New to 5.1, can't get a DVD with DTS Digital Surround to play in 5.1 rather than stereo*

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by Geordiepete, May 25, 2021.

  1. The newest DVD-A's that I have use the DTS encoding.
     
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  2. Sevoflurane

    Sevoflurane Forum Resident

    Most DVD-As have a lossy surround track that can be played on a DVD-V machine to allow a degree of compatibility with the majority of DVD-V players that cannot play the DVD-A files. That lossy track will be Dolby Digital or DTS.
     
  3. Geordiepete

    Geordiepete Tippet tyer Thread Starter

    Location:
    Japan
    My disc is a dual layer, with DVD-A and DVD-V (video). The video layer plays lossy DTS surround, the DVD-A layer plays MLP, lossless surround, although I don't have a compatible player.
     
  4. Geordiepete

    Geordiepete Tippet tyer Thread Starter

    Location:
    Japan
    Very clear, patient, and helpful. Many thanks, Sev!
     
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  5. head_unit

    head_unit Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles CA USA
    Nah, I'll agree with @Sevoflurane. HDMI does have more bandwidth, but that is only usable by DVD-Audio, Blu-ray, SACD. The PS4 isn't playing those so just run the optic. Hopefully it outputs audio to both the optic and the HDMI since I presume you are using the PS4 for gaming.
     
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  6. Geordiepete

    Geordiepete Tippet tyer Thread Starter

    Location:
    Japan
    But the PS4 does play blu-rays, and I play them often.
     
    Last edited: May 26, 2021
  7. Sevoflurane

    Sevoflurane Forum Resident

    At worst, you may have to change which output is used by the PS4 and select which input is used with both optical and HDMI connected. If trying the optical cable with the troublesome disc fails to achieve surround sound then it's no help to you and you may as well just use HDMI. I've had all sorts of combinations of analogue / coaxial digital / optical digital / HDMI between various bits of kit left connected over the years and it has never caused a problem.
     
  8. Geordiepete

    Geordiepete Tippet tyer Thread Starter

    Location:
    Japan
    I cancelled my order of that $7 optical cable. Why? Because I contacted DGM/Burning Shed/Schizoid Shop, the publishing and sales wing of King Crimson. They said that they are aware of issues of the kind I am having with this disc with certain players and that they're forwarding my message to Neil Wilkes, who I think did the DVD authoring for this disc. I'm hoping they'll just send me the blu-ray version of the DVD I have, since there is an issue they are aware of in playing this, even for the DTS content, which should work on a PS4.
     
    Last edited: May 26, 2021
  9. Sevoflurane

    Sevoflurane Forum Resident

    Sounds like a potentially good outcome there!
     
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  10. I have had several Sony multi-format disc players and one OPPO universal player, all played the formats that they were supposed to, including DVD-A discs. One thing that I have found is that there are quite a few 5.1 music discs that are not true 5.1 surround but simulated. One reason is that the older recordings had to have quadraphonic source versions. The 5th channel is made up of what is common to the 4 discrete channels and the .1 is the subwoofer channel where the bass sounds are sent.
    I have many of original quadraphonic source formats. Even with the discrete quadraphonic formats, there was fake generated quad. One of my R2R quad tapes is just the regular stereo on the front channels and the same program sent to the rear channels out of phase.
     
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  11. Geordiepete

    Geordiepete Tippet tyer Thread Starter

    Location:
    Japan
    Thanks. However, the Larks' Tongues in Aspic DTS 5.1 that is, in my set-up, coming through only in stereo is the highly praised 2012 mix by the equally praised Steven Wilson (and Robert Fripp), so I doubt that this would be simulated 5.1.
     
  12. If you are using an HDMI connection, there are several generations and you might just have the wrong HDMI cable or maybe your equipment doesn't have the generation necessary to play multi-channel DTS DVD-A's. I seem to remember my first A/V receiver, which only had one HDMI input and one HDMI output had difficulties. I believe that I had to use optical or coax connectors. I know that the manufactures made some kind of change in the way they made Blu-Ray audio discs and my oldest Blu-Ray player had trouble reading some and would not access all the info. After I got my Oppo UDP-203 everything played beautifully. There may be a compatibility with your equipment. No matter who does the mixing, they can sneak something in on you and hope you didn't notice. I have come across some mainline claimed 5.1 and the original session masters were only 3-tracks. Unless they do some trickery, the most you will get is the front 3 speakers.
     
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  13. Geordiepete

    Geordiepete Tippet tyer Thread Starter

    Location:
    Japan
    Thanks.

    I'm using HDMI 2.0, as I said in a couple of posts earlier, bought new within the last week. I upgraded these from the HDMI 1.4 cables I had, after reading up on the latest generations of cables (2.0 and 2.1, the latter being overkill for non-8K setups, and overkill in cable purchases risking a low or even negative, WAF). Also, I'm not trying to play DVD-A. The PS4 can't read DVD-A. The disc at issue is Disc 2 in the King Crimson Larks' Tongues in Aspic 4oth anniversary two-disc box (2012), with Disc 1 the CD and Disc 2 a dual-layer disc with DVD-A giving the tracks in MLP and DVD-D giving the tracks in DTS. The DVD option doesn't even appear on the on-screen menu, for me, and I didn't expect MLP with my setup, so that's not my complaint.

    The problem is that the DTS digital surround is being rendered as stereo only. This is unexpected and something must be wrong somewhere. Other DVDs and blu-rays I have with DTS play back in 5.1 no problem.

    I emailed the King Crimson sales team and they replied saying they are in fact aware of issues with this disc in setups similar to mine, and that they have forwarded my query to Neil Wilkes, their DVD/blu-ray authoring expert. Hopefully he'll help me find a solution or replacement.
     
    Last edited: May 27, 2021
  14. Plan9

    Plan9 Mastering Engineer

    Location:
    Toulouse, France
    Addressing some of the inaccuracies written in the last posts:

    The cables adhering to the HDMI standard has always been capable of transporting the data from a lossy DTS signal. Any impossibility to do so was likely due to the player/receiver and not the HDMI format.

    King Crimson and Steven Wilson have always been open and honest when they used upmixing on the reissue series (I think that is twice because the multis are simply missing). SW's track record as a surround mixer spans more than 12 years and is spotless.

    You can absolutely have a real 5.1 mix from only three tracks. Mixing in 5.1 is not just putting one musical track in one channel. You basically have infinite possibilities to mix in any combination of any of the 6 channels. However you can't make a fully discrete 5.1 mix from stereo or mono, that would require upmixing or "de-mixing".
     
    Last edited: May 27, 2021
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  15. Geordiepete

    Geordiepete Tippet tyer Thread Starter

    Location:
    Japan
    All good to have confirmed, thanks, and assumptions I was working on or had reached through reading around and from checking information relayed in this thread.

    A little befuddling that Burning Shed/Schizoid Shop say they are aware of disc-authoring related issues with this disc in some setups yet I haven't read anything on this forum (or elsewhere) about that. Anyway, hoping to get it working soon. Also, I'm keen to get other Crimson 5.1 discs, so I'd like to know if it'd be risky, with my current setup, buying other 2-disc sets (1 CD, 1 DVD) in the series.
     
  16. Doug_B

    Doug_B Time Traveler

    Location:
    New Jersey
    FYI, a DVD-Audio disc is not inherently a dual layer DVD with DVD-A material in one layer and DVD-V material in the other layer. The MLP-encoded information is placed within a unique directory, "AUDIO_TS", relative to other material (DVD-V) in the "VIDEO_TS" directory. The disc itself could be a single layer DVD, though it could be dual layer if the publisher chooses to do that or needs to do that due to the quantity of material, just like a movie plus additional content could be on a single layer or dual layer DVD disc. I do not know whether or not any of the King Crimson DVD-A discs are single or dual layer, but that's generally transparent to the user.

    There are other format options as well (not transparent to the user) that support DVD-Audio material. A couple of examples are dual side (HDAD - one side for DVD-A, other side for DVD-V) and CD / DVD hybrid (DualDisc - one side for CD, other side for DVD-A / DVD-V).

    Doug
     
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  17. Geordiepete

    Geordiepete Tippet tyer Thread Starter

    Location:
    Japan
    Cheers, Doug, good to know.
     
  18. Whatever HDMI cable you may use doesn't really matter if your equipment isn't up to that level. One of the first posts showed that the PS4 doesn't play DVD-A, so until you get equipment that can, you're out of luck. DVD-A's are few and far between these days, so it may be hard to find a new player that will. Good luck and best wishes!
     
  19. Geordiepete

    Geordiepete Tippet tyer Thread Starter

    Location:
    Japan
    Thanks, but also, it has been stated several times that I am not trying to play the DVD-A content. The confusion is understandable, give the title of this thread, which I can't change (although I'll try to find a moderator to ask, although I don't know how to do that). Sorry for the error in that title, down to my being an utter 5.1 neophyte. The thread title should be:

    New to 5.1, can't get a DVD with DTS Digital Surround to play in 5.1 rather than stereo


    What I am trying to play is the DTS, which is, I've recently learned, DVD-V content. This DVD is not exclusively DVD-A.

    It has 5.1 lossy DTS audio (and a bonus video) as well as the MLP lossless audio (which is the DVD-A content). The disc does not contain losst DTS 5.1 because some people prefer might quirkily prefer lossy DTS to lossless MLP. Rather, the DTS is included to allow people without a DVD-A setup but with a capable DVD and/or bluray setup to still get the 5.1 content, albeit in a technically lower quality than lossless.

    This DVD should play the DTS 5.1 on my system, just as many other DVDs with a DTS track play on my system, and Burning Shed/Schizoid Shop have informed me that they are aware of issues with this disc and certain setups. Hopefully their DVD authoring expert will be able to help me solve this before too long.
     
    Last edited: May 28, 2021
    ILovethebassclarinet likes this.
  20. ILovethebassclarinet

    ILovethebassclarinet Forum Resident

    Location:
    Great Lakes region
    Best of luck with it; just got my first DVD-A with the Gong boxset a couple of months back, and while it plays from all speakers, I've no idea "what format" it's doing so in; as it's a 10 years old plus, $40 DVD player, I'm guessing that it's not "state of the art."
     
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  21. Geordiepete

    Geordiepete Tippet tyer Thread Starter

    Location:
    Japan
    So long as it's not playing in 'Multi Stereo', I think it will be genuine 5.1, but you might not know for sure if it's lossy DTS or lossless MLP. However, onscreen menus for some discs should give you the choice. Then you would know which version of 5.1 is playing. (For all I know, as a complete noob to this!)
     
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  22. ILovethebassclarinet

    ILovethebassclarinet Forum Resident

    Location:
    Great Lakes region
    What I heard when I played it sounded just fine to my damaged hearing... (it starts heading downward at around 3,500-4,00 cycles in both ears, though I do have hearing aids. 'Too many years of being too close to PAs').
     
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  23. When a disc offers multiple options, sound, video, etc., you normally have to go into the disc's menu to select the options. Some receiver units may automatically play the way you have selected in the disc menu, but some receivers also have to be set to the mode you want. You need to have equipment capable of playing what you want it to play. Disc encoding has changed as well as the players to play them with. My oldest Sony DVD had no problems playing DVD-A's or music DVD's. My next changer played everything, including Blu-ray discs. After something changed in the way they encoded Blu-ray audio discs, the Blu-ray changer couldn't access the menus to select sound options.
    I can accept that they may have screwed up in authoring the music DVD, and there may be a known issue, but for everything else, your equipment has to be compatible with the format that you want to play.
     
  24. Geordiepete

    Geordiepete Tippet tyer Thread Starter

    Location:
    Japan
    Yeah, I want to play the DTS on the disc in 5.1. My equipment is capable of playing DTS in 5.1 as has been proven by my playing other discs in DTS 5.1. My AVR automatically selects the appropriate mode, but I also double check by manually selecting 'Direct'. I'm selecting DTS and with this problem disc, it is playing, but only in stereo.

    For LPs, I use my turntable, also connected to the AVR, and for DTS on DVD and for DTS-HD Master Audio on blu-ray, I use the PS4, which so far works for everything I try except this King Crimson Lark's Tongues DTS 5.1 on the DVD, which it plays, to reiterate, only in stereo. So, my equipment is compatible with the media kinds I want to play. Just trying to solve this problem with the Crimson DVD. I'm also wondering if all the 2-disc, CD+DVD King Crimson anniversary edition sets will have this authoring (or whatever the problem proves to be) problem with my setup.
     
    Last edited: May 28, 2021
  25. I can see your problems with playing the King Crimson disc. I've got the 2019 50th anniversary boxed set of "In The Court Of The Crimson King", which includes a multi-program/channel Blu-ray. I like the original LP probably the best, but the 2009 40th anniversary set is a close second.
     

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