Sunday, June 12, 2005
Member since:
May 2004
May 2004
The sound and music of a film are its Wings. Sound effects can add tension and/or excitement to a scene.
Theater sound technology has evolved much since the first Talkies.
We went from Analog MONO sound, to digital seven - channel High definition Sound.
The downside is that the field has many technicalities that the average user does not understand, or very simply doesn’t want to become an expert to buy a decent home theater system.
So lets get down to the basics:
Q: What will my home theater system do?
A: It will playback encoded Digital signals that are found on a dvd disc, offering multi-channel sound, usually in the 5.1 format. (Front left, Front right, Center, Rear Left, Rear Right and the LFE (Low frequency Effect) channel called the subwoofer which is responsible only for the deep bass sound. (Explosions, thunders, etc)
Q: What are these…”Encoded signals” you talk about?
A: In order to fit high quality multi-channel sound into a DVD Disc (which has a maximum of 8.5gb space) you have to shrink it, compress it in a way that you will get its size smaller and save its quality. This Process is called “Encoding”(definition: The term used to describe the translation of information, such as text or photographs, into binary code.)
There are two major Digital Encoding methods in the industry.(FORMATS)
The DOLBY DIGITAL Format. And the DTS (Digital Theater Systems) Format.
We will discuss which one is better or worse than the other later.
Q: Well, Which one is the best?
A: Be patient , I said we are going to discuss it later…Jesus !
Q: But I want to know now! Cause I have a disc here that has both formats in the audio selection menu and I don’t know which one to choose!
A: Alright, Alright!
We said before that the audio of a movie is getting compressed, encoded. Imagine a film’s sound like a song, you get it on your computer and you turn it into an MP3 File.
What your computer does is cutting audio information out, harmonic frequencies, Background noise etc. from the song and compresses it. The encoder (the software you use to make these MP3 Files) is taking samples of the song at a specified number of times per second. When you see an mp3 file with a bitrate of 128kbit it means that the encoder “picked up” information 128 times per second. CD Quality is about 640kbits. The more kbits the mp3 is, the better the quality. Now, Dolby digital encodes movie sounds up to 960kbps! DTS encodes up to 1500kbps (or 1.5mbit)! But don’t get ready to choose yet.
Most DTS capable dvd movies don’t offer the full bandwidth of the dts or dolby formats.
In most cases They sound the same, but there are some dvd’s out there that sound better in dts than in dolby digital.
In other words, get a home theater system that offers both formats.
Q: All in one? Or a deck Station?
A: it depends on your Budget and space. A Decent deck station costs a lot and needs its own room to fully perform and pay-off its price .
An all-in-one system very often offers everything you need for a medium living room.
These systems are usually very stylish and have everything built-in (dvd, amplifier, etc)
Keep in mind, Don’t go and buy a 40 dollar system because you see 5 speakers and 1 subwoofer. I Strongly recommend brand models, like the DAV Series of sony, which are top of the line in their field and price range and offer compatibility in every disc format (dvd video, audio, SACD, Mp3 Disc, WMA Disc, KODAK Photo CD, Jpeg Playback)
Theater sound technology has evolved much since the first Talkies.
We went from Analog MONO sound, to digital seven - channel High definition Sound.
The downside is that the field has many technicalities that the average user does not understand, or very simply doesn’t want to become an expert to buy a decent home theater system.
So lets get down to the basics:
Q: What will my home theater system do?
A: It will playback encoded Digital signals that are found on a dvd disc, offering multi-channel sound, usually in the 5.1 format. (Front left, Front right, Center, Rear Left, Rear Right and the LFE (Low frequency Effect) channel called the subwoofer which is responsible only for the deep bass sound. (Explosions, thunders, etc)
Q: What are these…”Encoded signals” you talk about?
A: In order to fit high quality multi-channel sound into a DVD Disc (which has a maximum of 8.5gb space) you have to shrink it, compress it in a way that you will get its size smaller and save its quality. This Process is called “Encoding”(definition: The term used to describe the translation of information, such as text or photographs, into binary code.)
There are two major Digital Encoding methods in the industry.(FORMATS)
The DOLBY DIGITAL Format. And the DTS (Digital Theater Systems) Format.
We will discuss which one is better or worse than the other later.
Q: Well, Which one is the best?
A: Be patient , I said we are going to discuss it later…Jesus !
Q: But I want to know now! Cause I have a disc here that has both formats in the audio selection menu and I don’t know which one to choose!
A: Alright, Alright!
We said before that the audio of a movie is getting compressed, encoded. Imagine a film’s sound like a song, you get it on your computer and you turn it into an MP3 File.
What your computer does is cutting audio information out, harmonic frequencies, Background noise etc. from the song and compresses it. The encoder (the software you use to make these MP3 Files) is taking samples of the song at a specified number of times per second. When you see an mp3 file with a bitrate of 128kbit it means that the encoder “picked up” information 128 times per second. CD Quality is about 640kbits. The more kbits the mp3 is, the better the quality. Now, Dolby digital encodes movie sounds up to 960kbps! DTS encodes up to 1500kbps (or 1.5mbit)! But don’t get ready to choose yet.
Most DTS capable dvd movies don’t offer the full bandwidth of the dts or dolby formats.
In most cases They sound the same, but there are some dvd’s out there that sound better in dts than in dolby digital.
In other words, get a home theater system that offers both formats.
Q: All in one? Or a deck Station?
A: it depends on your Budget and space. A Decent deck station costs a lot and needs its own room to fully perform and pay-off its price .
An all-in-one system very often offers everything you need for a medium living room.
These systems are usually very stylish and have everything built-in (dvd, amplifier, etc)
Keep in mind, Don’t go and buy a 40 dollar system because you see 5 speakers and 1 subwoofer. I Strongly recommend brand models, like the DAV Series of sony, which are top of the line in their field and price range and offer compatibility in every disc format (dvd video, audio, SACD, Mp3 Disc, WMA Disc, KODAK Photo CD, Jpeg Playback)
