How the hell do I get a dual Dolby Digital/DTS DVD to play DTS?

It sure is a lot easier to deal with in a REAL theater!

Does anyone besides me absolutely hate DVD menus? Especially the ones that animate, and those that you have to watch for a few seconds until the options come up. I also hate having to watch the studio logo that pops up before the menu, then only to watch it again after you get through the menu and select "play". And I love not being able to skip the WARNING DO NOT COPY screen. That screen alone is enough reason to pirate movies. I'd pay for a version that didn't have that screen I do not like not having the option to skip segments of video when watching something in my own home. Is this really fair?

Sorry to appear so negative lately. DVDs piss me off. But I don't have much of a choice. I think THAT'S what pisses me off.

However you have brought up a major pet peeve of mine. Some DVDs seem to require 10 minutes of prep time to make them play in Dolby Digital, while others won't play in stereo if you search through every menu (case in point, Paramount's "The Wonder Boys"). Having to sit through those cutesy menus is a real aggravation. Why can the DVD industry not settle on some kind of "escape" format that is standardized, much like entering a website done in Flash has a "regular" entrance or a "skip introduction" link for the people who don't want to mess with the snazzy Flash stuff to get to where they want. Having to sit through a 5 second audio loop playing while I am trying to figure out where the navigational buttons are certainly puts ME in the mood to enjoy the "film". Geez.

I can hardly wait for the DVDs that force the complete playing of advertising trailers before they will allow you to get to a menu. Just wait. It'll be here sooner than you think!

And when I rented "Bean" at one time, I could NOT turn off the Spanish subtitles no matter what I tried. And I tried everything. I took the disc back to the rental shop and got refunded.

Anyone who thinks DVDs are a godsend needs to rethink the situation.
 

I hate having to select the DTS soundtrack too, but what's worse is having to select the Dolby 5.1 soundtrack!! Basically every Paramount, Fox, & Sony DVD has a Dolby Surround 2 channel track that is set as the default soundtrack. What is the point of this?!!!
Every DVD player can downmix a 5.1 channel soundtrack into a linear 2 channel output, so technically, the studios are just wasting space on the disc. Could that space be used for a DTS track?
 

There are a couple of tricks that might work on your player.

Try hitting the DVD menu button when the animation begins to load. In some cases that will skip you directly to the menu you want. If that doesn't work, try the chapter skip/next chapter button. I've found that one or the other works on every DVD I've played (I'm not a fan of the FBI and Interpol warnings either.)

I am told that the Titan AE DVD defaults to DTS but I don't own a copy of it to check. Anyone know for sure?
 

The closest thing to a trick I've been able to do is on the DVD of Gladiator. The Dreamworks logo starts (before the menu). I press MENU to skip this BS, and the menu animation starts. I press MENU again in an attempt to skip the animation. Instead I am taken back to the point in the Dreamworks logo where I left off. Pressing Menu again immediately takes me to the menu, but skips the animation so I can actually get on with what I want to do. I choose DTS, press play, sit thru the DTS trailer and WARNING screens, etc, then get to watch the Dreamworks logo AGAIN! Hooray! Although this time it is the DW logo that is part of the feature. I'm not sure why Dreamworks feels the need to put a logo on before the menu. I wish the studios would release a DVD with nothing but the studio logos repeated over and over. Oh yeah, and a whole bunch of WARNING screens as well.

I'm sure if it wasn't for the unskippable WARNING screens on every DVD that piracy would be prevelant, studios would all go bankrupt and we would be a nation of criminals, just like those crazy Aussies Thank God the WARNING screens are unskippable!

I like LaserDisc. Just put it in and press play. But I like the size, picture quality and storage space of DVD.

or perhaps the government got to it...
 

Honestly, I think it's a waste of money to have a home theatre. How much money does your average setup cost? $1,000? Add the cost of buying/renting movies and you'd probably have to watch a movie every day for 6 months to equal the cost of just going to the theatre.

I'd rather spend the money getting a video camera, etc so I can Make movies!
 

DVDs usually have the same mix as the theatrical prints.

My DVD ripper can decode the digital sndtrks. After that I can convert them to whatever other form I want. I just can't play back in surround sound with those two little speakers on the iMac.

Lately, I just get bored passively sitting and watching a movie. In the theatre I can tweek and tinker with the proj. At home I can rip and re-edit the movie and have fun with it. Like the way I rip the sound clips out. (eg: the "Telefunken U-47" clip)
Then when I get bored with a particular bunch of rips/clips I erase them and start a bunch of new ones.

Outside of the theatre, I have only watched, maybe 2 movies, this year. One of them was on TCM and the other one was on my iMac with the sound output hooked up to my (rather antiquated and crummy) stereo system.

With all the other "toys" I have (my theatres and my computer) I guess I just feel like I don't "need" to have a home theatre set up.
 

Universal Studios gets on my nerves with how their DVDs are set up. Nearly all of them disable the "audio" button. You cannot switch audio tracks on the fly while the movie is playing. Maybe I have a short attention span or something, but I often like to listen to commentary tracks and then flip to the main audio track to replay a scene the director was talking about, and then go back to the commentary. I wind up having to take multiple trips out to the various menus to do this with Universal branded DVDs. Others like New Line, Warner, Fox, etc. usually don't force you to endure that garbage. I think New Line generally does a GREAT job with their DVDs. Their Infinifilm DVD of "Thirteen Days" was really impressive on organizing all those extras. And they usually have all their movie trailers in full 5.1 instead of the wimpy stereo mixes often seen on DVDs from most other studios. I hope Artisan gets the "Total Recall" teaser trailer done correctly in 5.1 or at least 4.1 when they release the SE DVD in September. The original 70mm "Total Recall" teaser was really cool. But it sucks in 2.0 stereo.

I hate all the FBI Warning/Interpol crap on the front of the discs with many movies. They should leave that crap off or just do like Warner Bros. does and stick it on the very tail end of the DVD movie. It might be okay to stick on the opening menu when you pop the disc into the drive, but they need to at least make us able to chapter past it. Buena Vista is one of the few that allows this. You can fast forward past those warning deals with Sony DVDs, but they stick them on the front of the movie after you have hit "play" at the opening menu. The "Close Encounters" DVD is really screwy. You get the DTS Digital Experience trailer, then the FBI warning junk, then the shortened and higher pitched THX Broadway trailer and then the movie starts.

The forced trailers situation with "The Sixth Sense" has outraged a lot of people. Not having to watch a bunch of promos and crap was one of the big advantages of DVD over VHS tape. However, most of this stuff (even a lot of the animated menu thingies) can be clicked past on a lot of DVDs by hitting the "next chapter" button. It doesn't work on all of them though.

With DTS audio on DVD, I think every single release with DTS requires the user to manually choose the DTS track even in the case of separate DTS releases where DTS has the only 5.1 track on the disc. The DVD Forum makes all such discs default to the Dolby Digital 2.0 or 5.1 track (or in one or two cases the LPCM 2.0 track). What would be nice is if all DVDs would let you cycle through all audio tracks by hitting the audio button. DTS on DVD will not hurt any non-DTS equipped home theater system. The user will only hear silence, unlike the white noise they would hear when trying to play a DTS CD or DTS LD. I guess there is just not any agreement on how users should be able to select audio tracks.

Does anyone want to add anything about Warner Home Video and their crappy Snapper cases?
 

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Does anyone want to add anything about Warner Home Video and their crappy Snapper cases?

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I don't have a huge DVD library, but are talking about the ones with the paper cases and crappy plastic black thingy that keeps them closed? Yeah, they really suck. But I've seen those on New Line and other studio discs, I believe. I like the boxes like Gladiator and U-571. They should all be like that.

Speaking of which, does anyone have a technique of opening a brand new DVD? Lately they all come with these stickers you must peel off to open the box, and when I try to get the sticker started, I inadvertantly damage (although slightly) the clear plastic around the casing with my fingernail. Someone MUST have a better method.
 

The only paper type case I have seen that I liked was the case type for "Fight Club". That's actually a case that is well designed. The liner notes booklet has nice pocket for it to keep it from touching the discs. The graphics are done is a cool full bleed method (which is impossible for Alpha and Amaray plastic cases with paper inserts). Even though the "Fight Club" case is paperboard, it is not a flimsy weight of it like the typical Snapper case. "Close Encounters" 2 disc case really stinks for the thin paper cover and that weird way the discs fold out. Columbia should have used the "Fight Club" style case instead.

DVDs are now getting to be harder to open than a bottle of aspirin. And you need to take two of those after dealing with the typical Universal/Dreamworks case. There's not just one, but three pieces of tape to undo. And that enclosed "security device" thingie is a pain. Yesterday, I happened to be at a Musicland store in Aurora Mall in Aurora, CO (I'm now back in Lawton, the short vacation is over). I found a tin case version of "Akira" still priced at $29.99. But damn! The poor cashier (who was recovering from knee surgery) had to go back and forth with the DVD because it kept beeping the store security alarm when I was trying to leave. There was one security thingie on the outside of the case and then another one on the inside. One "security device" is enough guys!

One of the really bad things about those pieces of clear tape is that it can tear the clear plastic cover on the outside of most DVD cases when you try to take it off the package. I ripped the clear liner on my "Titanic" DVD just like that. I guess if they make the tape any tougher, it will rip the print design off those paperboard Snapper cases.
 

The only advice I can give in that regard is check the contents of the package before you leave the store. At least then if you find the contents screwed up, you don't have to drive clear back to the place to get a replacement copy.
 

As far as making them hard to open, I believe my grandmother (queen of perma-sealing christmas gifts in commercial packing tape) got a job sealing DVDs. Sorry. Personally, I use a knife on the opening seam and gently peal away from the center of the sides. For WB cases, I just bash them against the wall then put it back on the display rack and buy a Paramount or MGM release instead.

Regardless, I love DVD. In fact, I'm quite addicted to it. I own almost 150 DVDs since I bought my player last November. I presume I will soon exceed my collection on VHS of quantity I dare not speak.

I have a nice Onkyo Receiver that does DTS/DD 5.1 and Pro-Logic II. I use high quality Monster cables and speaker wire. I also use Monster component video and optical audio outputs on my DVD player. Component offers a superbly better picture than S-Video, Composite or RF. No my system doesn't sound as great as the 525-seat THX auditorium at my theatre. And the screen is a wee-bit smaller. But the addition of 5.1 sound in a home environment and vivid widescreen pictures available with DVD are amazing. I hate Pan & Scan. The fact that DVD highly supports widescreen formats is reason enough for me to own a DVD player. When else am I going to get to see Ben Hur in 2.76:1? I ain't seen anyone running it near me.

DVD is also causing studios to go back and FIX some of the TOTAL CRAP they released on VHS. Those filthy, dirt ridden, scratched up, flat toned, adjusted for "YOUR" screen tapes. No one adjusted sh*t for my screen...if they would've there'd be black bars on the top and bottom and I'd see the whole frame. Heck they've even gone back and fixed DVDs...multiple times even.

My top five favorite DVDs so far for amazing 5.1 sound and extras:
5. Gladiator (aurally amazing, decent extras and lots of them)
4. Superman, The Movie (gotta hear those titles wooshing by--very cool)
3. Saving Private Ryan (DTS version--bullets everywhere)
2. Fight Club (more the extras than the sound)
1. Eagles: Hell Freezes Over Tour (DTS at it's absolute finest)

 

Jitter occurs on an optical cable when the cable is moved or vibrated etc..

The light is refracted within the cable, spdif uses a multi-mode cable so the light is refrated randomly and there are many different paths the light can take in the pipe , but if the cable moves the light path changes, sometimes slighty altering the length of the paths. Hence if there is vibration on the optical fibre (subwoofer induced...etc) the time base of the digital signal at the reciver is not steady because the transmision distance is constantly changing.

This error is Jitter and is usually very slight. Jitter can be eliminated by most DAC circuits by using a buffer and a crystal, to correct the time base. The buffer stores the bits and a crystal clock is used to read the data off the buffer at a regular rate.

The reason I prefer coaxial is this: with optical the signal comes of the disc its then processed into AES-EBU or whatever data format used. This electrical signal then needs to be converted to modulated light and sent down a pipe, converted from modulated light back to an electrical signal before going into the DAC.

It just seems to be over complicated, with coaxial the signal starts as an electrical one and stays that way - less chance of error.

A while back, in the 80's, I read some articles about fiber optic guitars. The strings were made of glass fibers and light was shined through them, just as you would a data signal. When the guitar was played, the strings would vibrate and modulate the light beam in the way that Phil describes. Some receiving electronics at the other end of the string changed the modulated light into and electrical signal that could be output to a regular guitar amp. I remember reading that a fiber electic guitar had a real funky-wierd sound. Not only that but you could make the strings change colors too! This invention was supposed to completely replace the standard guitar by the year 2000 but you know predictions like that.

Owing to that information, I might be tempted to recommend that peope using optical cables use cable ties, or somehting, to fix them to a solid surface if they want to use them for critical work. Personally, I'd stick with coax. You don't need any special tools/equipment to hook it up and repair it. With optical you have to burnish the ends of the fiber and use special connectors that you can't buy in a regular electronics place. Either that or you have to pay for factory made cables, which of course, you will pay a premium price for.
 

"The light is refracted within the cable, spdif uses a multi-mode cable so the light is refrated randomly and there are many different paths the light can take in the pipe , but if the cable moves the light path changes, sometimes slighty altering the length of the paths. Hence if there is vibration on the optical fibre (subwoofer induced...etc) the time base of the digital signal at the reciver is not steady because the transmision distance is constantly changing.

This error is Jitter and is usually very slight. Jitter can be eliminated by most DAC circuits by using a buffer and a crystal, to correct the time base. The buffer stores the bits and a crystal clock is used to read the data off the buffer at a regular rate."

"sometimes slighty altering the length of the paths"

source of figures used in my extrapolations = this web page

I must be missing something here. Speed of light = 186,000+ miles per second, IIRC. Upper limit of human hearing = ~ 20,000 cps. Average length of optical cable in home system =~ 10 ft. 5,280 feet = 1 mile.

5280 ft x 186000 miles = 982,080,000 feet.

A one cycle per second wave (analog) would travel that many feet in a second.

Divide that by 20,000 cycles and you get 49104 feet as the length of a 20,000 cycle per second wave as light (the shortest audible analog wave).

There are 1200cent in one octave. Average users can tolerate deviances of up to 50cent from a base note, while professional musicians pick up differences between 10 - 20 cent. A well-trained musician with good discriminating abilities can pick up differences of as little as 5cent.

5 / 1200 = 1/240th of an octave as the smallest interval discernable within an octave, where the highest "normal" octave (a"") has "a" at 3,950 cps and notes double in frequency 7,900 cps are generally only heard as harmonics.

Assuming the best ear, listening for variations in the highest octave, can discern 1/240th of the octave as a discrete variation. That is a variation of no less than 16 cps.

So Joe Pro, musician, listening to a note at 7,900 cps detects a 16 cps variation. How much of a different distance must the light travel to reach that variation?
124313.92 feet per wave of 7,900 cps
124062.65 feet per wave of 7,916 cps

difference = 251.27 feet

To add this distance, the light in the 10' cable would have to bounce within the cable more than 12 times.

So, for appreciable "jitter", on part of the wave the light would have perfect throughput, and then quickly degrade to a reflection requiring the light to bounce in the cable more than 12 times before completing its journey.

I'm not saying that this isn't possible, or that I might be off the mark in my thinking, but the math doesn't seem to support the concept of "jitter" for analog sound in optical cables. If you can keep from wincing at the pun, could someone enlighten me? Is there encoding in optical signals that is more sensitive?

Coaxial is cheaper anyway. TOSlink provides absolutely no advantage whatsoever. Therefore coaxial=much better.

For uncompressed audio on an SPDIF cable you transmit 32 bits per sample (even if only 16 bits are used for audio), 64 bits per stereo pair, and at 44.1khz x 64 = 2822400 bits per second. So the signal travelling down the fibre is opproximatly 3MHz and could be suseptible to Jitter. As far as I know DTS and AC-3 signals have similar bandwidths to PCM. In fact as data rates increase for 24-bit/96khz, multichannel, Meridian loss-less packing, SACD, etc.. jitter could be more of a problem on optical connectors.

My math ablity is not good enough to work out the quantity of virabtion on the fibre needed to cause errors on a 3Mhz signal, but it is possible.

Whether or not jitter is audible is another argument altogether. But you do come across people who if there is a measurable error in audio they clame to be able to hear it. This could open up the 44.1khz sampling rate vs 96Khz sampling rate aurgument.

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