I've been having a discussion with a member over a contribution I did setting a track to Dolby Surround and he's almost got me convinced my submission might be incorrect but I still have a slight doubt so wanted some other opinions.

This is in relation to the new Farscape complete collection UPC="733961169430"

When I play the DVD with DD Surround decoder turned on I hear rear channel sound and in the open of the episode(s):



However as the user points out the Surround flag is not set in the audio encode on the disc and the menu has:



And believes the Dolby Surround logo in opening is just a hard coded into the original masters.

I would agree with the member except for the point I hear what to me sounds like a valid rear effects channel with Dolby Surround decoding turned on and I am not convinced the 2.0 encode is not of the original Dolby Surround 2.0 stream just without the flag set.

Just looking for some additional opinions before I deiced to withdraw this change or let it go.

Tom

Anything made for the theater is always Surround. But as this, AFAIK, is a TV series, it might be Stereo. Apart from DVDShrink, which might indeed be useful to try: what does your AV receiver or your player tell you? Is there a display indicating the number of channels they pick up?
Could the fact that you're hearing sound from the rear be attributed to your receiver applying Dolby ProLogic?

I'm not sure how reliable DVDShrink is on the Surround vs Stereo issue either.

Here's Farscape Season 1 Disc 1 in DVD Shrink:


and here is what my Receiver decodes the audio as:


And here is Teen Titans: Season 5 Disc 1 which does have Dolby 2.0 Surround in DVD Shrink


and here is what my Receiver decodes the audio as:


DVD Shrink lists them both as AC3 2 channel, yet my receiver sees one as Stereo and one as Surround.

I would say 100%, Tom. If your receiver is showing the Pro Logic that is because it is picking up the surround signal that is encoded, that is the way it used to be done way back before we got DD Surround 4.0 or DD Surround 5.1 and above.

Skip

Quoting Woola:

Quote:
I would say 100%, Tom. If your receiver is showing the Pro Logic that is because it is picking up the surround signal that is encoded, that is the way it used to be done way back before we got DD Surround 4.0 or DD Surround 5.1 and above.

Skip

Well, if it's ProLogic II, then it could very well be converting a stereo signal to 5.1 surround. The images of the AV receiver's display seem to support this.

Maybe we only need one option for 2.0 stereo/surround. I really don't see the need to specify something that is so elusive to figure out.

       

and btw. DVDShrink is dumb. it only reads the disc-spec-files...

it can NOT identify the differnce between 2.0 Mono, 2.0 Stereo and 2.0 Surround if it's not set.
Unfortunatelly, you can only check that with your own ears!

If you can hear something (usefull) in your rear-speaker (and in your center-speaker if you have prologic II) than it's a 2.0 SURROUND score. Whatever DVDShrik may say or is set in the Disc-Specs.

A 2.0 Mono track can be identify also with a surround-matrix, because a "2.0 mono" you can hear only in your center-speaker (and not left/right)

Hope this will help