Surround Sound Formats - Sony HT-V1000D Guide Manual

SONY
The next wave of home theater sound innovation came with the launch of digital
distribution _brmats, including DVD, digital cable, DIRECTV digital satellite
broadcasting and bee, over-the-air digital television broadcasting. These digital media
opened the door to digital surround sound. Dolby Laboratories answered with the Dolby
Digital system. Compared to Dolby Pro Logic decoffmg, the Dolby Digital system has
crucial advantages:
Digital sound quality. The movie sound tracks now approach the sound quality of
Compact Disc. You'll hear full _equency response, low noise and exceptimml clarity.
Discrete channels. Where the Dolby Pro Logic decoder must pull the 1bur channels
out of two stereo signals, the Dolby Digital system keeps ever), channel separate, or
"discrete."
More channels. Where the Dolby Pro Logic system has a single Surround channel,
the Dolby Digital system delivers a separate channel to the Surround-Left and
Surround-Right speakers. All told, there are 5.1 separate channels. That's five full-
range channels (Left, Ceres, RighL Surround-Left and Surround-Righ0, plus a Low
Frequency Effects channel to drive the subwoofer.
Low-Frequency Effects (LFE) channel. The human ear can't detect where low-
_equency bass is coming _om. This "omnidirectiotml" quality ofhass means that a
single subwool_ can provide bass lbr an entire surround sound system. The
subwoolbr bass will blend with the full-range speakers lbr a @namic, high-impact
soundstage. The LFE channel is oft_l called the "0.1" channel because the
subwoolbr handles roughly one-tenth the _equency range of the full-range channels.
Scalability. While the Dolby Digital system is often called a 5.1-channel system, it
can also support fewer channels, all the way do_l to mono, ]br movies and TV
shows produced be]bre the 1970s.
Surround Sound Formats
Since the acceptance of Dolby Digital encoding, the number of surround sound
ibrmats has continued to grow. But don't worry. Modern Ai* r receivers are good at
automatically detecting the surround sound ibrmat and automatically applying the best
available decoding.
Dolby Digital® surround sound. This is the surround sound system used on most
DVDs, on DIRECTV satellite broadcasts and on fi'ee, over-the-air High Definition
TV broadcasts. You need a receiver with Dolby Digital decoding.
Dolby Digital EX 6.1-channel sound. The new encoding _brmat includes a matrLx
"Surround Back" channel.
Dolby Pro Logic surround sound. This decoding is important because it works
with the Dolby Stereo signals encoded into literally thousands of movies and a large
The Sony Guide to Home Theater 29