bigE

The problem:
If you're like me, you've just spent a fortune on a decent home theatre system. You drop in a favorite dvd, and D'OH, you only get sound out of the front speaker/s. How many of us have mono or stereo dvds and wish they were 5.1 surround instead? Wanna learn how to do it? Read on my friends:

To get sound through all of the speakers, you'll need an A/V receiver with DSP and 1 or 2 more audio cables depending on your system.
DSP or digital sound field processors creates artificial sound environments like movie theatres, concert halls, stadiums, etc. However, when connected to a dvd player with 5 discrete audio input channels (for left, right, center, rear, & sub), DSP is disabled causing us to listen to the audio as it is presented on the dvd only.

The solution:
If your dvd player has an extra set of left and right front output jacks, run an audio cable from there to your a/v receiver.
Plug into either an auxillary input or cd input (if you don't own a cd player). Now your audio through the aux or cd instead of dvd. This will enable you to take advantage of the DSP. And VOILA, your rear speakers and subwoofer light up thus rendering mono dvds obselete. If your dvd player doesn't have more than one set of front output jacks you'll need a y-splitter cable from your dvd ouput to go to both dvd input and aux/cd input.

Hope this all makes sense. Got this tip from my brother who use to work as a product specialist for JVC. Figured for all that this forum has contributed to my collection, I'd pull an all nighter to get this information out to you all asap.

leighwx

While I agree this can work, realize that all 5 channels will be carrying exactly the same information, meaning things like dialog will be coming out of the rears at the same volume as the center channel. Not desirable in my opinion. As a side note, your subwoofer should work fine with a mono track.

-Leigh

pandorastein

My Sony 555ES has an option to create a semi-surround environment from a mono source...

Cheers,
Mal

bigE

Thanks for your input guys. I concede I am not the audiophile some of you are, (having used both receiver & dvd manuals when writing the post above), with a little down mixing you can get quasi channel seperation. While not desirable to some, it still sounds alot better than mono IMO.

Pandor, my JVC 701 dvd player also has the simulated surround effect but I've found it lacking when compared to the method provided.

Xytraguptorh

quote:<HR>Originally posted by bigE:
Thanks for your input guys. I concede I am not the audiophile some of you are, (having used both receiver & dvd manuals when writing the post above), with a little down mixing you can get quasi channel seperation. While not desirable to some, it still sounds alot better than mono IMO.

Pandor, my JVC 701 dvd player also has the simulated surround effect but I've found it lacking when compared to the method provided.
<HR>

Some receivers, like my Denon, have a MONO MOVIE option. It sends info to all five speakers, but it's all the same. It still sounds better than just using your center channel, I guess.

milkdog

I had to go back a long way to find this thread, but I can't believe everyone doesn't do it. I've done it since I set up my DVD player a year ago.

I just use extra L/R outputs on the back of my DVD player and connect to the L/R VCR inputs on my receiver. If a movie isn't 4 or 5.1, I switch to the "VCR" mode and remix it into simulated surround. I've lowered the volume on the rears so I get just a little depth. Also, I've upped the volume on the center to bind it to picture. I find remixing like this especially effective for stereo DVDs. I can't imagine watching/listening to a movie with the sound coming only out of my main L/R speakers! My way the L & R sounds are combined in the center speaker AND I have L & R separation, both in the mains and (for just a little depth) the rears.

I'm not sure that everyone is capable of this on their system. But if you are and you're not, you're really missing something. There's no way center speaker mono or (especially) main speaker stereo are preferable to a simulated surround mix with a strong center channel.

DVD_O_Rama

quote:<HR>Originally posted by milkdog:
I had to go back a long way to find this thread, but I can't believe everyone doesn't do it. I've done it since I set up my DVD player a year ago.

I just use extra L/R outputs on the back of my DVD player and connect to the L/R VCR inputs on my receiver. If a movie isn't 4 or 5.1, I switch to the "VCR" mode and remix it into simulated surround. I've lowered the volume on the rears so I get just a little depth. Also, I've upped the volume on the center to bind it to picture. I find remixing like this especially effective for stereo DVDs. I can't imagine watching/listening to a movie with the sound coming only out of my main L/R speakers! My way the L & R sounds are combined in the center speaker AND I have L & R separation, both in the mains and (for just a little depth) the rears.

I'm not sure that everyone is capable of this on their system. But if you are and you're not, you're really missing something. There's no way center speaker mono or (especially) main speaker stereo are preferable to a simulated surround mix with a strong center channel. <HR>

A 'strong center channel' will reproduce mono soundtracks just fine, and right where they should be...in the center channel. I find big fat mono quite unappealing.



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Jar Jar Fett

On my Technics receiver, I can specify different theater settings. So when I listen to Mono DVDs, I switch to Pro-Logic and specify "movie theater" as my sound option. It sends the speech to the front and it simulates left and right and even rear sounds!