Best DTS Film?

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Might wanna spend 20 minutes reading this as well...might save you £££ on the expensive Jap versions when you can get the same disc in HMV for £5.99 which, in reality, sounds the same. There are exceptions obviously. I haven't heard the Jap JP dts discs, but am prepared to accept that they sound far superior to anything, because so many people say they do...no smoke without fire.
However, I have compared many Dolby and dts discs on my current system, and the differences are very small and subtle, if any...
 
Army Bloke said:
Might wanna spend 20 minutes reading this as well...might save you £££ on the expensive Jap versions when you can get the same disc in HMV for £5.99 which, in reality, sounds the same. There are exceptions obviously. I haven't heard the Jap JP dts discs, but am prepared to accept that they sound far superior to anything, because so many people say they do...no smoke without fire.
However, I have compared many Dolby and dts discs on my current system, and the differences are very small and subtle, if any...

I think the differences are far more noticeable one older discs and older films rather than the latest blockbusters, in my opinion. Dolby discs are getting better all the time but I don't think they sound quite as crisp and detailed as its DTS equivalent. It could be psychological but no Dolby DVD mix has had me grinning because it sounded so good.
 
interesting reading here (pdf) - granted,written by Dolby...but at the time, it made DVD reviewers sit up and take not. It's also the reason you'll never get another dts track on a Warner title (Matrix included...) and why Twister supposedly sounds better. I've got the Twister disc, and the dts track is far to overpowering. It's good for a demo disc, but I couldn't watch the whole movie in dts.

Some good dts tracks I've heard recently are:
Dantes Peak
Last Of The Mohicans
The River Wild
Road To Perdition
Sinbad (Cartoon)
Prince Of Egypt

But I've heard some good Dolby one's as well...sorry if I seem a bit "off" here, but I'd rather a film have a decent script and story than a good soundtrack...a dts track WILL NOT influence my decision on whether I buy a disc or not. If there are 2 discs on a website, say Jurassic Park, one is Dolby Digital priced at £5.99 and the other is Superbit dts (which contains the afore mentioned Dolby Digital track as well...) for £40, I know where my money's going...at the end of the day, it's the same film. :lesson:

I think the differences are far more noticeable one older discs and older films rather than the latest blockbusters,

That's very interesting my friend...I have the recently released R2 version of Spartacus, which has a Dolby & dts 5.1 track on it. All the dts does for me is make me get up and swap discs...because they included the dts track, it ate up space on the disc, making a second disc necessary...they sound equal to me (and most reviewers...) and is a bug in the arse to have to get up mid movie to swap discs...
Also, ask anyone about the Jaws dts mix against the DD version...the dts mix is terrible and well documented...
 
I totally agree Army, if there are two disks with such a massive price difference i would buy the cheaper one too.

But what if the prices were similar or the same and one had a DTS Soundtrack and one a Digital one, would you choose the DTS becuase it would more than likely have a better soundtrack?
 
If the discs were identical (price and extra's), I would go for the Dolby flavour. Simply because to me, Dolby Digital sounds more natural than dts, which sounds more aggresive and louder.
I have quite a few of the older dics that have full bit rate dts tracks on them...I brought them when thay first came out and I jumped on the dts is best bandwagon...
However, as my equipment has got better, the differences have become less, and now dts just sounds louder...there are exceptions, obviously. I've named a few above.
If you want to really hear how good dts can be...try and get a demo of casper or Titanic in dts on Laserdisc...they WILL blow you away...
 
west said:
I'd bet the prequels would sound absolutely unbelievable with DTS. :D

Why, you think those lightsabers would sound better do you? :rolleyes:

I'm slowly coming round to the fact that how a film is mixed has more of an impact than the current lossy sound formats allowed by DVD, i still prefer DTS soundtracks ( especially the rare to find full bitrate ones ) but the mix is more important than the sound format although i do find most of my favourite soundtracks have been mixed fabulously in DTS but sound less good with Dolby ( rare exceptions being films like The Phantom Menace and its sequel )

I think Foxymulder has hit the nail on the head:)

Why oh why can't I resist jumping on these threads;) :D
 
Army Bloke i hate to burst your bubble but Jaws DTS is far superior to the Dolby version, some mixes such as Blade 2 are identical but to say Jaws is better listened to with Dolby is wrong, also Twister does sound better with the DTS option engaged, despite my earlier comments i really have to say that discs with DTS soundtracks sound at the very least identical to the Dolby counterparts and rarely inferior, very rarely are they ever inferior so perhaps people should take that into account.

Also Army Bloke take into account something else, Dolby can sound different depending on the region, an example is Armageddon, the region 1 Criterion edition was ported over to Region 2 and released by Buena Vista, the Criterion still sounds better and superior than the Region 2 release and i have directly compared them both, with the Region 2 lacking some deep low bass and some smooth directional pans sound WORSE on the Region 2 edition, so why would the same movie sound worse if they are using the same print ? did Buena Vista cut corners and go for a lower Dolby bitrate track ? doesnt matter really but its a point to consider.
 
Been proved mate that the LFE and rears on Twister have been upped. If you think that sounds better, why don't you just hoick your rears & LFE channel up by 4 db's each and you'll have dts on every disc... ;)

Also, if your quoting bitrates, what source do you think provides the highest bitrate for Dolby Digital??? Well according to my Lexicon, it's actually the XBox, with all games encoded at 640 mbps...Sky is down at 348mbps, but some films sound pretty awesome to me...
 
Smurfin said:
Why oh why can't I resist jumping on these threads;) :D

I gave up years ago as it is difficult to compete against the DTS hype machine but I do enjoy watching Army Bloke trying beating his head against a brick wall and

west said:
Dolby discs are getting better all the time but I don't think they sound quite as crisp and detailed as its DTS equivalent. It could be psychological but no Dolby DVD mix has had me grinning because it sounded so good.

The above quote is representative of many whenever this monthly thread topic is started up again but no mention is ever made of the equipment that is used upon which to base these decisions.

I think that it's common knowledge that DTS often has higher surround and bass levels than Dolby Digital yet Dolby Digital is the sound format that is mandatory on a DVD with DTS being just an optional extra.

I have read many posts in DVD Talk complaining about a one second cut in a film being "Not what the director intended" therefore they won't buy that particular version yet no-one seems to mind that the director also approved the sound and it wasn't his intention to have extra bass levels pumping away.

It would seem that alterations to the film itself are not acceptable but changes to the sound are :confused:
 
Like Smurfin, I just can't resist :D

Something I've noticed is that a lot of this "preference" towards one format or the other depends on each individual's tastes. I would imagine that most people want deep bass and lots of rear action... and in most instances it seems DTS provide this. For me, I've noticed that this seems to be at the expense of centre speaker clarity - I usually prefer Dolby's tighter control and more realistic rendition in this regard, but I don't think I've ever seen this mentioned here (although, I have a vague recollection that Army may have been there ;) ).

Comparing DTS and Dolby in a controlled way is not easy, and many things can sway those unwary of the pitfalls... I've found that it's very easy to say, and believe, that one track is better than another - only to change my mind... time and again! I think it's a case of "listener beware" :D
 
surely if DTS was all that much better, then it would become the industry standard right?

terminator 2 DTS track is pretty good but it does just sound louder, im sure if you turned the volume up itd sound just the same.
 
There are so many factors involved in comparing the formats that I think it is futile to keep trying. I do however believe that it would be nice for both formats to be available on every disc, then all you have to do is listen to the one you prefer :thumbsup:
 
Ian J has the nail on the head with the directors intention thing...and why oh why do I keep getting involved??? :suicide:
I don't think that we should have both flavours on EVERY disc...that way both soundtracks suffer with bit rate starvation. My opinion is firmly that the studios should produce 2 discs of every movie, one DD & one dts and let the public decide. I believe when they did this with SPR a few years back, the DD version outsold the dts version by at least 10 - 1!!
I will admit I have the dts version of SPR and do prefer it to the DD version...but this is because of the quality of the mix, not the volume of the LFE channel & surrounds.
I'm also a believer that if a films good enough to buy, who give a damn what flavour the soundtrack is... :confused:
 
H4r7y said:
surely if DTS was all that much better, then it would become the industry standard right?

terminator 2 DTS track is pretty good but it does just sound louder, im sure if you turned the volume up itd sound just the same.

The reason why its not the industry standard is because it takes up more space :) And the general public usually prefer extra features over alternative audio formats.
 
Oh and which was superior VHS or Betamax? and which became the industry standard?
 
Army Bloke said:
Ian J has the nail on the head with the directors intention thing...and why oh why do I keep getting involved??? :suicide:
I don't think that we should have both flavours on EVERY disc...that way both soundtracks suffer with bit rate starvation. My opinion is firmly that the studios should produce 2 discs of every movie, one DD & one dts and let the public decide. I believe when they did this with SPR a few years back, the DD version outsold the dts version by at least 10 - 1!!
I will admit I have the dts version of SPR and do prefer it to the DD version...but this is because of the quality of the mix, not the volume of the LFE channel & surrounds.
I'm also a believer that if a films good enough to buy, who give a damn what flavour the soundtrack is... :confused:

Most people bought the Dolby version of SPR because most Joe Bloggs wouldnt even know that there are different audio formats available or even care or be able to utilise them on their wide screen TVs stereo speakers :)
 
all i was saying is that if DTS was that much better than DD then it would surely become favoured by directors/producers and the public so it would be demanded to be on every disc, but its not. every disc had DD of some sort on it, but DTS is only stuck on some, and i dont think theres a DTS only disc, ive never seen one anyways
 
H4r7y said:
all i was saying is that if DTS was that much better than DD then it would surely become favoured by directors/producers and the public so it would be demanded to be on every disc, but its not. every disc had DD of some sort on it, but DTS is only stuck on some, and i dont think theres a DTS only disc, ive never seen one anyways

What I was saying with my VHS/Betamax analogy was that the best option dosnt always become the industry standard :) The reason Dolby is the standard is because it takes up less space and because it can be stereo down-mixed easily for people without multichannel decoding capability, no offense ment :thumbsup:
 
H4r7y said:
i dont think theres a DTS only disc, ive never seen one anyways

They won't issue a DTS only disc until such time as Hell Freezes Over
 
Have to say that i've never bought into the "dts is better than dd" ******, sure it sounds different but u get so many idiots blindly buying dts over dd, and some idiots paying 30 quid upwards for a hard to find dts disc. The fact that my most impressive test discs (such as fight club, attack of the clones, 2fast2furious) are in dd proves that dts is not superior, jst different (louder in most cases lol). Sure i am sure that there are some dts discs that are mastered better than dd, but these are relatively few in my experience.
 
I'm enrolling in a therapy class to stop myself from constantly writing on DTS threads, its tooooooo much of an addiction which could be better spent elsewhere, i could be looking at the almost bright blue sunny sky as the rain falls and a beautiful rainbow forms in the sky or i could go to Africa and help endangered species by allowing them to eat me, so many great things i could do with my life........ oh i wish that supermodel would stop phoning me i keep telling her i'm not interested in a weekend of pure unadulterated sex in a top class hotel with her paying the bill, doesn't she realise i have to save the world and get home in time for tea.....Tskkk
 
Or until Dantes Peak erupts...and the point about not putting dts only soundtarck on discs because of the room is garbage. The afore mentioned Hero has a Dolby Digital Surround EX track AND a FULL BIT RATE dts es discrete soundtrack on the disc and the picture is one of the most sublime I've ever seen. The 7 year old excuse of not enough room for dts dosen't wash anymore...
The reason every disc has a Dolby Digital disc is because it's written into the DVD standard that every disc must have one...it's an industry standard if you like...we nearly lost out on Dolby Digital in Europe just before dts was launched because Philips wanted the industry standard in Europe to MPEG...thank God someone saw sense. I've still got one or 2 discs that have MPEG 5.1 track on them (Philadelphia and Jumanji IIRC...) that were made way back when DVD first came out. They also have Dolby 5.1 track on them as well. I can't listen to the MPEG track as my current set up dosen't support it...
DTS is on discs to satisfy fan boys - no other reason :D Oh, apart from to give me some excercise when I watch Spartacus once a year... :blush:
 
I don't think that we should have both flavours on EVERY disc...that way both soundtracks suffer with bit rate starvation.

Just contradicted yourself mate :)
 

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