Video Asylum

Posted by RAW (i) on June 14, 2001 at 10:53:45

In Reply to: Help out a home theater idiot. posted by McCracken on June 14, 2001 at 09:53:50:

Quick run down:
Dolby Digital, Dolby 5.1 and AC-3 are one of the same. Back during Laser Disc days they called it AC-3 which was confusing when the theaters were using the Dolby 5.1 so they decided to reduce the confusion by calling it Dolby Digital...confused yet. In a word all three is the same....it's compressed audio with discreet left, right, center, left surround and right surround with a sub out (.1). It's what you hear alot in the movies.

There is a new version of the Dolby Digital that was introduced with Star Wars Phantom Menace called Dobly Digital EX which creates a back speaker (Left, center, right, left & right surround, and back with a sub out). Some DVDs out there have DOLBY DIGITAL EX, goto the Dolby website.

Then You have DTS, Dolby's competitor. DTS is compressed audio as well just not as much and they claim to have better audio then Dolby. You can read about the debates. They came out with there version of EX as well.

DVD Audio is a new format competing with SACD. This is the music industry playing music that is recorded in discreet L,C,R, Surrounds. You must have an DVD-Audio player or SACD to play the recorded music. Some feel it will replace the music CD that are being bought now because of their supior output of music vs the traditional CD. We'll have to wit and see what happens. It's still rather new.

Did I forget anything?......

There is SDDS by Sony but it's not for the consumer. Another format with differnt compression ratios created by SONY for the movie industry.

If you want good stuff with knowledgeable sales people to help with your decision, goto a special audio/video store. Don't goto BEST BUY or Circuit City or SAMS. You'll find that the specialty audio video stores have more knowledge and have components that are cost competitive to the above named stores. Just look in the yellow pages under STEREO. They can show you the differances or rather hear the differances between the differnt format.

Good luck.

If I forgot anything, I'm sure someone here will tell you.