# DTS on Dish HD channels



## Hunter844 (Apr 26, 2007)

Are there any Dish Network channels broadcasting in DTS?


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

Hunter844 said:


> Are there any Dish Network channels broadcasting in DTS?


Are there any channels anywhere broadcasting DTS?

I have a couple of DVDs that have DTS encoding, but have not heard of any broadcast channels using it.


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## BobaBird (Mar 31, 2002)

A few years ago there was some talk of adding dts to the DVB standard. I don't know if that went anywhere.


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## Hunter844 (Apr 26, 2007)

Just curious what the difference is over broadcasts...DTS on dvd's seem to be better than DD but I have been using Dolby Digital EX and Plus II Ex on my Onkyo 604. My Xbox HD-DVD doesn't pick up DTS because of Mr. Microsoft (thanks Bill).


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## rlu929s (Aug 9, 2006)

Yeah no DTS over broadcast but I do agree that DTS sounds better than DD to me. I always check a DVD before watching for DTS.


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## Marriner (Jan 23, 2006)

i think Dolby Digital is the standard for HD broadcasts. It would by problematic to broadcast both DD and DTS. Broadcast of both would be needed for those without the equipment to read and decode DTS (if there is still anyone who lacks this feature)


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

I know DTS is supposed to be "better"... but the couple of times I tried DVDs (most notably Road to Perdition) I own, I found the DTS channels to be out of whack as compared to Dolby 5.1...

In Road to Perdition, for instance, the movie seemed fine until the first gunfire scene and then my whole house shook at the loudness of the gunshots compared to the ambient noise and dialog otherwise.

It looks like you have to have an entirely different speaker placement for DTS and adjust sound levels differently as well... and it took me by surprise. Plus most of what I watch (broadcast included) is not DTS, so I have to go for optimal for what most of my programming comes to me as.


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## scooper (Apr 22, 2002)

AFAIK - Dish (E*) nor DirectTV (D*) are not doing DTS on any of their channels. It's also not part of the ATSC spec either (DD5.1 or PCM is specified ).


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## cclement (Mar 22, 2004)

Could it also be due to the increased bandwidth DTS requires? DTS uses less compression than DD. If the broadcasters are already squeezing every single available bit out of the spectrum, I doubt there are going to use a sound track that requires more space. I would love to see it though, I'm a huge DTS fan. I also check every DVD for it. Gladiator in DTS is my all time favorite!


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

The ATSC specification for DBS (A/80) specifies A/52a for audio which is AC-3 (Dolby Digital). A/52a has been replaced by A/52b, but nothing substantial changed.


It is notable that Toshiba uses DTS in their HD-DVD players to implement DD+ 5.1 output across a Toslink cable. Kinda ironic.


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## whatchel1 (Jan 11, 2006)

HDMe said:


> I know DTS is supposed to be "better"... but the couple of times I tried DVDs (most notably Road to Perdition) I own, I found the DTS channels to be out of whack as compared to Dolby 5.1...
> 
> In Road to Perdition, for instance, the movie seemed fine until the first gunfire scene and then my whole house shook at the loudness of the gunshots compared to the ambient noise and dialog otherwise.
> 
> It looks like you have to have an entirely different speaker placement for DTS and adjust sound levels differently as well... and it took me by surprise. Plus most of what I watch (broadcast included) is not DTS, so I have to go for optimal for what most of my programming comes to me as.


If your basis for this belief is 1 movie only then watch a few more. The main differences between DTS and DD is mostly a different compression technique and x-over freq for the sub. Speaker placement should the same.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

whatchel1 said:


> If your basis for this belief is 1 movie only then watch a few more. The main differences between DTS and DD is mostly a different compression technique and x-over freq for the sub. Speaker placement should the same.


I have seen this problem with more than one DVD. I just mentioned Road to Perdition by name... but all the DTS encoded audio DVDs I own have exhibited the same "problem".

The "problem" is that you can't have your speakers placed as close for DTS nor can you have your volume as loud as you can for Dolby Digital. Since all broadcast TV and many DVDs are Dolby Digital... I would have to reconfigure my setup to be optimal for each type of sound... and it just isn't worth it for me to do that.

If you only or mostly watch DTS, then it probably makes sense... but since I would have to switch it back for most of my viewing it just doesn't make sense for me right now. If, in the future, broadcast was to switch to DTS or something similar then I would certainly revisit... I just don't want to reconfigure back and forth as often as I would have to do now.

I can't truly evaluate the DTS encoding without reconfiguring for it to be optimal... so I won't give it a thumbs down vote... but I don't have any plans to listen to DTS encoded audio tracks unless it becomes more common.


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