|
Digital Theatre System (DTS) is a multi-channel surround sound format used for both commercial and consumer grade applications (with slight technical differences between home and commercial variants). It is primarily used for in-movie sound both on film and on DVD. The company which created it, Digital Theater Systems, is also often referred to simply as DTS. The company is co-owned and was co-founded by film director Steven Spielberg, who felt that theatrical sound formats up until the company's founding were no longer state of the art, and as a result were no longer optimal for use on projects where quality sound reproduction was of the utmost importance. Work on the format started in 1991, about the same time Dolby Labs was starting work on their new codec, Dolby Digital. The basic and most common version of the format is a 5.1 channel system, supporting five primary speakers and a subwoofer, referred to as an LFE (Low Frequency Effects)channel. However, other newer variants are also currently available, including versions that support up to 7 primary audio channels. DTS's main competitors in multichannel theatrical audio are Dolby Digital and SDDS, although only Dolby Digital and DTS are used on DVDs and implemented in home theater hardware. Spielberg debuted the format with his 1993 production of Jurassic Park, which came slightly less than a full year after the debut of Dolby Digital. In addition, Jurassic Park also became the first home video release to contain DTS sound when it was released on Laserdisc in late '93, pre-dating the first Dolby Digital home video releases which debuted in 1995. Surround sound is the concept of expanding the spatial imaging of audio playback from 1 dimension (mono/Left-Right) to 2D or 3D. This is often performed for a more realistic audio environment, actively implemented in cinema sound systems, technical theatre, home entertainment, video arcades, computer gaming, and a growing...
The film director, on the right, gives last minute direction to the cast and crew, whilst filming a costume drama on location in London. ...
Steven Spielberg Steven Allan Spielberg (born on December 18, 1946 in Cincinnati, Ohio), is a Jewish-American film director whose films range from science fiction to historical drama to horror. ...
Dolby Laboratories, Incorporated (Dolby Labs) is a company specializing in audio compression and reproduction. ...
Codec is a portmanteau of coder/decoder, which describes a device or program capable of performing transformations on a data stream or signal. ...
Description Dolby Digital is the trademarked marketing name for Dolby Laboratories lossy AC-3 codec. ...
SDDS logotype SDDS stands for Sony Dynamic Digital Sound, which is a cinema sound system developed by Sony. ...
Description Dolby Digital is the trademarked marketing name for Dolby Laboratories lossy AC-3 codec. ...
DVD is an optical disc storage media format that can be used for storing data, including movies with high video and sound quality. ...
1993 is a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar and marked the Beginning of the International Decade to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination (1993-2003). ...
A mosquito in amber Jurassic Park is a novel written by Michael Crichton and published in 1990, which was later adapted as a movie directed by Steven Spielberg. ...
Pioneers LaserDisc Logo The Laserdisc (LD) was the first commercial optical disc storage medium, and was used primarily for the presentation of movies. ...
1995 was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
In theatrical use, information in the form of a modified time code is optically imaged onto the film, a DTS processor in the projection booth uses this timecode to synchronize the projected image with the soundtrack audio, which is recorded in compressed form on standard CD-ROM media at 1.5 Mbit/s. The processor also acts as a transport mechanism, it holds and reads the audio discs. The units can generally hold 3 discs, allowing a single processor/transport to handle 2-disc film soundtracks along with a 3rd disc containing sound for theatrical trailers. In addition, specific elements of the imprinted timecode allow identifying data to be embedded within the code, ensuring that a certain film's soundtrack will only run with that film. Timecode is also the title of a 2000 film directed by Mike Figgis which was shot in one continuous take. ...
The CD-ROM (an abbreviation for Compact Disc Read-Only Memory (ROM)) is a non-volatile optical data storage medium using the same physical format as audio compact discs, readable by a computer with a CD-ROM drive. ...
Generally speaking, the term soundtrack refers to the recorded sound in a motion picture. ...
DTS as a codec
DTS is an enhanced copy (and, according to some movie industry insiders, a hacking) of a French patent called LC Concept first used in 1990 for the movie Cyrano de Bergerac. 1990 is a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
DTS is also the name often used for the 'Coherent Acoustics' codec which is used on DVDs, CDDAs and in wave files. This system uses a similar codec but does not require separate DTS CD-ROM media. DTS Coherent Acoustics is the full name for the audio format standard usually known as just DTS. It is covered in US Patent #5,956,674. ...
DVD is an optical disc storage media format that can be used for storing data, including movies with high video and sound quality. ...
Rainbow Books: Red Book (CD Digital Audio), Yellow Book (CD-ROM and CD-ROM XA), Orange Book (CD_R and CD-RW), White Book (Video CD), Blue Book (Enhanced Music CD, CD+G and CD-Plus), Beige Book (Photo CD), Green Book (CD-i). ...
Codec is a portmanteau of coder/decoder, which describes a device or program capable of performing transformations on a data stream or signal. ...
DTS variants In addition to the standard 5.1 channel DTS Surround codec, the company has several other technologies in its product range designed to compete with similar systems from Dolby Labs. The primary new technologies are: Dolby Laboratories, Incorporated (Dolby Labs) is a company specializing in audio compression and reproduction. ...
- DTS-ES - DTS-ES contains extra information for a rear-center channel speaker (or two rear-center speakers playing in mono with 7.1 home theater systems) that can be utilized with the proper equipment. The codec can work in one of two ways, depending on how the sound was originally mastered and stored. Most commonly, DTS-ES works on a Matrix system, whereby processers that are compatible with the ES codec look for and recognize "flags" built into the audio coding and "un-fold" the rear-center sound from data that would otherwise be sent to rear surround speakers. Less frequently, DTS-ES data can be encoded with a Discrete 6th audio channel (the rear-center), meaning that the audio data for the 6th channel is stored separately from the other information, and is not embedded or matrixed among other channels. ES capable processors can recognize the Discrete 6th channel, and play it back if connected to the necessary speaker(s). In contrast, Dolby's competing EX codec, which also tauts 6.1 capability, can only handle matrixed data and does not support a discrete 6th channel. DTS-ES is backward compatible with standard DTS setups, so non-ES equipment which does not recognize the flags or with ES enabled equipment that lack the extra speaker connections, sound plays back in 5.1 as if it were standard DTS.
- DTS NEO:6 - Neo:6, like Dolby's Pro-Logic IIx system, can take information from older matrix-surround formats such as Dolby Pro-Logic and Dolby Stereo Surround and convert the sound into 5.1 or 6.1 channel format. It is also capable of adding a 6th (rear surround) channel to 5.1 channel DTS audio. However, Dolby's own Pro-Logic IIx system is better suited to handling the older Dolby formats.
- DTS 96/24 - Allows for the direct playback of DTS-Audio information encoded at 24-Bits and 96Khz using high quality onboard digital to analog converters. Again this system is backward compatible, and audio can be down-converted when necessary for less capable D/A converters
- DTS Interactive - DTS audio designed mainly for gaming, it is output in realtime and does not suffer from problems such as compression related degredation that in-game Dolby soundtracks sometimes do.
The word discrete comes from the Latin word discretus which means separate. ...
Description Dolby Digital is the trademark for Dolby Laboratories AC-3 audio coding system. ...
In electronics, a digital-to-analog converter (DAC or D-to-A) is a device for converting a digital (usually binary) code to an analogue signal (current, voltage or charges). ...
See also Home cinema, also called Home theater, seeks to reproduce cinema quality video and audio in the home. ...
Codec is a portmanteau of coder/decoder, which describes a device or program capable of performing transformations on a data stream or signal. ...
Description Dolby Digital is the trademark for Dolby Laboratories AC-3 audio coding system. ...
DTS Coherent Acoustics is the full name for the audio format standard usually known as just DTS. It is covered in US Patent #5,956,674. ...
The Dolby Digital vs DTS debate remains a long standing, insoluble debate among home theater enthusiasts and Audiophiles on the web (via arenas such as usenet groups) and elsewhere. ...
External links |
Feeds |
Contact