So MGM HD does not do DD5.1 in some Movies? What's up with that?

[M Sparks]

I THINK what Sean is saying is that it's nice if they would just send a 5.1 SIGNAL all the time. Obviously most of the movies aren't actually in surround sound, and I wouldn't want them to try to make a fake mix.

I don't think you can send a DD 1.0 signal. At least I've never seen one. It's always 2.0, or 5.1.

When a MONO movie is sent in DD 2.0, it spreads out to the L/R speakers. You also lose the bass, because nothing is driving the subwoofer. You can switch to ProLogic to fix the problem, but Voom just did it at their end.

I'm betting a LOT of movies on MGM are ether Mono, Stereo, or some kind of early Surround (Dolby Surround or Ultra.)

This is how they SHOULD be encoding their films.

Mono- Separate the bass and send appropriately to the Sub channel. Send everything else to the center channel.

Stereo- Some would say it should be left alone. I'd personally rather have them process it as 3 channel Pro Logic and feed to the front three channels. Separate the bass. Leave rear channels silent.

Dolby Suround or similar- Process the front two channels as above. Send the surround channel to both rear channels. (You might have to cut the surround channel's mix in half, since you're doubling the number of speakers.) Separate the bass.

 

[Sean Mota]

Whinning about 5.1... little bit picky arent we? Have we become that snobby about TV?

Imagine goin to the theater to watch a movie and having mediocre sound or no sorround sound at all. Is that feasible or will you whin to get your money back because it was not dd5.1. This is the whole point of Home Theaters. Watching HD OAR and dd5.1. If others have been able to do it at the source why is MGM not doing this. This is not a small company that just started. This is big man MGM and they can't do something that HDnet movies and VOOM did. This is no whinning but expecting a product to be at 100% instead of of 50%.

 

[rockymtnhigh]

Imagine goin to the theater to watch a movie and having mediocre sound or no sorround sound at all. Is that feasible or will you whin to get your money back because it was not dd5.1. This is the whole point of Home Theaters. Watching HD OAR and dd5.1. If others have been able to do it at the source why is MGM not doing this. This is not a small company that just started. This is big man MGM and they can't do something that HDnet movies and VOOM did. This is no whinning but expecting a product to be at 100% instead of of 50%.

That's funny Sean. That's the difference between living in NYC and in many other places in the US. Until 1 year ago, you described our movie theaters here perfectly. Mediocre sound at best, little surround sound; and hell, sometimes we were lucky to have a decent picture. I remember one blockbuster film when it started, it was playing upside down and in reverse. OR when the center channel was coming out the pathetic surround speakers they had



That said, I agree, no reason not to be encoding in DD5.1

 

[stayloc]

Whinning about 5.1... little bit picky arent we? Have we become that snobby about TV?

Hey I have a great idea. Why don't we go back to two local statiions and black and white.

 

[Sean Mota]

Just to make sure it is MGM and Dish not sending the DD5.1. Anyone from DirecTv would like to comment on the issue? I know "Flowers in the Attict" did not have dd5.1. I am recording a bunch of movies today and will compile a list which do not have dd5.1. If it is the same on DirecTv then we know it is MGM not doing the encoding at the source. I will try to get an email to complaint about it. I do not have want to pay for a product that is half of what is supposed to be.

 

[darrencp22]

I just dont know why you expect/want so much out of 30 year old movies.

 

[Sean Mota]

I just dont know why you expect/want so much out of 30 year old movies.

darrencp22,

do you know how a movie which was captured on film is transfered to HD? If you know, you will see how silly your above comment is.

 

[zim2dive]

I think the point is that if a move didn't originally have a surround track, then the only way to get it into 5.1 is to simulate it like Dolby ProLogic or DTS Neo:6 does. The difference in this case is that HDNet and VOOM do that at the source and then broadcast the 5.1, while MGM broadcasts in whatever the original has, and then lets the customer's receiver sort it out.

My receiver is set to automatically switch to Neo:6 for stereo or DTS 2.0 tracks.

This seems like the most authentic way to do it... present the original sound and let the customer process it as they wish.

 

[Sammy033]

If I want upconverted sound and stretch-o-vision I will do it myself thank you.

 

[M Sparks]

This seems like the most authentic way to do it... present the original sound and let the customer process it as they wish.

The problem is, it messes with the bass on most systems. So you are FORCED to reprocess it anyway.

There's such a thing as DD2.1, right? If they could just get it to that, it would be OK, I guess.

 

[M Sparks]

ACTUALLY, if a film was originally in Dolby Surround, it was originally intended to come through THREE speakers- Left, right, and rear.

Broadcasting in DD2.0 (stereo) is NOT how these films were intended to be heard. Processing through Pro-Logic first and converting to DD5.1 is closer to how it was originally shown.

Also, for mono films, they were also not intended to be heard through stereo speakers. Converting to DD5.1 is the only way to route the mono into the correct speaker at the providers end.

The arguement only holds up for true stereo films.

 

[Aero Steve]

I don't think you can send a DD 1.0 signal. At least I've never seen one. It's always 2.0, or 5.1.

I've seen a 1.0 mix from a DVD that was of an older movie in Mono. I can't recall what it was off the top of my head. My twelve year old Denon receiver gives me an indicator for each channel receiving a signal when using DD formats. I've actually seen all sorts of odd mixes from DVD: 1.0, 2.0, 2.1, 3.0, 4.0. All of these were from older movies that did not have a multichannel audio mix available when the movie was made.

I have a Dolby Digital Live sound card in my theater PC that upmixes audio to 5.1 or passes the sound straight through if the source is already in a DD format. It's surprising how well it works filling out the sound in my living room for mp3's and videos off the internet.

I've alway felt the networks were doing something similar when providing 5.1 surround for older movies anyway. It's easy to understand how film images are converted to HD, but how do you get a surround mix for a film that never had one in the first place? I've never worried about having 5.1 sound from a movie that probably never had it in the first place, but thought it odd when it existed on material that was probably shot with stereo or even mono sound.

 

[M Sparks]

I've seen a 1.0 mix from a DVD that was of an older movie in Mono. I can't recall what it was off the top of my head. My twelve year old Denon receiver gives me an indicator for each channel receiving a signal when using DD formats. I've actually seen all sorts of odd mixes from DVD: 1.0, 2.0, 2.1, 3.0, 4.0. All of these were from older movies that did not have a multichannel audio mix available when the movie was made.

Me too, but I've never seen them on DISH. It's always 2.0 or 5.1 .

I don't know if this is an actual limitation, or just how it works out.

 

[Sean Mota]

Ok. I just checked about 5 recordings on MGM today nothing had dd5.1.

 

[Sean Mota]

At least one DirecTv customer replied to my thread in the DirecTv forum that this channel does not provide dd5.1. What a dissapointment?

 

[Stalker]

Just goes to show it wasnt true Dolby 5.1 as my system detects any TRUE dolby 5.1 sound and automatically switches to it and if not it decodes it as stereo x2. I have the MGMHD channel also and depending on how recent the movie determines what it was recorded in.

 

[Sean Mota]

here's another example. Sayonara was aired on hdnet movies in dd5.1 not MGM.

 

[kstuart]

I just dont know why you expect/want so much out of 30 year old movies.

There is not the slightest doubt amongst professionals that the the best picture and sound quality were in movies and music filmed and recorded in the late 1950's and 1960's..

In the 1970's, mass production of cheap cr*p started and replaced the hand made professional equipment of the previous era - poor sounding transistor mixing desks, film processes with less accurate colors (not to mention houses and cars that were the worst ever made).

Digital picture and sound have helped that m the 21st Century, but 35mm film stock has way more resolution than 1080p digital video...

PS If HDNet-Movies and Voom send DD5.1 for 30+ year old movies, then that is incorrect. If the movie is DD2.0 or DD1.0, then one is supposed to allow the receiver (and the user) to respond to that in a different way than a DD5.1 input.

 

[John Kotches]

I THINK what Sean is saying is that it's nice if they would just send a 5.1 SIGNAL all the time. Obviously most of the movies aren't actually in surround sound, and I wouldn't want them to try to make a fake mix.

I don't think you can send a DD 1.0 signal. At least I've never seen one. It's always 2.0, or 5.1.

When a MONO movie is sent in DD 2.0, it spreads out to the L/R speakers. You also lose the bass, because nothing is driving the subwoofer. You can switch to ProLogic to fix the problem, but Voom just did it at their end.

A DD2.0 movie that is mono should properly reproduce as center channel only. CC is derived as L+R common information in both ProLogic and ProLogic II/IIx. We call that "Big Fat Mono" at WSR. Any other reproduction of a mono signal leaves you open to comb filtering and other undesirable acoustic side effects. As for "nothing driving the subwoofer", that's the job of Bass management which is not related to PL or PLII processing. The PL and PLII processing goes from N to up to 7 channels. The subwoofer channel is always derived if you have "small" / bass limited speakers defined. If you don't have the speakers defined as "small" / bass limited then you've told the audio processor (receiver or pre/pro) that the speaker is capable of full range reproduction (20Hz - 20,000Hz @ 105dB at the seats by definition). In that case, a subwoofer output should not be derived.

I'm betting a LOT of movies on MGM are ether Mono, Stereo, or some kind of early Surround (Dolby Surround or Ultra.)

It was actually called Dolby Stereo and the matrix decoder extracted L, C, R and mono surrounds.

This is how they SHOULD be encoding their films.

Let's discuss.

Mono- Separate the bass and send appropriately to the Sub channel. Send everything else to the center channel.

Can't do that, as the encoding end has no idea what equipment is on the consumer end of the chain. The minute the encoder makes assumptions it'll be wrong. This function is (correctly) left to the consumer equipment to properly derive the subwoofer signal.

Stereo- Some would say it should be left alone. I'd personally rather have them process it as 3 channel Pro Logic and feed to the front three channels. Separate the bass. Leave rear channels silent.

3 Channel PL is possible, it's a matter of how the signal is encoded.

Dolby Suround or similar- Process the front two channels as above. Send the surround channel to both rear channels. (You might have to cut the surround channel's mix in half, since you're doubling the number of speakers.) Separate the bass.

What you've just described is the PL / PLII(IIx) decoder. The surround level on the mono surround for a Dolby Stereo encoded track is automatically compensated for by the decoder so that each loudspeaker in the array is -3dB from the actual signal.

The bass is (once again) a function of the receiver's bass management and not directly a function of the PL / PLII (IIx) decoder.

Yes, I do write about this stuff from time to time, why do you ask ;-)

Cheers,

 

[John Kotches]

here's another example. Sayonara was aired on hdnet movies in dd5.1 not MGM.

Purists will tell you that transmitting in other than the original soundtrack format is the audio equivalent of colorizing a black and white film.

Cheers,