Denon 3802 ES/EX question
 

Doesn't Dolby Digital EX output a flag like DTS? I've been messing about today trying to get the receiver to detect an EX encoded film (Castaway and T2) but to no avail.

If you have the AFDM (Auto Flag Detection Mode) turned on for DTS/6.1 and set it to matrix nonflagged films then it works (of course, but then it turns on the matrixing for *all* films) but what if you only want it to matrix EX sound tracks and leave the others as is? Is that possible? Am I going insane? Is there any point to it? When I play an DTS ES movie it says so on the display. If it's an EX movie it just says '6.1 matrixed'. Are you as well letting it matrix all your DVDs?

Any help/advice/explanation will be appreciated.

Alan

After a bit more detection work I think I have the answer - the 3802 doesn't officially support Dolby EX and so doesn't detect or switch it.

So my thoughts turn to Dolby Digital/Dolby Digital EX. Is there really any difference? Both are matrixed, as Dolby Digital EX doesn't support the 6.1 discrete that DTS ES can output (Gladiator seems to be the only movie I have supporting this mode).

I think I will leave the matrixing on for a bit and see how it sounds. But if anyone knows any more about it, please feel free to educate me :)

Alan

Alan,

Many discs do not contain the EX flags even if they are encoded in EX (some are even flagged wrong). The best thing to do is if you know a title is in EX, put your receiver into the mode manually.

If you leave matrixing on all of the time, there will be center rear channel info extracted from all 5.1 titles. Sometimes this can have a desireable effect and other times it can cause surround effects to collapse to the center of your room. The best thing to do is try it on a title by title basis. For the most part, in my EX setup, I only activates EX/ES if the film is indeed encoded that way.

J

Thanks J, that is the kind of thing I was worried about. Trouble with the Denon is that if you turn on the AFDM so that it detects ES (which seems to work fine) you cannot change it manually for the EX tracks which are not detected. I would prefare auto detection, but it looks like I will have to start getting to know my discs better.

Does anyone know of a link to a list showing which movies are EX encoded? DTS has a good one.
Cheers
Alan