difference between AC3 6-ch and DTS 6-ch Sound

[Grant_H]

I backuped blade II using only DTS 6-channel sound and the disc played with no audio in my computer and in my standalone with a Bose surround sound system. But when i rebacked it up using AC3 6-ch The sound is perfect. What is the difference and why does DTS not work? I'm using DVDshrink for my backups.
TIA

Grant

[wulf109]

DVD Shrink does not correct the ifo file when it compresses. Your DVD player will default to audio stream #1,which will be the ac3 stream. The DTS stream is usaully the #2 stream,if you use your remotes audio button you would have found the DTS stream.

[Grant_H]

I tried the audio button several times it just gave me a big old X, nothing changed.

[wulf109]

Look at the ifo file with IFOEDIT or load the disk into a ripping program and check to see if there are any audio streams on your copy.
Are you sure your DVD player is DTS compatible or perhaps it's not setup in players menu system.

[stevey]

You did it right, but DTS can only be played on a DTS compatible receiver, and 6.1 ac3 can be played in any reciever, but if it is not Dolby 6.1 receiver it will only play what your receiver is capable of playing. So if you play DTS on a non DTS reveiver you will get no sound.

[Grant_H]

IFOedit says there is DTS audio on the disc. And I tried all the audio options on my dvd player.

[vtecwil]

Does the amp section of your sound system have a DTS decoder ? Even if your standalone says DTS on the unit it does not mean it will decode DTS unless it has a built in decoder . All that means is it will pass thru the DTS signal . Whatever it is that you have that is processing the signal must have a DTS decoder .

[adam]

Look at your audio receiver. If there is no DTS logo on it then you will not get any sound. As for pc playback, if your sound card and/or playback software does not support DTS decoding, then again you won't get audio.

My guess is that none of your hardware supports DTS, so either get a DTS receiver or keep the AC3 track instead.

[Grant_H]

I just check the orginal copy it won't play in DTS either I know my souround sound system will play DTS for $1500 it beter. But I'm not sure if my DVD player will, if it has an option for it I sure as hell can't find it I've searched the options many times. My stand alone is a phillips DVD-711 it says on the back of the player that it is DTS compatable and so is my Onkyo reciever, Although I lost the manual for them both. It might be that I only have a 5 speaker setup, and DTS need 6, but I'm not sure.

Thanks for the quick responses!

[overloaded_ide]

So are you guys basically saying you can keep AC3 6 channel sound and dump all the rest!

I notice I had DTS on a disk, but didn't know why I had DTS and AC3 with the same channels.

Also if I dump the 2 channel and what ever else, does the 6 channel still play, like backwards compatible to 2 channel or mono if that's all the player supports?

I would do a search but I am too lazy :P
Not really, but I just started ripping. Mostly I am doing captures and that's just stereo and still trying to get that figured! Now I went from analogue to DV

[Grant_H]

I've done several disk with the AC3 6-ch audio ONLY without any problems, I just happened to come across a disk with the DTS Audio and thought I would burn only the DTS but that was a bad idea.

[CHAOS]

How do you have your dvd player hooked up to your rec. ?
do you have your rec. set to the correct digital input, if you have it hooked up with a coaxial or optical digital cable that is ? because i would be amazed if your dvd player did not have a digital output of some type for dts playback

[Grant_H]

I have the component video (color stream) hook directly into my TV's Component video source. and I run the Audio thru the reciever using monstercable RCA conectors. Would I need to run the video thru the reciever also, to get DTS sound. Those componet video connectors are expensive, I'de need to get another set then.

[Skynet107]

If your receiver does DTS then the problem is most likely your DVD player. The first few years DVD players were produced they did not support DTS. The only way you will get DTS (or AC3) to be decoded by your receiver is to have the digital output from the DVD player going to your reciever. When you play an AC3 or DTS DVD your receiver should have some sort of indicator telling what type of audio it is decoding.

Your video connections have nothing to do with your audio, it does not matter how you hook up the video portion of your home theatre. Hooking up digital out is easy, most receivers have coaxial digital in which means you can hook the DVDs digital out into your receiver using any cheap RCA cable. You should also make sure your DVD player is configured properly for digital audio output. Many players have on-screen menus with audio options that you need to set correctly.

EDIT: you stated:

I run the Audio thru the reciever using monstercable RCA conectors.

Why are you using this method? The only reason to do this is if your receiver does not have digital audio decoding built in and you are using your DVD player to decode the audio. You only need ONE cable for digital sound, either a TOSlink (optical) or coaxial (standard RCA connector)
having the analog output hooked to your receiver is only used if you have a VCR also hooked to the receiver and you record from DVD or CD to the VCR. Otherwise it is not needed.

[Grant_H]

So if I understand this right I have my audio hooked up wrong, The Left and Right channels are only for anolog, and I need to connect with a single RCA cable into the Audio in or get an optical cable and connect that way.

[vtecwil]

If you are not using a digital cable for the audio ( optical or coax ) you are not and have not been listening to any kind of 5.1 sound . AC-3 and DTS are digital signals they will not work with standard RCA audio inputs . You have been listening to a two channel downmix of these formats . You have to use the digital out from your standalone to the digital input on your receiver .

[overloaded_ide]

Ok, so exactly what files do we need to be certain every player will have sound, preferrably the best possible.

Both AC-3 6channel AND 2 Channel? Currantly I just have the RCA jacks for audio output to my tv and the DVD player connected. But we have 6 channel sound on the Pc's, and if I go to a friends house with a disk I want the best they have for sound too of course, what ever it may be.

If I cut some of the english sound tracks out to save space, what ones would I need to keep to gaurantee the sound is there always. I thought it was the AC-3 6 channel, and if need be it played all to stereo 2 channel also??

[Grant_H]

Man I'm an idiot, The sound is so much better now. no problems with DTS now either. Thanks for the insight on how to connect the audio properly.

[wulf109]

I boughta cheap Daewoo S151 at Sam's club for $40. and to my surprise it plays the DTS channel over a normal 2-channel stereo TV input jack. Not surround of course,but it the DTS stream. Even over this simple two channel setup it sounds much better and plays much louder than the ac3 stream. FYI

[vtecwil]

For Overloaded_IDE , the best compromise is to keep the six channel soundtrack . This track will give you AC-3 on compatible systems and two channel on ones that are not .

[overloaded_ide]

Thanks, that's what I originally thougth but was not sure.

[turk690]

How audio is handled within and without DVD players can be a complex matter but not if you know what thread of thought to follow. Except for LPCM, most DVD players >US$200 DO NOT have built in decoders for the other three accepted DVD audio formats DD, DTS and MPEG. They merely demux the chosen audio stream and send it right out to the digital coax or optical connector, relying on you to have a receiver with DTS/DVD/MPEG decoders to hear the audio in all its multi-channel glory, if that. For those who merely want to connect their DVD players to a TV (with NO digital audio input, only plain jane L & R analogue audio inputs) this is not acceptable, so some form of decoding has to take place inside the DVD player. Since the default audio format for DVD is Dolby digital, the player detects the force-selected audio stream on the inserted DVD (it IS ALWAYS either 5.1, 2.0, or 1.0 DD), analyses it; if it's 5.1 the bits are parsed and regrouped to 2.0 (either with or without Dolby Surround encoding, selectable with the player's main set-up), D-to-A then sent through the L and R analogue audio outputs. For 2.0 and 1.0 they are D-to-A then sent to the L & R. There are NO decoding provisions for DTS and MPEG so relying only on these L and R outputs will give no audio even if DTS and MPEG audio formats are present on a DVD and are chosen. For these reasons it's always best, at least where DVD-lab is concerned (where at the moment only one audio stream is allowed), to use either a DD *.ac3 stream (of whatever channel/bitrate variety) or an LPCM *.wav stream to ensure that audio IS ALWAYS available at the DVD-player analogue audio outputs (if those analogue outputs ARE important to the intended recipient of the DVD). By the same token, when ripping, oh OK, making backups of DVDs choose a DD or LPCM stream. DTS is nice but this stream occupies a lot of space, and if chosen no analogue outputs are avaliable.