ESPN HD (circle surround?)

[Sharpie]

Can someone fill me in as to how this works with their audio? Every other HD program I watch including OTA HD comes across as 5.1 DD. My surround sound system is a little old, as now I see 7.1 DD is on the market. My question is, when a basketball game is in HD it doesn't come across my audio equipment as DD. Is this because ESPN is doing the "circle surround" thing and my equipment will not accept this? If there are people with the "circle surround" feature on their audion equipment can you tell me if its worth upgrading to. I am content now with my 5.1 DD system.

 

[BFG]

No need to upgrade anything.

ESPN is the one that needs to upgrade

Circle Surround is the lame stereo matrix thingy they use. Dolby Prologic will work ok with this

 

[Sharpie]

So is circle surround something ESPN thought would be the new thing? I remember when I first heard about it on a Sunday night football game a year or so ago but nobody else besides ESPN was speaking about it then or now.

Holy Cow! BFG is ready to hit post 3000!

 

[BFG]

Circle Surround wasn't developed by ESPN, but they use it for whatever reason.

Sweet - I'm in the 3000 Club!

 

[CWS_kahuna]

Circle Surround is a surround format from http://www.srslabs.com

From the SRS Website: Circle Surround-encoded material can be fully experienced using a CS II, CS, Dolby Pro Logic or Dolby Pro Logic II decoder and a multimedia speaker system. Otherwise, it is played back in rich, vibrant stereo.

Kenwood & Marantz are two manufactures who have Circle Surround in their receivers.

 

[charper1]

Circle Surround wasn't developed by ESPN, but they use it for whatever reason. Sweet - I'm in the 3000 Club!

Congrats on 3000!

As you can guess ESPN uses this because it is much cheaper and except for their occasional movie and/or drama, they must see no need to do true 5.1

The matrixed (fake/simulated) surround that the "circle surround" method provides via dolby pro logic/pro logic II are decent, but just seem "cheap" to me.

 

[hancox]

It's a remnant of the pre-HD studio. They now have enough bandwidth to do 5.1 (they didn't before). Rumours abound if/when they'll make the switch.

 

[Sharpie]

hancox,

I am not going to hold my breath thinking ESPN will go 5.1 soon. Also, your Huskies didn't make the grade so beware of scholarship reductions in the future. Damn NCAA.

 

[korsjs]

yep, i hate this format. only a few receivers support it. espn needs to go to dolby just like abc did.

 

[charper1]

I agree that although 5.1 not really needed, I would enjoy the true 5.1 on ESPN, but since "CS" is 100% compatible with old Dolby PL & PL2, having a new receiver that pays to have the "CS" logo on it seems to be a marking ploy to me.

 

[hancox]

hancox,

I am not going to hold my breath thinking ESPN will go 5.1 soon. Also, your Huskies didn't make the grade so beware of scholarship reductions in the future. Damn NCAA.

Total farce. I'm not *that* worried.