Home Theater System

Audio

It's pretty easy to reproduce a movie theatre by just going out and buying the biggest and flattest TV you can fit into your living room...or afford for that matter. But it is much more difficult and complex to try to reproduce the sound system of a cinema. During the 1930's, a film's entire soundtrack was played on a single speaker or collection of speakers positioned behind the movie screen.

Now-a-days, there are multiple speakers surrounding the audience. Now obviously, most people are not going to have the money or space to buy over a dozen speakers to position around them in their living room! Luckily, we can pretty accurately reproduce the theatre's sound system with just five speakers and a subwoofer, mainly because our living room is much smaller than a theatre's. My living room is quite small, so I didn't need to get large powerful speakers that can handle hundreds of watts of power.

I went for the Panasonic SC-HT900 Home Theater System. It's a "home theatre in a box," because it not only includes the speakers and subwoofer, but it also includes the receiver. And most of the time, the receiver doubles as a DVD/CD player as well. This is nice not only because it’s cheaper and faster than going out to buy separate components, but it safes space, especially when your living room isn't that big and/or you want to keep the room looking "nice." Unfortunately, most home theatre in a box packages comes with small "bookshelf" or "satellite" units (usually 2-way speakers without any bass reflex). And even if the front speakers were "floor-standing" units, the surround units usually are not. I don’t like bookshelf speakers mainly because I don’t like speaker stands. But also, they look cheap in my opinion and usually don’t perform up to par with their bigger floor-standing counterparts. Honestly, I got the Panasonic SC-HT900 because its "Slim Tall-Boy Speakers" looked very sexy. The downside is that because of their slim size, the actual speaker drivers will be smaller than the ones in traditional floor-standing speakers. But again, because of my living room size, I prefer looks over power.

Surround Formats: DTS vs Dolby Digital

Currently, there are two surround formats available for DVD movies: Dolby Digital (DD) and Digital Theater Systems (DTS). Sony Dynamic Digital Sound (SDDS) is a multi channel audio format containing up to 8 discrete sound channels and capable of a high data rate in excess of 1280 kbps. SDDS is available only in cinemas and Sony currently has no plans to make it available for home use.

So, the question is which is better between DD (also known as AC-3) and DTS. There are many sites that debate this, so I will just keep it simple. Dolby got the honor to be the "default" DVD audio format mostly because they were the first to jump at the opportunity. However, DD's format had about three times more compression than DTS. Because of this, many people claims that DTS sounds clearer, sharper, and stronger then DD. I for one can’t tell the difference! But I do know that I have never heard anyone claim DD sounds better then DTS... That's not to say DD doesn't have any advantages however; because of the higher compression rate, DD soundtracks takes up less space on a DVD, thus leaving more room for special features (DVDs like Saving Private Ryan and DragonHeart have a separate DTS version that excludes some special features). Another advantage is Dolby's longer history in the movie sound industry; it is still the only format that still mixes soundtracks for those that doesn’t have 5 speakers and a sub. Their "older" line-up includes: Dolby Stereo, Dolby Surround, Dolby Pro Logic, and the new Dolby Pro Logic II. The latter two was created to "simulate" surround sound from soundtracks that doesn’t include 5.1 discrete channels, like TV shows. Dolby Surround is still the only format that is designed for systems without a 5.1 system.

So to conclude, Dolby is in no way obsolete or "worse." But it shouldn’t be an issue because almost every receiver in the market currently supports both DD and DTS, which means it would be pretty hard and pretty stupid to buy a receiver without DTS support. And it would just be ridiculous if it doesn’t have DD support.

Future of Surround Formats

Both DD and DTS soundtracks contains 5.1 discrete audio channels; the ".1" is for the subwoofer, which is used to produce very low frequency sounds and used to reproduce the rumbling experience in a theatre. The obvious upgrade is more channels! So both Dolby and DTS came out with 6.1 systems: Dolby/THX Surround EX and DTS ES. The extra channel is used for an extra speaker between the right and left surround units. Is it worth it? No, not really. Excluding the obvious higher price in getting a receiver that supports those formats and the price of an extra speaker, very few DVDs are currently encoded in those formats and many newly released movies in theatres aren’t even in those formats. Further, it’s already hard enough to find room to properly position 5 speakers and a sub, the extra speaker only means less flexibility in decor. Lastly, the extra channel is unlikely to make that big of a difference! If you have the extra dough, invest it in better quality speakers instead!

What about THX?

In my opinion, THX was immortalized when it was spoofed on an episode of The Simpsons. Funny as that may sound, the THX logo is perhaps one of the most recognized symbol associated with the movie industry! The main reason is likely because how freaking cool its logo is when it's introduced at the very beginning of a movie; everyone in a theatre will undoubtedly notice it. However, contrary to popular belief, THX is not another sound format like DD or DTS. THX was developed at Lucasfilm in the early 1980s by George Lucas (yes, the man is a genius) wanted a way to ensure a movie would look and sound exactly the same no matter where it was played. Tomlinson Holman, former corporate technical director for Lucasfilm, and a team of THX engineers took on the challenge of developing a baseline set of standards.¹ It was originally designed to set standards for movie theatres. To display the THX logo, a theatre must adopt this set of standards and then be certified by Lucasfilm's THX division.¹

THX eventually moved on to also "certify" movie soundtracks (usually mixed or supervised by THX itself), thus creating the famous animated THX logo at the beginning of a movie. Currently, many DVDs are also certified by THX. You don't need any special software to enjoy them because again, it is not a sound format, but just a sound "standard." BUT, recently, THX has started to certify hardware, like receivers and speakers! Those hardware are quite rare and very expensive—so I don’t recommend on getting those, unless you're really rich. Even then, it’s better to just invest on better quality speakers instead—THX certified or not.

Note: If you're wondering, what's Dolby/THX Surround EX in the previous section, THX collaborated with Dolby to create the new 6.1 sound format. Although THX helped to create the format, it is still primarily known as a Dolby format, so you don't need a THX certified receiver to enjoy it.

¹Tom Harris, howstuffworks.com