Am I better off leaving off the 2 channel audio when backing up movies? I think my dvd player automatically plays 5.1 audio and it plays fine on my television. I have yet to hook up my home theater. I know the 2 channel audio takes up precious video space. I have started leaving off the DTS audio because it takes up tons of space. That's another question I had. Can you really tell that much difference in DTS and regular 5.1? Any thoughts would be appreciated.
I leave off the 2 channel on all my backups and they play fine, in fact I do not have home theater. I found that the hard way that my dvd player defaults to 2 channel and then I would get the director comments and no movie audio, by leaving it out they movie plays fine, and I do not have to try switching to 5.1 on remote
Your better off keeping the 5.1 audio. If you play the dvd on your tv just the left and right channels will play. If you ever play the dvd on a home theater it's nice to have the 5.1
Now, some say you can tell the difference, but most people say that you can't audibly tell the difference in DTS and normal 5.1 audio. I know that DTS takes up tons of disk space! Thoughts???
If i uncheck all of the 2 channel audio and leave 5.1, will it still work in a tv/ dvd player that does not use 5.1, ex. i use 5.1 with my system and want to take it to someone elses house ,if they only have a simple dvd player and tv, (2channel) will all of the sound still play?
Yes the sound will still play on a 2 channel, that is what I have and it plays fine on all my televisions and dvd players. If I take the backups to my daughters house who has home theater they play fine on her setup to. The only time you have to keep the 2 channel is if that is the only choice listed for the movie.
Ok that helps out alot, also i notice that some movies would have like 2 or more or the selection for 2 channel or even 5.1, and this just uses up memory do you think its safe to uncheck all but the one i need? Do you think these are duplicats, the mb of the file are generally the same also? What do you think?
Gerard, I just check the 5.1 and uncheck the 2 channel in the re-author mode in dvd shrink. This is because a lot of movies have directors comments and this is were they lurk, you are better off just doing the 5.1 and saving the space for the movie, that is just my suggestion. Happy burning.
Yes on the movie like shrek i think it is, i noticed that it had like 2 or 3 2 channel audio then some audio in a different language, and then i seen the directors cut 1 having 124mb and another having 0mb, why would this be like this even with 2 or 3 channel audio slection on the main movie, those btw had the same mb file size. Just a strange thing that i witness.
Also just noticed on the notebook it has A 5.1 channel english, 2 ch english(173mb),2channel english directors cut(173mb), and another 2channel english directors cut(173mb) audio file..Something that i just do not get do they do this to take up space on the dvd or something. Thanks again for the help.
Sadsac DTS and Dolby Digital are both surround sound. I've not seen any discs with both. I usually save the surround sound because it plays on a stereo setup as well as the surround systems. Often, I'll just delete the foreign sound tracks and keep the 2 channel as well (it doesn't take up that much more space). But if I had to choose, I'd go with the surround sound. If you don't record it, you sure can't enjoy it when you do hook up the surround system.
I've seen tons of disks with both DTS and normal 5.1 on them. The DTS usually takes up 500 to 800mb versus 200-400mb for normal 5.1 I've also noticed several movies with 3 or 4 versions of English 2 channel audio, 2 or 3 versions of commentary 2 channel audio, and several diffent languages in 2 channel. I always uncheck the foreign and commentary audio options, but I also don't understand why there's 3 or 4 versions of English 2 channel audio. When I see that, I always keep the 2 channel English audio because I don't know if they are putting diffenent files for different parts of the movie on the disk. Can someone please explain this anomoly? With 3 or 4 2 channel audio files left on the disk, it can get costly as far as space is concerned. With each file being 200mb, if you keep 3 or 4 of them, that can take up almost 1/4 of your disk. Whas'up with that?
Get DVDCopy3 and/or RB/CCE and stop worrying about it. I have both and do very little worrying about sound tracks. They are an excellent transcoder and encoder and don't require extensive editing to get excellent quality backups from DVD9 to DVD5. DVDCopy3 will record DVDs up to about 7.75GB without a problem or need to edit anything (usually in about 45 minutes). Larger than that and I go to RB/CCE. The trade off is that RB/CCE takes a couple of hours to encode a DVD (the quality is awesome). Give those 2 a test and you'll see what I mean. I preferr you don't take my word and do the trials. http://www.intervideo.com and RB/CCE threads can be found here on AD for more info.
SadSac From the Glossary: DTS is a private company that develops audio formats, pretty much like Dolby. With term "DTS" people generally speaking refer to DTS's digital surround audio technology that is used widely on DVD-Video discs, just like Dolby's Dolby Digital/AC3. I don't see why a studio would invest in 2 surround tracks, but then people and companies do some wild things. I opened a few of my recent acquisitions (newer DVD movies) and checked the sound tracks. Mostly 5.1 surround sound and 2 channel. What are those titles with both the 5.1 surround and DTS? If I don't have them in my DVD library, I might consider renting some if they're decent movies. I'm a curious person. BTW. I just did a compression check of the new movie Cellular. I picked it at random. The English 2 channel tracks, 3 of them, were 102,141 and 141 MB. The 5.1 track was 331 MB. The total English audio tracks deleted only account for a 12% change in the Main Movie (in DVD Shrink). The 5.1 accounts for about 6% or roughly about one seventeenth of the space taken by the main movie. We're talking compression to DVD5. On the original DVD9 the percentage would be less. My copy of Batman Returns had a 5.1 track of 358 MB. Man on Fire was about 465 MB for the 5.1. So, for the good sound track you're only looking at a difference of a few per cent in compression in most cases. I don't feel I'm hurting anything when I select the 5.1 over the 2 channel (when I do make the choice). With the choice of DTS and 5.1, just delete the DTS since it is so large and doesn't seem to be that much better, if space is a concern. Guess I'll hear from the audiophiles on that one. Just call me tone deaf. LOL
The most recent disk I purchased with both DTS and 5.1 on it was "SAW". Also, looking at my other DVD cases, I notice that "Master and Commander" has both. These are the only 2 I looked at. Also, I always use Shrink because of the ability to separate the audio tracks. Shrink is an extremely useful program. I was just concerned about the numerous 2 channel versions. Why all the different versions? It seems like there would only be one since there's only one 5.1 track and one DTS track. Usually only one 2 channel commentary track. At times, as I mentioned before, I see 3 or 4 different 2 channel audio tracks. I don't feel like wasting a disk in order to do a trial and error process. I thought someone would know the answer to the anomoly. And I figured someone would know if there was a huge difference in DTS tracks and normal 5.1 tracks. I don't have my surround system hooked up and I would like to know if it would benefit me to buy a DTS receiver. If I really couldn't tell the difference, I'll stick to my old receiver (once I decide to hook it up).
I came across my first disk today that contained both 5.1 and DTS it was The Fast and Furious with Vin Diesel. I backed it up twice to see if removing the DTS made any difference in sound and it did not, it made for less compression of the movie.
I think some may have understood my question was not about having two 5.1 and dts audio channels(just to claify) usually although if there is the two i would copy both. DTS is said to be better from many of people that i have asked, and i usually keep dolby 5.1 just because some may not have a dts decoder. Hopefully this helps out with the surround audio question.
Article on DTS Vs. Dolby Digital http://www.audioholics.com/techtips/specsformats/dts_vs_dolbydigital.php Rather interesting, but as others have stated I can't tell the difference when playing threw my surround system. Then again I don't have a DTS system if that matters? I just go with the 5.1 CH setting when backing up my movies and remove everything else.
Interesting I went back and checked Man on Fire. There was a DTS box in Shrink, but no content. When checking the case label, it said, 5.1 Dolby-DTS. That file was only 465MB. As far as file size comparison the 5.1 sound on LOTR Return of the King was 656MB; a longer movie with a larger track (I forgot to check, that may have been THX). Master and Commander has a 5.1 460MB audio track and Chronicles of Riddick was 431 MB. These 5.1 audio tracks when compared to the 2 channel just don't seem to change the compression enough on the software I'm using to choose the 2 channel over 5.1 surround sound. DD, DTS, THX? As far as those go, I'm still not seeing great enough change in compression not to use one of these formats when available. The regular 5.1 surround is more than enough for most systems. Unless you have one of the newer high tech systems, you're not going to pick up on the bit rate difference. One of those new Dolby/DTS systems would be nice.
