Home Theater Surround Sound

Home theater surround sound will have you experiencing movies in a whole new way.

The progression of movie sound - Sound in movies has certainly progressed dramatically over the years from the early days of the Charlie Chaplin silent movies to movies with the single channel audio to stereo sound in the 60's. 

Next, there were various forms of surround sound that were introduced to movie theaters.  Part of the allure of going to the movie theater was the robust sound system and its ability to place you in the middle of the action with sound coming from in front and behind.

In the 80's, home theater took a major step forward with the advent of Dolby surround system which added a center and surround channel to the traditional left and right channel.  Dolby surround was improved upon with Dolby Pro logic and Pro logic II.  Pro logic II is able to take stereo audio and translate it into 5 surround sound playback channels.

Dolby Digital

Todays standard for DVD and HDTV surround sound is Dolby Digital 5.1.  Dolby Digital is capable of producing 5 discreet full range channels of sound plus a low frequency effects channel (.1) that is capable of taking the low frequency sounds such as a booming explosion or the deep rumble of an oncoming locomotive and sending them out to a subwoofer. 

The 5 channels are left and right mains, a center and a left surround and a right surround.  Movie producers designate sounds to each of these channels.  Most of the dialog is passed through the center channel which anchors it to the screen, while subtle and not so subtle sound effects can be sent to either of the surround channels allowing you to become an active participant in the movie with sounds swirling all around the room.

Today's receivers are now capable of Dolby Digital 6.1 which adds a rear surround and Dolby Digital 7.1 which adds a rear left and a rear right.

Dolby TrueHD is an even newer lossless technology which represent bit for bit copies of the studio recording.   TrueHD is designed for high definition media such as HD-DVD and Blu-ray offering exceptional home theater surround sound quality.

What about DTS? - DTS digital sound is a competing format to Dolby Digital.  DTS soundtracks can be found as an alternative soundtrack on some DVD movies.  Many would argue that due in large part to a lower compression rate that DTS has a slightly superior sound quality to Dolby Digital.  Personally when given the opportunity on a DVD, I will choose the DTS soundtrack over the Dolby Digital soundtrack.

DTS also has a format designed for high definition media.  That format is DTS-HD and is a competitor to Dolby TrueHD.

As the technologies continue to develop, we the consumers will continue to benefit with home theater surround sound that makes movie viewing truly immersive.