Dish's Surround Sound format

[BarryG]

Am I correct in assuming that when Dish provides surround sound that it is Dobly Digital 5.1 and the surround sound is available via the HDMI or optical outputs with equivalent audio quality?

TIA

[Stewart Vernon]

To be completely factual...

Dish doesn't provide surround sound so much as they pass through what the channel provides.

Dish does pass digital surround through both the HDMI connector and the optical audio out on the receiver.

What you get, though, will depend upon what the channel provides.

It's also worth noting that surround sound comes in many flavors... I have seen 4.0 and 5.1 and even 5.1 EX (6.1) from my Dish receiver, depending upon the channel and program being played.

[BattleZone]

Correct.

[scooper]

And on some channels all you get is Dolby ProLogic.

[BarryG]

Thanks guys, and yes Scooper, I've seen PL II pop up occassionally on the receiver display.

[Paul Secic]

To be completely factual...

Dish doesn't provide surround sound so much as they pass through what the channel provides.

Dish does pass digital surround through both the HDMI connector and the optical audio out on the receiver.

What you get, though, will depend upon what the channel provides.

It's also worth noting that surround sound comes in many flavors... I have seen 4.0 and 5.1 and even 5.1 EX (6.1) from my Dish receiver, depending upon the channel and program being played.

Does this have anything to do with premimum channels having different sound levels? I'm having big trouble hearing out of my right ear, old age. Just currious.

[Stewart Vernon]

Does this have anything to do with premimum channels having different sound levels? I'm having big trouble hearing out of my right ear, old age. Just currious.

Lots of the different sound formats end up at different volumes. Some is intentional, some is not. Generally speaking, the 5.1 surround seems to be lower than 2.0 PCM at the same volume level on my audio receiver.

Part of that is because of the increased dynamic range for the surround sound... but admittedly sometimes it is a choice in the way the original audio is encoded (not Dish, the movie itself).

On the flip side, though, one of my local channels OTA in 5.1 is typically louder than the PCM channels, so there seems to be no real hard-fast rule to these things.

I have to say, though, that I think Dish has done something recently to attempt to balance things out better... because I have not been adjusting my volume as much when changing channels as I did a year ago at this time.

[Kevin Brown]

And on some channels all you get is Dolby ProLogic.

How can you tell? It's either L&R, or more than L&R. You'd have to somehow be able to compare a discrete 5.1 signal vs a DPL generated 5.1 output to really be able to tell the difference. Unless Dish is sending along some kind of DPL flag along with either a 2.0 feed to let a receiver or pre/pro know what to do with the signal, or with the already processed 5.1 signal. ??

[scooper]

Have a look at your A/V receiver - Mine certainly distingushes between DD and Dolby ProLogic

[Stewart Vernon]

My audio indicates what it gets... and if it isn't 5.1 then it automatically applies ProLogic II to the signal.

For the digital audio formats, I have seen all of the following:

2.0
3.1
4.0 (shows as LtRt on my receiver)
5.1
5.1 EX (only seen this on "Rush Hour 3" on HBOHD)

Admittedly, the 3.1 was a glitch for my local NBC where they were having problems... but still it seemed to indicate a potential valid format, just not the one they intended.

[Kevin Brown]

Have a look at your A/V receiver - Mine certainly distingushes between DD and Dolby ProLogic

You aren't understanding. DPL (II) is a processing format. It's a way of processing a signal. Whereas 2.0 or 5.1 or etc is the signal itself. Your AVR is applying DPL to presumably a 2.0 input signal.

So I still don't see how Dish "delivers DPL". Stewart's list is what you get in terms of the signal itself. There is no DPL signal. However, there is DPL as applied to a 2.0 input signal.

[scooper]

You aren't understanding. DPL (II) is a processing format. It's a way of processing a signal. Whereas 2.0 or 5.1 or etc is the signal itself. Your AVR is applying DPL to presumably a 2.0 input signal.

So I still don't see how Dish "delivers DPL". Stewart's list is what you get in terms of the signal itself. There is no DPL signal. However, there is DPL as applied to a 2.0 input signal.

I understand the situation perfectly - in the case of 2.0, it's decoding DPL that is encoded. It also does the same on a PCM stream. (My AVR is old enough it doesn't have DPL II).

[Stewart Vernon]

I posted my detail to supplement Scooper's post. I was sure he understood... and was essentially skipping the detail step that I posted.

Ex.

For some, a Dolby 2.0 will just be Dolby 2.0... for others it will be Dolby 2.0 with ProLogic (or II) applied to it. I don't know how everybody's audio receiver's display or process.

My Sony can have ProLogic turned on or off... With it "off" then I always (and only) get what is being sent (be it 2.0, 3.1, 4.0, 5.1, etc.) BUT if I turn it "on" then anything other than 5.1 or 5.1 EX gets processed and the receiver tries to pull as much info as it can to create surround sound from whatever it gets.

But in all the above cases, my audio receiver clearly indicates what is happening so I know what I'm getting from the broadcast despite what I think I'm hearing.

[BarryG]

Palladia's broadcast of the Coldplay concert on MTV World Stage yesterday had the surround channels swapped with front channels which made it unwatchable in surround. The Palladia commercials had correct audio so it looks like this was a Palladia/MTV goof. I assume this is a relatively rare occurrence?