from a computer. I have a couple of DTS CDs of my own, and a few examples of old quad recordings that have been copied onto a computer and converted to DTS CDs. While CDRs burnt from these rips are correctly treated by my Sony all in one surround system as DTS encoded, if I play FLAC/ALAC rips of the same CDs and play them on my Mac via the optical output, the Sony also recognises the DTS encoding and plays the rips quite happily. As long as the DTS encoded files are lossless / uncompressed and don't experience any sort of sample rate conversion or other change to their data along the way a DTS encoder should recognise them. It is worth noting that it is very easy to change the data inadvertently, e.g. even though files via Airplay are transferred using Apple Lossless, if you play them via an Apple TV it converts the sampling rate to 48kHz irrepective of source, which will "break" DTS encoded on a Red Book CD. Similarly, if you force your DAT recorder to record at 48kHz (which IIRC many machines default to) the same thing happens if the source file was 44.1kHz, as on a DTS CD. Also, both Windows and Apple computers will frequently alter digital audio if left to their own devices.