7.1 to 5.1

[itschris]

When blu-ray down mixes to 5.1 are you still getting the lossless TrueHD or Master Audio or it reverting back to the DD 5.1?

 

[itschris]

When blu-ray down mixes to 5.1 are you still getting the lossless TrueHD or Master Audio or it reverting back to the DD 5.1?

In my best Ben Stein imitation: "Anyone? Anyone?"

Is this really just that stupid of a question or do we not know?

 

[MDS]

I don't own a Blu Ray player but it definitely would not output DD 5.1 because that would require it to encode multi-channel PCM to DD on the fly.

 

[itschris]

So it it would still be lossless, but the rear and side channels are mixed together for the 5.1?

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

So it it would still be lossless, but the rear and side channels are mixed together for the 5.1?

Yeah, that is correct.

Another thing I noticed when I compared 5.1 vs 7.1 LPCM Uncompressed Audio when watching "WAR" blu-ray was that the side and rear surround speakers sounded exactly the same. When things pan to the left surround, you hear it in both the Left Side and the Rear surrounds. When they pan to the right surround, you hear it in both the Right Side and Rear surrounds.

 

[itschris]

Could that be more of a function from the studio not aggressively tagging the sound bits to each channel rather than the ability of 7.1?

 

[j_garcia]

My only guess on that would be that it was originally a 6.1 mix, so the rears were not discretely mastered.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Since practically all movie theaters are 5.1 DD or DTS, I bet most of the originals are 5.1. Then for blu-ray, they matrix that into 7.1. Shoot, just do what GlocksRock does and use PLIIx.

 

[j_garcia]

Most of the (good) theaters around here are 6.1, surprisingly. The ones we go to are THX cert and it does seem to make a difference.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Most of the (good) theaters around here are 6.1, surprisingly. The ones we go to are THX cert and it does seem to make a difference.

How can you tell if it's 5.1 or 6.1?

I mean it seems like they have about 20 surround speakers all around, don't they?

 

[j_garcia]

Some of them actually do say 6.1. I never checked if those particular ones said that or not, but the sound is good enough Yes they have lots of speakers along the walls, but the difference is how they are configured AFAIK.