What's the purpose of having 5.1 decoding built in to a dvd player? Seems like most people would hook it up to a receiver to do the decoding and amplification anyway. Is this just an extra feature not really necessary if you're going through a receiver or can it serve some other purpose in the future?

Brett

About a year or so before DD receivers really started hitting the market, they were designing receivers with 6 channel inputs in anticipation of being able to "upgrade" your pro logic receiver's audio capabilities with either an external decoder, or using one built into a DVD player.

For people who already have a DD decoding receiver, or plan to buy it at the same time, the built in decoding serves no purpose.

There are a couple of DVD players that decode DTS, and you could match that up with a DD only receiver with 6ch. inputs to upgrade to DTS.

-David

I have a 2 channel system (plus a sub). I prefer music reproduction over movies - because I believe a very, very good music system should de very, very well with movies. Anyways, I have an Acurus 150x2 amp, and an Acurus preamp. They are very minimalists designs - the idea being the less you do to the signal the better it should sound. Acurus sells 2, 3, 5 & 6 channel amps and a surround sound pre-amp - but they (naturally) cost 1.5, 2.5 & 3 times what I paid for my setup.

So I have a 2 channel system (plus a sub - which helps A LOT for music and is necessary for HT). I have had a laser disk for 4 years (started buying them used when everyone sold their CDs). I also (finally) bought a DVD player - I settled on a Pioneer. I have the digital out set to PCM, and have that going into a tube based 2 channel D-to-A converter (California Audio Labs Sigma). It is PURE magic. Makes music and movies sound SO good.

Now, about build in Dolby Digital Decoding. Most DD chips can downconvert to 16-bit PCM (regular CD stuff). This is nice because on some movies (like U2's Rattle & Hum) the downconverted DD sounds MUCH better than the 2 channel mix on the DVD. There must have been much better quality stuff on in the DD mix than the 2 channel one from the studio.

Now on Gladiator, the 2 channel track sounds better in my system (better dynamic range and more details) than the downconverted DD. Go figure.

So if you want 2 channel, it can be a useful feature.