[Help] Dolby Surround 2.0 Matrixed files Upmix

[allldu]

https://hometheaterhifi.com/volume_8_1/d...-2001.html

reading this, it appears Neo:6 is not that great... would like to hear more opinions from our members here, though!

Again, this is just an opinion. And here is another one for you, from the late Disclord:


DTS:Neo-6 was designed to decode Dolby Surround encoded films and DTS never made an encoder for it - Neo-6 is much more accurate in decoding Dolby Surround than Pro Logic or PL II because it breaks the spectrum up into 12-20 bands and decodes each band separately, which allows simultaneously dominant sounds to be decoded and placed in their proper channel wi no leakage of unwanted sounds or pulling non-dominant sounds towards the dominant ones. Pro Logic can only decode one dominant sound at a time and PL II is the same since both are broadband logic steering designs.

So I guess you gotta pick your poison... or Shure HTS

[allldu]

If you sent a decoded multichannel pcm signal to your AVR then yes it should just play it back 'as is' although any DSP processing you may have selected will be applied, as will any bass management. The question is will your UHD player be better at this than your AVR

Thanks for this! Well, I read on many occasions, the new AVRs with Atmos have a new decoding mode called Dolby Surround, which is the next step for DPL (funny how things go in cirlces - Dolby Surround - DPL - DPLII - DSurround ) , and it is inferior to DPL. It's the same algorythm, sure, but the processing makes it even less authentic than DPL. So if I want both Atmos (for newer movies) and DPL (for golden classics) in one box, it's not gonna happen. On the other hand, DTS: Neo 6 is an alternative to DPL, and if you believe the late Disclord, it does its job even better than DPL. Mid-range Atmos AVR don't have Neo 6 built-in, whereas my UHD player does. So this seems like a reasonable solution to me.

Re. DTS Neo:6 vs Dolby Surround...

Dolby Surround is significantly more advanced than PLII/x/z. PLII decoders utilized a broadband decoder, which could only steer single sound sources, Dolby Surround now uses a multiband decoder, similar to Neo:6, and is therefore able to steer multiple independent sounds. Dolby surround first takes each pair of channels (front, surround, and rear) and processes them separately.

[...]

DTS: Neural X is said to be a completely new design, independent from Neo: 6/X. There’s not a whole lot of detail on how it works exactly, but it’s said to be a spatial remapping algorithm, which uses the knowledge of the sound position and the speaker locations to properly route sounds to the correct speakers.

(from https://rantingsofamadaudiophile.wordpre...s-neuralx/)

So what I'd seen elsewhere about DTS Neural:X being an evolution of Neo:6 appears to be largely incorrect: if anything, Dolby Surround is closer to it. So no, I would be pretty confident that Neo:6 is not going to be significantly more accurate than Dolby Surround, at least not for the reason you cited (they work in the same sort of manner). As zoidberg hinted, a UHD player with Neo:6 may not necessarily be the best equipment to do the decoding, compared with an AVR running Dolby Surround.

I don't see any conflict here. This is exactly why I'd like to have both options available for me without flooding my living room with a lot more equipment than I need - Neo 6 in the UHD player and DSurround in the AVR. Then I can switch between the two and pick the one I like best.

[SpaceBlackKnight]

Thanks to SpoRv, he was able to help me obtain the PLII Foobar plugin. I also had to find and install the PL2XDLL.dll file to get the component to work, as it kept spewing out errors when I tried to encode something with it.

After some tests on a some short audio sections, I'd have to say i'm not very impressed with the DPL II plugin. I converted a small intro section from True Lies 2.0 AC3 track, which I know is surround encoded and not stereo.

Folder link to sample files, original untouched 2.0 included https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1...sp=sharing

The WAV converted file done with DPLII sounds very phasey when the center channel is with all the other channels, but when I mute out the center channel in Audacity and have the fronts and rears only play, it sounds OK. No LFE and the rears have a tiny bit of separation going on, but there is noticeable bleed through from the fronts that seems to cut in and out.

The WAV file converted with Channel Mixer (at 5.1 "original method" preset with default values) is a bit more discrete, but has some metallic ringing artifacts due to whatever separation it tried to do. It also makes the fronts too quiet and the center too loud for some reason, while in this case it appears the opposite but with the right front channel. I tried the other 5.1, 5.0 and 4.0 presets and all pretty much sounded the same. I also tried adjusting the Panoramic values, the lowest value did no separation processing to the channels while the highest value introduced what I called a "fading effect", where sound would shoot up in volume and come in and out of various channels due to the separation it applied.

The WAV file converted with FreeSurround sounded the worst, with metallic ringing and weak separated sound coming from all channels. Reminded me of how Anchor Bay's Blus of some Fox titles with their 640kbs 5.1 tracks sounded.

OTOH, I've also experimented with the Audacity Channel Mixer filter (which can be found on Audacity's site and works with newer versions greater than 2.0), as I was told that can attempt to make discrete channels and extract centers out of 2.0 tracks quite well. I had tried the "Mid-Side decode" preset with all % values set to 0, and with some 2.0 tracks it can extract the surround or vocal data out pretty well but it varies. The Foobar "Center Cut - Sides" plugin works the same way, but in some cases it does a better job at seperation between the L and R channels while other times it can produce metallic ringing artifacts, I will post results later with these methods.

[SpaceBlackKnight]

Now test II, this time with a jingle that makes more noticeable use of the L/R and Surround field https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1...sp=sharing

WAV files converted with FreeSurround, Channel Mixer, and PLII plugins have pretty much the same results as on the first test samples I linked. The one converted with PLII had some separation going on in the rears, but again it cut in and out with bleed through and echoing from the fronts.

I also added 5.1 versions that utilized Audacity's Channel Mixer, Steve Tomson's CLFE VST, and Foobar's Center Cut - Sides plugin. The 1st 5.1 done in Audacity use the channel mixer plugin (at the Mid-Side decode preset) on the 2.0 that gave me a usable center channel, which I also used the CLFE VST on a dual mono cloned version of the center channel to generate a LFE channel, and a pretty decent surround channel that was used in the rears and duped for 5.1. The second one converted with Audacity was done the same way, but I used the WAV file Foobar generated with the Center Cut - Sides plugin for the rears. That sounded pretty much the same as the first with the R channel seperated in CM in the rears, but the one generated bu Foobar was stereotized.

[pipefan413]

If you sent a decoded multichannel pcm signal to your AVR then yes it should just play it back 'as is' although any DSP processing you may have selected will be applied, as will any bass management. The question is will your UHD player be better at this than your AVR

Thanks for this! Well, I read on many occasions, the new AVRs with Atmos have a new decoding mode called Dolby Surround, which is the next step for DPL (funny how things go in cirlces - Dolby Surround - DPL - DPLII - DSurround ) , and it is inferior to DPL. It's the same algorythm, sure, but the processing makes it even less authentic than DPL. So if I want both Atmos (for newer movies) and DPL (for golden classics) in one box, it's not gonna happen. On the other hand, DTS: Neo 6 is an alternative to DPL, and if you believe the late Disclord, it does its job even better than DPL. Mid-range Atmos AVR don't have Neo 6 built-in, whereas my UHD player does. So this seems like a reasonable solution to me.

Re. DTS Neo:6 vs Dolby Surround...

Dolby Surround is significantly more advanced than PLII/x/z. PLII decoders utilized a broadband decoder, which could only steer single sound sources, Dolby Surround now uses a multiband decoder, similar to Neo:6, and is therefore able to steer multiple independent sounds. Dolby surround first takes each pair of channels (front, surround, and rear) and processes them separately.

[...]

DTS: Neural X is said to be a completely new design, independent from Neo: 6/X. There’s not a whole lot of detail on how it works exactly, but it’s said to be a spatial remapping algorithm, which uses the knowledge of the sound position and the speaker locations to properly route sounds to the correct speakers.

(from https://rantingsofamadaudiophile.wordpre...s-neuralx/)

So what I'd seen elsewhere about DTS Neural:X being an evolution of Neo:6 appears to be largely incorrect: if anything, Dolby Surround is closer to it. So no, I would be pretty confident that Neo:6 is not going to be significantly more accurate than Dolby Surround, at least not for the reason you cited (they work in the same sort of manner). As zoidberg hinted, a UHD player with Neo:6 may not necessarily be the best equipment to do the decoding, compared with an AVR running Dolby Surround.

I don't see any conflict here. This is exactly why I'd like to have both options available for me without flooding my living room with a lot more equipment than I need - Neo 6 in the UHD player and DSurround in the AVR. Then I can switch between the two and pick the one I like best.

My point was that you seemed to be surmising that DTS Neo:6 might be more accurate than the current gen Dolby Surround because it's supposedly more accurate than Dolby Pro Logic... I'm saying that according to what I've seen, the current Dolby Surround works more like Neo:6 than Pro Logic so that might not be the case. (In which case, you might not need to use Neo:6 on your player.)

But yeah, obviously having options is good!

[allldu]

If you sent a decoded multichannel pcm signal to your AVR then yes it should just play it back 'as is' although any DSP processing you may have selected will be applied, as will any bass management. The question is will your UHD player be better at this than your AVR

Thanks for this! Well, I read on many occasions, the new AVRs with Atmos have a new decoding mode called Dolby Surround, which is the next step for DPL (funny how things go in cirlces - Dolby Surround - DPL - DPLII - DSurround ) , and it is inferior to DPL. It's the same algorythm, sure, but the processing makes it even less authentic than DPL. So if I want both Atmos (for newer movies) and DPL (for golden classics) in one box, it's not gonna happen. On the other hand, DTS: Neo 6 is an alternative to DPL, and if you believe the late Disclord, it does its job even better than DPL. Mid-range Atmos AVR don't have Neo 6 built-in, whereas my UHD player does. So this seems like a reasonable solution to me.

Re. DTS Neo:6 vs Dolby Surround...

Dolby Surround is significantly more advanced than PLII/x/z. PLII decoders utilized a broadband decoder, which could only steer single sound sources, Dolby Surround now uses a multiband decoder, similar to Neo:6, and is therefore able to steer multiple independent sounds. Dolby surround first takes each pair of channels (front, surround, and rear) and processes them separately.

[...]

DTS: Neural X is said to be a completely new design, independent from Neo: 6/X. There’s not a whole lot of detail on how it works exactly, but it’s said to be a spatial remapping algorithm, which uses the knowledge of the sound position and the speaker locations to properly route sounds to the correct speakers.

(from https://rantingsofamadaudiophile.wordpre...s-neuralx/)

So what I'd seen elsewhere about DTS Neural:X being an evolution of Neo:6 appears to be largely incorrect: if anything, Dolby Surround is closer to it. So no, I would be pretty confident that Neo:6 is not going to be significantly more accurate than Dolby Surround, at least not for the reason you cited (they work in the same sort of manner). As zoidberg hinted, a UHD player with Neo:6 may not necessarily be the best equipment to do the decoding, compared with an AVR running Dolby Surround.

I don't see any conflict here. This is exactly why I'd like to have both options available for me without flooding my living room with a lot more equipment than I need - Neo 6 in the UHD player and DSurround in the AVR. Then I can switch between the two and pick the one I like best.

My point was that you seemed to be surmising that DTS Neo:6 might be more accurate than the current gen Dolby Surround because it's supposedly more accurate than Dolby Pro Logic... I'm saying that according to what I've seen, the current Dolby Surround works more like Neo:6 than Pro Logic so that might not be the case. (In which case, you might not need to use Neo:6 on your player.)

But yeah, obviously having options is good!

Ah ok, now I got your point  Well, I just assumed that if a modern Dolby Surround is the next step in evolution of DPL then DTS Neo: 6 should be a different beast. Not that I really looked into any technicallity of both. So then, that leaves me hanging again - if I buy a modern AVR, then I still don't have DPL - just a different versions of DTS Neo: 6

[schorman]

A few (dumb?) questions, if you don't mind:

How do you connect a modern bu ray player to a Shure HTS? Also, if you input a lossless stereo (PCM, DTS-HD MA), is it also a lossless surround on the output?

Sorry, a total newbie about this here

The Shure HTS decoders have analog inputs and outputs.

To use it with a modern home theater, you'll need to output the stereo audio from the analog outputs of your playback device to the stereo rca inputs of the HTS. The HTS outputs the decoded audio using six analog rca outputs. You'll need either an AVR with that has a 5.1 or 7.1 analog input, or a power amp with the same. I use a Pioneer SC-99.

As for whether it's lossless, that depends on the decoding done by your blu ray player or whatever playback device you're using, as the rest of the process is analog.

[allldu]

Guys, what is your opinion on Minnetonka's SurCode?