Which type of audio is the best....

[redtractor]

when watching sky hd moves and sport hd.

My sky box is connected to my amp via an optical cable, is the sound from the above sky channels broadcast as dolby digital?

My next question,, my amp seems to automatically upscale the sound to 5.1 which is great but then which is likely to be the best setting to use on the amp - - 5.1, Thearte, Stereo etc ?


Hope the above makes sense if not thanks for taking the time to read and reply

thanks

 

[mikie8]

have a look in your amp manual as most amps will have a light or sign on the front display if the input is dolby or dts .

i have a high end onkyo 805 and with a push on a button on the remote it displays the input audio specs .

normally i match my ouput audio to the input , dolby in - dolby out . dts in - dts out . but sometimes it will sound better if i use thx . it all depends on what i prefeer depending on the sound source .

dont downgrade the audio and if upgrading 2.0 to 5.1 it will be a judgment call .

so really its down to your preference and your ears to judge .

 

[Chris_Lucid]

Dolby Digital (DD) means the sound is delivered in 0's and 1's. The amp then decodes that.

Sky boxes don't do DTS or anything better than DD so we don't need to worry about anything further up the scale. The other audio format Sky uses is analogue stereo. You get this when you connect up on SCART to a TV or via phonos to a basic amp for example. You can also get this via the optical connection as a format called PCM (the 0's and 1's version of analogue stereo in this case). The good news is that your amp will recognise this and alter its processing accordingly.

DD doesn't have to be a multichannel surround signal (DD 5.1) though. It can just as easily be stereo (DD 2.0), 2 channel plus sub woofer (DD 2.1) or even mono!! (DD 1.0). All DD means is that signal is in the form of a stream of 0's & 1's which represent one or more discrete channels.

So, what's coming from the Sky box set to "Dolby D" is a set of 0's and 1's. If its DD it could be full 5.1 surround, or stereo, or even mono depending the movie or TV program being shown. If it's PCM then that's the digital version of stereo.

So now we know a little more about what's coming out of the box let's have a look at what the amp does with it...

If your amp is set to "Direct" then you should hear DD in whatever format it is broadcasted as - 5.1, 2.1, 2.0 etc (note: what your amp does with bass depends on the Speaker Settings).

If the source is digital stereo (PCM) then you'll be able to use ProLogic (PL/PLII) to create a surround effect from data hidden in the stereo TV signal using Dolby Surround encoding. DTS Neo should also be available to you if fitted on your amp.

Stereo is 2channel + sub (usually) and would be used for stereo sources (PCM) where you wanted the additional feature of your amp to be available such as control of bass & treble but don't want sound all around you.

Pseudo-surround and acoustic effects (Hall, Jazz, Concert, Theatre etc) are used for stereo only sources. TBH, they were a bit of a fad from the 80's & 90's before proper surround-sound encoding was available.