Dolby PLII related.

[swami]

My current knowledge says that any stereo signal when fed to PLII compliant system shall get converted to 5.1 channels (of course, when the PLII is switched on).

With this in my mind I had the demo of a panasonic mini compo with PLII facility. It converted an audio CD signal to 5.1 (the PLII logo was glowing in display) but when I tried to do the same with an audio cassette signal, it displayed "error" and continued producing stereo output. Same was true for stereo FM channel too.

My question : Is it correct to say that PLII works on all sort of signals encoded with Dolby Surround (TV shows, VHS etc) but, at the same time, it fails to convert 'analog' stereo signal (as in cassette, FM)? Though it successfully converts 'digital' stereo signal not encoded in Dolby Surround (as in audio CD - not dolby surround encoded but yet digital).

 

[markw]

Interestingly enough, DPL (and all it's decendents) were cerated to work in the analog domain. It should take a two channel (analog ) source and extrapolate two or three more channels from it.

For VHS tapes and two chanel movies recorded in "Dolby Surround" this is fine. How well it works for music sources is open for debate.

Plain old DPL will derive the front center channel one surround channel and send it to both rear surrounds.

DPL2 attempts to derive two different surround channels along with the front center.

Haven't much experience with DPL2x so I'll keep mum on this.

But, as for the situation you're facing with your mini system, I'd say it's more related to that piece of gear as opposed to the DPL system.

I've had DPL2 work from DVD's coming into the receiver in a digital format (from old movies) as well as the analog feed from a VHS recorder. Both of which were "expanded" into more than the two original channels.