Pro Logic II decoding products now available
Pro Logic II is the next generation of matrix decoder which both enhances existing Dolby Pro Logic mixes and creates surround sound from Stereo formatted material such as traditional CD. It could be described as bridging the gap between the original Pro Logic and Dolby Digital 5.1, offering a new sense of spatiality, directionality and soundfield stability.
Pro Logic II runs in two modes - Movie mode and Music mode.
Movie mode does not use the 7KHz filter for the surround channels as used in Pro Logic and produces stereo surround information - hence Pro Logic II is a 5.0 channel surround sound system.
Music mode works on traditional stereo matrial to produce 5.0 surround sound and offers three additional parameters :
Panorama mode - extends the front stereo image to the left and right surround speakers
Dimension control - allows the adjustment of the front soundfield to the back speakers
Centre width control - allows either the centre signal produced by the centre speaker or gradually panned across the front left and right speakers up to a full phantom image
Tag McLaren, Meridian and Onkyo are the first companies offering Pro Logic II in their AV equipment.
Udo Zucker of Tag remarks that Pro Logic II "offers a significant improvement in performance".
Tag are offering a Pro Logic II software upgrade for their AV32R processor from their website which costs £80.
Meridian's Pro Logic II upgrades are free, however.
DVD Audio a very exciting development in home entertainment because it delivers music in surround sound. It is being hailed as the next step in music playback in the home. As Stereo swept away Mono music, surround sound DVD Audio is expected to replace Stereo CDs.
DVD-A has been delayed by 9 months by the Norwegian hacker who cracked the DVD-A encoding system. It's now back with some serious copy protection built-in.
You may have heard that Meridian won the rights to provide the DVD-A sound format with their MLP (Meridian Lossless Packing) encoding system. Well this is the audio format being used on the increasing number of DVD-A titles now being released. Unfortunately you do need a DVD-A player to be able to enjoy the MLP encoded music. However, you can still play these DVD-A titles in your current DVD player because they also contain Dolby Digital 5.1, 2.0 and/or DTS 5.1 soundtracks. So you could say that DVD-A titles are forwardly compatible in that they will play on your next (DVD-A) DVD player.
There are several companies producing DVD-A discs including DTS themselves who have signed several artists. Their DVD-A titles come in what they call a 'Super Jewel Box plus' which is like a normal CD case but an inch taller. This is deliberate so that people can easily see the difference between DVD-A and CD and DVDs on the shelves. DTS are hoping that the other studios will adopt this style case.
Новости с Bristol Show(+) -- FOXTREE -- 28.02.01@11:39 (Чит.: 108)