Hey Neil,
Have been experimenting w/ this, and have a couple of questions:

1.) Is the disadvantage that there is no downmix to 2.0--meaning a DTS CD will not play in a "standard" DVD player?

2.) Is the manufacturing process the same for these discs, i.e. just send the Cd w/ the encoded wav to the replicating plant?

And one more--I read your thread on the Dolby VST encoder by Minnetonka (or surcode). Are you currently using this, and how is it working for you?

I'm a little leery of having to make a 5.1 mix folddown compatible.

Thanks,
Cass Anawaty

Hi Cass,

I would recommend sending them a dlt tape rather than a cdr. I've found that there is a problem with the error rate being amplified. One disadvantage to using DTS is it requires a dts system for playback which most systems do. You may want to simply use AC3 with two separate mixes: 5.1 and stereo or use PCM for the stereo track. Or send it to Neil and create a DVD-Audio disk.

The Dolby Pro Logic II encoder is great but you have to limit how many things are being panned simultaneously. If your music is somewhat static panning wise then you could still have some decoding problems. You might want to read this: Dolby Mixing In Pro Logic II

Quote:

Problems also result when two very different and unrelated sounds are sent to two different channels at once. For example, crickets in the Surround channel and chickens in the front cause the sounds to bleed into the other channels, producing a dynamic image shift. This effect is distracting and undesirable.

It is also common for a music track to contain a prominent lead instrument in the Left or Right channel while an announcer comes from the Center channel. The instrument appears to move from its intended speaker toward the center when the announcer speaks and then return to the correct position when the announcer stops talking. The solution is to either pan the music element toward center or temporarily reduce its level.

This is irrelevant. You cannot downmix a DTS 5.1 core stream, only DTS-HD streams. When these discs are played in a regular CD player the only rule is that the CD player must be hooked up digitally, or you will get noise only.
When the stream gets to an amplifier with DTS decoders, it will be seen for what it is - a DTS stream - and decoded. On the disc, it looks like a stereo wav file.



Yep.
Personally, I would send not only a CD-R, but ask the plant if they would prefer a DDP image as well. But that is just me.
For all intents & purposes, it IS a CD. The tracks "look like" CD-A tracks, they are just DTS streams fudged to appear this way.



The Dolby VST Encoder from SurCode is not a Dolby Digital one - it is a Dolby Pro Logic II encoder.
And it is awesome. I have been using it since before release, and it is truly an indispensable tool for me.
What it does is takes your existing 5.1 mix, and wraps it up as an Lt/Rt stereo stream - in exactly the same way the broadcast industry is doing & has been doing for years. You can monitor the output either as stereo or 5.1 so you can adjust the trade-off of matrix encoding to be minimal. Sure, it won;t be discrete. But it will play back in stereo on analogue stereo setups, and when the DPL II buttons are pressed it will decode into 5.1
All Dolby Digital Decoders are capable of decoding DPL II as well. You just need to decide if Stereo comnpatibility is as important as the surround. If it is, then you should be producing either DPL II Matrix encodes for CD or else MLP Lossless for DVD-Audio. If stereo compatibility is not important, then DTS-CD will be the cheapest distribution option for you.

how do you put dts on a dvd?

tia!

Check out this site...
Minnetonka Audio

On a DVD, you will need 2 things:
1 - A suitable Encoder. Minnetonka Audio do one for around $500, or you can go direct to DTS & get the new DTS-SAS encoder - that will do up to 24/96 resolution (The Minnetonka one will only go to 48KHz).
2 - An application that accepts DTS Audio in a DVD Authoring suite.
What one is best for you will depend on what platform you're on & how much money you want to spend.
With a PC, you have a lot of options:
Adobe's EncoreDVD 2
Media Chance Labs DVD-Lab Pro
Sonic Scenarist
on a Mac, it's either DVDSP or if you can find one, a copy of Sonic's DVD Creator or DVD Fusion.

The DTS stream cannot be stream #1, or the disc may not play correctly.