Who know's their surround sound?

[Guest mike-oh]

I have a nice Sony widescreen tele with integrated freeview hooked up via fibre optic to a sony surround sound amp.

Basically my question is, is digital tele broadcast with a surround channel?

The reason i ask is whilst watchin films on tv through the surround sound you can distinctly hear surround effects like bullets wizzing by (like in tonights Predator) or wind and debris (like Twister a few weeks ago) on the rear channels. Is this because i'm using dolby pro-logic 2 on the amp? or is there a rear channel signal being broadcast (i think this can be done using phasing). However when i set the decoding method on the amp to Auto it just uses front stereo channels.

Anyone clued in on this?

Cheers,

Mike

[Guest drblow]

I know a vague few bits & pieces about sound recording using surround sound. It's a mind f**k! :twisted: A studio I work in has 7 speakers set up for surround, and it's all about the digital/analogue converters, and a digital mixing desk to create the panning effects.

As far as movies are concerned, I would imagine that the sound for the film is recorded & miced using surround capability, so if your system is set up for surround sound (i.e. 4 or more speakers) then you will hear the effects. If you switch the mode on the amp, or play it through a system that is not surround capable, then you will not hear the effects. It's all about the speaker capability I think.

Well, thats as vague a response as my general lack of knowledge about surround sound will allow! & it's probably all bo**ocks anyway! :shock:

[Guest beersoft]

i think freeview and most sky is just in prologic and your amp may or maynot downmix/upmix/break the signal from the tv

i know my skybox sends out dd2.0/prologic and my dts beast of a box tries its best to make it not sound like ass, but im tone deaf and have crappy taste in films so it might as well be mono for all i can tell

later

Owen

[Guest cactusbob]

If you have stereo output into your amp then anything matrix encoded will be interpreted at the amp.

This will typically be any of the Dolby analogue standards. Check out the Dolby web site for loads of interesting historical info

CB

[Guest verbetex]

My freeview box has a digital out but only outputs pro logic and I'm not aware of any broadcast that has full 5.1 or above.

So the reason you get sound in the rear channels is that your amp is taking the signal passed to it and faking the 5.1.

Although this is not true 5.1, I get some pretty good results with my amp, and with one surround speaker next to my pillow, there are plenty of points where i think something is flying in through my window!!

Hope this helps.

[Guest xmob]

I think that you'll find that while you have a digital stream from your DTV to audio, it's only Dolby Pro-Logic.

Pro-Logic only has 4 "discrete" channels. Left, right, center and rear. I think that some of the newer Sky digi boxes have full 5.1 digital out, but the broadcast content is still limited.

[Guest amo]

Im almost sure its only the new sky plus boxes that do 5.1

[Guest SirGaz]

All movies on sky are transmitted in 5.1 (so long as they were made that way in the first place obviously). Not sure about the normal sky box but my sky+ certainly does transmit out in 5.1. Quite a few programs do as well, Star Trek transmits in 5.1 although all the dialogue seems to come out of the front with just the ambience stuff coming from the rear.

[Guest mike-oh]

Thanks for the feedback guys, most of that makes sense too! :)

[Guest]

It is only the Sky+ boxes that do 5.1- its another one of thier reasons for people to upgrade to the more expensive package