supersalo

This is from the review of Castaway on http://www.dvdangle.com:

There are three audio formats available on the DVD of Cast Away:
a Dolby Digital THX EX track and a DTS ES track, both of which
contain a matrixed center surround channel; as well as a Dolby
Digital 2.0 track for those without a home theater setup. As most
of you are aware, the full potential of the EX and ES tracks require
the use of a receiver or decoder specifically made for such, but not
to worry, either track can be decoded on standard DD/DTS equipment,
in which case the three surround channels are downmixed to standard 5.1,
in effect creating a "phantom" rear surround channel.

My question is, what are the "three surround channels"?
Front Center, Rear (Left) Center, Rear (Right) Center?

Sal

shaun3000

DTS-ES and THX-EX (the official name for Dolby Digital-EX, though all of the home versions callit Dolby Digital EX. If you're in a movie theater, it's THX-EX) are both simiar. They can both create a matrixed rear-center channel, similar to the process used ot get teh center channel for Dolby Pro-Logic.

However, DTS-ES also comes in a discreet version, where the rear-center channel is completley discrete from the other 5 channels, making it a true 6.1 channel format. Both formats of DTS-ES are backwards-compatible with older 5.1 only DTS decoders. THX-EX is also backwards-compatible with plain old Dolby Digital. But, the older decoders will not be able to decode the matrixed or discrete rear center channel. You need a newer decoder that specifically says it is capable of decoding DTS-ES (it will specify if it does discrete or not. Discrete will always do matrix, but matrix decoders will not do discrete) or Dolby Digital EX

Got it? Good

TCG

the three surround channels are:

rear left, rear center, rear right.

DigIt

And the review is saying "If you can't decode EX/ES, don't worry; the three surround channels will be downmixed into two -- rear right and rear left -- with a 'phantom' rear center channel effect."

KPlummer

these differances of course pile onto the basic differances of DD and DTS (bitrates, altering master soundtrack, etc).