Video Asylum

Posted by Dalancroft (A) on July 22, 2002 at 14:07:38

In Reply to: What is 6.1? posted by newtoHT on July 21, 2002 at 22:27:58:

6.1 adds a center channel rear. Example: plane flies directly overhead. With 5.1, the sound would go from your center channel to a 50/50 mix of the rears. If you were seated off axis, it wouldn't quite sound right. With 6.1, the sound would go from front center directly to rear center, so off-axis it wouldn't fly right over your head, but slightly left or right (depending on what side you were sitting).

If you have a 6.1 movie in, say, DTS EX and play it on a 5.1 system, the decoder should automatically read the center channel as two rear inputs and send them precisely 50/50 to each rear-channel speaker. But the decoder would still send all rear left signals to the rear left signal and the same for the right side. In ProLogic, both rears are the same channel so it's not "true" surround sound.

I've not heard 6.1 but have 5.1 and can't see 6.1 being compelling enough to spend a few hundreds bucks on upgrading.

Hope this helps.