This is a new post which I am writing after all of this time. This is my opinion on the Home Theater systems vs. the Movie theater systems. Now, a lot of people would say that I am a movie buff. Maybe I am. However, I am more interested in the soundtrack of films. I like going to the movie theaters to check on the first run and get the largest screens and loudest sound systems. With the home formats having the same sound systems and the software having the soundtrack encoded, there are some interesting comparisons to be made to the sound formats.
For one thing, the movie theater and the home are very different environments. With the release of DVDs there has been speculation that the soundtracks have been reequalized for the home. This is especially the case with Dolby Digital soundtracks. Dolby Digital used a feature for the home consumer edition which is called dialnorm. This is supposed to be a feature of dialogue normalization. The common belief is that it lowers the dynamic range of the soundtrack for DVD.
For DVD players you have to have a system that can decode 5.1 channel surround sound in order to appreciate the true 5.1 experience. DVDs without the system will downmix the sound. The most common default downmix for DVDs is LtRt down mix. This is a downmix which can be used for prologic receivers. The other common downmix is called Stereo downmix which is LoRo. The surround information is basically gone from this mix and can only be used on headphones.
Now, enough of this technical babble. I am going to tell you how it translates to me. Now, like everyone else, I have noticed a difference in the Theatrical presentation of a movie and the DVD counterpart. In most cases, the difference is negligible. However, there are certain cases where the difference is bothersome. Now, I only have downmix audio so I do not know what it really sounds like in full 5.1.
I’ve only listened to LtRt up until last year when I got a portable DVD player which had virtual surround sound. The downmix was LoRo stereo. I’ve noticed that the surround sound information is a little different. I’ve also noticed that the sound effects are a little louder than usual. There are many different movies that I have tested and noticed that the surround effect that I have expected is gone. Interestingly enough, the soundtrack sounded a lot like how I remember the film sounding in the theater.
For my final test, I popped in a DVD from Rambo. I saw the film in the theater and there was a scene where the main character suddenly drew his gun out and shot a lot of people. In the theater the gunshots were so loud I almost jumped. On DVD, when I watched on my DVD player in LtRt, it seemed as if the gun shots were a little muffled. The voices actually seemed louder than the gunshots. However, on the portable Stereo Downmix DVD player, it had the same intensity that I remember from the theater.
Now, I went to the theater last night and saw Cowboys and Aliens. Dolby Digital sound. One of the things that I have noticed was that the sound seemed a little dull. There was dynamic range and everything, but compared to my DVD player and headphones, the sound was quite dull. I’ll have to pick it up on DVD when it comes to make comparisons. I also noticed that in quiet scenes, I would hear a deeper silence on DVD than on film. There seems to be some kind of “hum” that I sense. I don’t really “hear” it though.
When DVDs of movies are made, the Dolby Digital soundtracks are encoded at either 384kbits per second or 448 kbits per second. This is quite a reduction. However, the movie theater film prints are encoded at 320 k/bits per second. There was reported to be a test on the systems and DVD won in the sound department. The sound was said to be sharper than on film.
While a lot of home theater enthusiasts say that DVD sound is inferior. With the right system, you can take full advantage. Now DVD seems to be beating out film on my system. Bluray is definitely much better.
