Listener Question Megashow #3
Dolby Podcast Episode 32, January 17, 2008
Jack and Craig answer listener questions about what to look for in AV receivers now, Dolby Headphone technology, books and other resources about sound technology, “large” versus “small” speakers in home theater setup and more.
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Mentioned in this Episode
Jack Buser: Hello and welcome to Dolbycast, the insider's guide to entertainment technology from the experts at Dolby Laboratories. I am Jack Buser.
Craig Eggers: And I'm Craig Eggers.
Jeff: We are here to give you the straight talk on everything you need to please your ears.
Craig: Hello Dolbycast listeners and hello Mr. Jack Buser.
Jack: Hello Craig, how are you doing?
Craig: It's the weird type cold thing again.
Jack: How is that cold going?
Craig: It seems like every other podcast we do, right?
Jack: Well, you seem a little bit better today, that's good.
Craig: Yeah. So, we have done some really great stuff in the past. That Halo podcast we did was just absolutely incredible, and then in the last podcast we introduced Audistry to our listeners. We have gotten a lot of mail from our listeners.
Jack: Absolutely.
Craig: Saying, "You guys ask for questions, but you never seem to answer them."
Jack: Well, we try. I mean every episode we have been doing one listener question, but it's just not enough. It piles up, and so, every once in a while, we do a full listener question podcast.
Craig: That's today's podcast.
Jack: Absolutely. Today's podcast is going to be all about listener questions. Coming up, we are going to have podcasts regarding CES, a wrap up from the show. We are going to be covering - what else are we going to be covering?
Craig: We'll be doing automation in the home theater. We are going to be doing, how do you calibrate your room? How do you utilize the proper devices out there to acoustically make your room the very best it can be if you will.
Jack: Which is very important actually, it's something I have yet to do on a machine I do admit, and so I'm very much looking forward to this podcast, so that actually I can learn how to do it properly.
Craig: I have to tell you; last night I had both of my sets ISF'ed.
Jack: Did you?
Craig: For our listeners, ISF stands for Imaging Science Foundation, and their job is to make a display device look as close as possible to what you see when you're watching an actual film.
Jack: That's good stuff. You should always have an ISF guy coming out and calibrate your TV, if you buy a nice TV.
Craig: I spoke to Terry Paullin from ISF, who actually came out and did it for me, and I invited him on to our podcast. So, that would be a cool thing for us I guess.
Jack: Cool, that would be great. Well, listen Craig, without further ado; just to make sure we have enough time for these listener questions, I am holding a small book in my hand. It's the only way to put it, of listener questions.
Craig: Our listeners will say that's because we don't answer them.
Jack: Well, we are going to answer as many of these as we can on today's episode. So, without further ado, let's just jump right in. What do you say? Let's see if we can get a couple done before the first break. First question we get is from Rick, and Rick has been going back and forth about whether to replace his old Yamaha RX-V1 with a new AV receiver.
He has a question; he has been out there looking at new receivers. Looking at Onkyos, he has been looking at [indecipherable], he has been looking at Pioneers, Denons, Yamahas, you name it. He says, "First off, of the features that I see listed on these new AV receivers" there are a couple that he is worried about. First of all, example number one, HDMI 1.3A, what the heck is that? Is this a draft spec, the complete spec or what? So Craig, HDMI 1.3A, is this different than HDMI 1.3, what's the deal?
Craig: For Rick, it's not an issue. HDMI 1.3A does x.v.Color, which is a promise of wider bandwidth within color in the future. It most importantly from my perspective supports Dolby Digital [indecipherable] transport of those bit streams.
When you buy a player that has bit stream out, and can transport that bit stream to your connector to AV receiver, and if you're doing decoding inside your player, like a lot of people are doing, obviously once that signal is decoded inside the player, HDMI 1.3A is your connection obviously to get that decoded signal into your AV receiver for your post processing, your bass management that we talk about, your DSP processing, maybe taking the 5.1 and making it 7.1 with PL2X.
Jack: So, moral of the story, HDMI 1.3A, don't worry about the A, it's essentially for all intents and purposes for the consumer. It's HDMI 1.3. The second part of your question is, so does the current crop of receivers have all the features I want? Answer, yes, go and get one of these receivers. I'll tell you what...
Craig: It's a good time.
Jack: It's a great time to buy a new AV receiver. Second question from Rick, "What is coming from Dolby that will be a compelling feature to make me want to buy yet another receiver?" Funny you should ask that.
Craig: Well Rick, I'll tell you Rick, at the CTS show and the IFA show in Europe this fall, we introduced Dolby Volume, which we have talked about before on this podcast. We introduced Dolby Volume to our hardware licensees who are manufacturing AV receivers.
Jack: That's right.
Craig: ...before on this podcast. We introduced Dolby Volume to our hardware licensees who are manufacturing AV receivers.
Jack: That's right.
Craig: We are working very diligently right now with some silicon people, because you've got to have the technology on silicon before you actually get it into an AV receiver.
Jack: Right.
Craig: So we're working with silicon providers as well as some AV receiver manufacturers to develop some prototypes and try to move this process along quicker.
Jack: Absolutely. So rest assured, Rick. Dolby's always going to be cooking up new stuff...
Craig: Yeah.
Jack: ...to make you want a new receiver, right? [laughs]
Craig: There you go.
Jack: But I'll tell you what. Right now is such an excellent time to buy. If you're looking to upgrade your receiver in the coming few years, I think right now really is a critical time. With all the new formats and HDMI reaching maturity, I think it's definitely a good time to buy.
Craig: And when you look to the future. I mean all ready we've got a product like VUDU in the marketplace...
Jack: Yes.
Craig: ...that utilizes Dolby Digital Plus. VUDUthought about compatibility when they built their products so that although it receives a Dolby Digital Plus signal, it converts that to Dolby Digital...
Jack: That's right.
Craig: ...for output. You got total compatibility with every receiver that's Dolby Digital compatible.
Jack: Mm-hmm.
Craig: But in the future, when you really look over the horizon...
Jack: Yep.
Craig: ...you're going to see devices that bring in Dolby Digital Plus...
Jack: Just pass it right through.
Craig: ...and pass it right through via HDMI.
Jack: Right to your new receiver. That's right.
Craig: Yeah.
Jack: So buy a current receiver, you're going to be future proofed. You're going to be happy. Next question in the sake of getting as many of these questioned answered...
Craig: Yes.
Jack: ...as we can. Right after this we're going to go to a break. This is Blake from South Carolina . He's got one that says, "On a receiver that allows you to choose large or small speakers, "--again, long time listeners, we're referring to bass redirection. When you set up your receiver, it's going to ask you; hey do you have large left and right or small left and right? Do you have large center or small center, large surrounds or small surrounds? Do you have a subwoofer, right? His question...
Craig: The purpose for that is?
Jack: The purpose for that is to crossover the bass such that, if you have small speakers, the receivers not sending a bunch of bass information that can overload...
Craig: Exactly. To speakers that can't reproduce it.
Jack: Exactly. It actually reroutes that bass to other speakers that can reproduce the bass.
Craig: Exactly.
Jack: So you get that nice, full, cinematic sound without any clipping or distortion. You can crank it up really loud without worrying about clipping and distortion.
Craig: Mm-hmm. And all that bass is being redirected to your subwoofer.
Jack: To your sub, or if you don't have a sub, to your large speakers, so...
Craig: Yes.
Jack: His question is, "OK. On a receiver that allows you to choose large or small speakers, where is the crossover point?
Craig: It's my understanding the crossover point is at 125 cycles. Is that your understanding?
Jack: My understanding, because I used to have to test these receivers...
Craig: Yes.
Jack: ...every day of the week. I can tell you it goes from 80 to 120.
Craig: Right.
Jack: And...
Craig: Is that something the manufacturer can choose then?
Jack: Some manufacturers will choose somewhere in between 80 and 120. Some more high-end receivers are more configurable...
Craig: Allow you?
Jack: That will allow you to get in there and...
Craig: OK.
Jack: ...tweak it. It really depends on the speakers and the subwoofer that you have. I recommend playing some of your favorite movies and adjusting your crossover until it--basically you don't hear anything getting lost.
Craig: Now, if you have a system with small speakers, and you've got an AV receiver that gives you the option or the choice to set the crossover point, it's important that you understand the performance of your small speakers. Right?
Jack: That's exactly right.
Craig: Because a lot of smaller speaker systems will start off at--go 60 to 20,000, or 80 to 20,000. So it's pretty good to research it and understand...
Jack: Absolutely.
Craig: ...the capabilities of your speakers.
Jack: I mean if your speakers--if your small speakers only go down to 120, and you've got your crossover set at 80, it's probably not a good idea, because you're going to lose some frequency.
Craig: That's right. Yeah.
Jack: You want to make sure that your crossover is matched to the speakers that you have. So that's the answer for you.
Craig: Good.
Jack: That's the answer for you, Blake, from South Carolina . We're going to go to a break. When we come right back, we're going to be talking Robert Miller, who writes us regarding AC/DC and Blu-ray. We'll be right back.
[music]
Announcer: You're listening to Dolbycast with Craig Eggers and Jack Buser. Email your questions to dolbycast@dolby.com. That's d-o-l-b-y-c-a-s-t at dolby.com.
[music]
Jack: OK. We are back at Dolbycast. We've got a question here from Bob. Bob writes in; he says, "I bought a Toshiba HD DVD player, the A2." Great HD DVD player. He's got an AV receiver, it's an Integra.
Craig: Mm-hmm.
Jack: And he's got his player set for bit-stream out on S/PDIF.
Craig: Mmm.
Jack: Which is the optical or coaxial...
Craig: Right. Mm-hmm.
Jack: ...standard output for digital audio that you had on first generation DVD. The question Bob has is that he's not getting DD-Plus on his HD DVDs, even after he selects Dolby Digital Plus.
Craig: That's right.
Jack: Right? Now, here's what he says. "Just wondering if you guys are aware of what's going on?" The receiver is showing multichannel PCM 5.1, with a sample frequency of 48 kHz when he plays HD DVDs with Dolby Digital Plus.
Craig: Mm-hmm.
Jack: So, great question, we don't have all the information we need here to properly answer the question, but I'm going to guess if your receiver, Bob, is showing multi-channel PCM 5.1 in, you probably got one hooked up.
Craig: Well, he's decoding the Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby TrueHD inside of his player...
Jack: Correct.
Craig: ...and is being passed to his AV receiver as a PCM signal.
Jack: Over what connection?
Craig: Over the HDMI.
Jack: Over the HDMI.
Craig: Yes.
Jack: So here we go, Bob, this is the key. HDMI doesn't just do video, it also does audio. So you don't even need to have your S/PDIF connection hooked up. Your S/PDIF, remember, is that TOSLINK cable or that co-axial cable that's audio only. It was found on previous generation DVD. If you have HDMI hooked up, that's the only cable you'll going to need for both audio and video if your receivers [indecipherable].
Craig: And, pardon me, if you have the S/PDIF hooked up, the optical or the co-axial, what you're gaining is basically a Dolby Digital signal or some other signal into your AV receiver.
Jack: But to get the new format like Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby TrueHD, you need to have HDMI.
Craig: Right.
Jack: Now, what's happening is that it's decoding in the player like Craig said. So it's decoding in your player that's why your AV receiver doesn't think it's still Dolby Digital Plus or Dolby TrueHD, I think it's PCM. That's because those signals have already been decoded in the player, you have no loss of sound quality, it's just being transmitted as PCM which is just raw, lossless, digital audio. So you got nothing to worry about, it sounds like you have it set up perfectly.
Craig: But this gives us a chance to expand on that.
Jack: Yes.
Craig: There's a lot of confusion in the marketplace. As you know, Jack, the majority of the players decode inside the player. We talk about this is because of the interactive audio capabilities of this next generation formats.
Jack: That's right.
Craig: They're always going to decode inside the player. Right? So therefore, when you hook your player up to your AV receiver, regardless of whether it's got Dolby Digital Plus or Dolby TrueHD, if you hook it up and find the HDMI, your fluorescent display on your AV receiver is going to probably say PCM.
Jack: That's right. Now, I want to move very quickly over to Rick's question because Rick's question is related here. Rick says, now if you remember Rick, he's got his Yamaha RX-V1 and he's decided to hang on to it just for a bit. By the way, he's got HD-DVD player he's got A3, another great HD-DVD player, and he's using right now an optical cable. But then he mentions, "The RX-V1, his older receiver, does have six channel analog inputs."
Craig: There you go.
Jack: OK? So he's wondering what's going on with his old receiver. Now, Rick, I got some bad news. The A3 does not have six channel analog output. For that, you need to step up to the A30.
Craig: That's right.
Jack: So, the trick with your receiver is you have six channel analog inputs, with that kind of connection even on a very old receiver, you can still get the added benefit of Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby TrueHD [indecipherable] decoding in the player, but you need to find a player that has six channel analog outputs to go to your legacy receiver with six channel analog inputs. Even with that connection...
Craig: Even with that connection, you're going to get a full bandwidth Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD signal. You know, it's so [indecipherable] I was hesitating because I was thinking, so often times and we said it before, when you buy a new player, you need to understand the capabilities of your AV receiver.
Jack: Right.
Craig: Does it have analog inputs? If it does, then I can buy a player that has analog outputs. Does it have HDMI? Then, I should buy a player that decoded inside the player and passes TrueHD and Dolby Digital Plus via HDMI. Does it have Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby TrueHD decoding in the AV receiver? Then I might look at some players that do decoding inside the player as well as give you the option to pass that bit-stream--that Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD bit-stream--to my AV receiver.
Jack: Absolutely. You know, we understand it's a little complicated but once you get your head around it, it's actually pretty straightforward and we've covered this several times in the podcast. Hopefully, this is helping you, guys, out there.
Craig: And we're going to cover it again.
Jack: We're going to cover it again. We're going to cover it again. But now, Craig, I'm going to move to a question that we received a couple of times, not to [indecipherable] a couple of time, it's a tough question for us to answer but I thought, what the heck, what is a Listener Question episode without a tough questions?
I'm going to just sort of paraphrase here but essentially, we have some listeners writing in. They're asking: You guys talk a lot about Dolby technologies but there are other technologies out there. And, what is the difference, really, when I'm listening to one technology or the other technology? Why do some people maybe think one thing sounds better or one thing doesn't sound better?
Essentially, the questions amount to: How do these formats differ and how do they work? What should I be looking for?
Craig: That's a tough question, right?
Jack: That's a tough one, that's a tough one.
Craig: It's a tough one to answer. You know that I don't like to speak and disparage anybody and I'm not going to do that.
Jack: Sure. Absolutely not.
Craig: We are not going to do that. And I think we should speak to our positives. I think, so often you find with Dolby technologies, the level of engineering, the understanding of audio; our deep rich tradition in audio.
Jack: Yes.
Craig: I mean you can look at Dolby Volume as an example of that. Our connection with audio and understanding audio enables us to develop technologies that are very, very efficient...
Jack: Very efficient.
Craig: ...that deliver a very full, deep, rich audio experience while simultaneously preserving bandwidth, preserving space on a disk for video quality. And that has really been our focus from the very, very beginning.
Jack: That's right. I would like to speak to that a little bit. When you are looking at different audio formats, you have to be careful not to fall victim to what I call the numbers game. For instance, your music collection--you'll see all different kinds of data rates. Your music will be encoded in different formats in different data rates.
The thing you have to remember is just because one piece of music in one format might have a higher data rate than a piece of music in another format that is at a lower data rate, it doesn't mean it's going to sound better.
Craig: Exactly.
Jack: Because you might have a format, a codec, that is actually much better and so therefore, it sounds better even at a lower data rate. So my message is: Don't fall victim to the numbers game.
Craig: Think about it. I mean, look at MPEG-2 video.
Jack: Right.
Craig: To get a high definition MPEG-2 video, you're running at data rates as high as 18 to 20 megabits per second.
Jack: Right!
Craig: Now, the industry is moving to MPEG-4 video.
Jack: Why are they doing that?
Craig: They are doing that because you can achieve the same quality...
Jack: If not better!
Craig: ...if not better, at data rates at maybe 12 to 15 megabits per second.
Jack: Much lower data rates, right?
Craig: So you ask yourself: Which is the better codec? Well, they both deliver great quality.
Jack: It's just one needs a lot more data to do it.
Craig: Exactly.
Jack: Right, exactly right. So hopefully that opens up a little bit of understanding in people's minds on how these formats work. It holds true for video the same way it holds true for audio. Just don't fall victim to the numbers game. Use your ears.
Craig: Exactly! That's the best thing; there it is.
Jack: Just remember, when you are comparing one thing in one format to another thing in another format, you might be comparing apples to oranges. Use your ears.
Craig: And the other thing is, is we have found that if there is a difference in gain or volume between the two formats because of how we hear as humans, that perceptual difference in volume...
Jack: That's right.
Craig: ...can actually make us think one playback experience is warmer or richer than the other. And when you reduce the volume and level all the gains, that is not necessarily the case, is it?
Jack: That is very true. I would encourage people, if you are hearing differences between formats--this is just sort of a general statement; don't lean on it though. If you're hearing differences between formats and those formats are running at a fairly decent data rate, and should sound transparent, and you hear big differences--like big differences in level or big differences in bass--that can mean one of two things. Either one of them is just louder than the other or maybe they're just different mixes, right?
Sometimes that can happen. So hopefully that answers a couple of questions we've had about the different formats. And with that I'm actually quite proud that we [laughs] answered that very difficult question!
Craig: We did pretty good!
Jack: So on that note, let's move on to Dwayne. Dwayne has got a great question here. He is curious if we could recommend a few reference materials: books, articles, and websites. Whatever he could read to become a more educated audiophile.
Craig: Cool.
Jack: Yes, very cool question.
Craig: So Jack, I've sat on some different panel discussions with two real luminaries in our industry.
Jack: Yes, that's right.
Craig: The first is a gentleman by the name of Ken Pohlmann, who quite frankly, is a mentor to a lot of Dolby folks.
Jack: He teaches at the University of Miami .
Craig: Exactly. And he's a published author.
Jack: Actually, this is a great book. If you are looking for a book to get started, Pohlmann writes a book called, " Principles of Digital Audio."
Craig: Great book.
Jack: It is absolutely fabulous.
Craig: Yes.
Jack: He's also written probably a thousand articles.
Craig: He writes a lot of articles for consumer magazines.
Jack: That's right, and there's a bunch of fabulous consumer magazines out there that cover sound. If you go to your local bookstore, you'll find tons of them.
Craig: Another area, I've got a book at home by a German by the name of Tom Holman.
Jack: Tom is another one.
Craig: Tom Holman of TXH, the book I've got is about broadcast audio.
Jack: That's right.
Craig: So if you're interested in broadcast audio, you might want to check out Tom.
Jack: Exactly.
Craig: The Forums are a great choice.
Jack: AVS Forum.
Craig: AVS forums or other forums. Then we have to give out kudos to Aaron and Braden.
Jack: Absolutely, HT Guys, listen to that podcast.
Craig: True, true.
Jack: Definitely, those guys talk a lot about audio.
Craig: So there are a lot of people in the industry who are excited about it, they talk about it on the Web. You've got some luminaries like Ken...
Jack: Sure.
Craig: ...and Tom. Google is probably a great resource. Right?
Jack: That's right. Absolutely, Google, any of those guys and you're going to pop up with probably a ton of articles that they've written over the years. There's one more I want to throw in to the mix though, this is one that I actually started on. It's called " The Sound Reinforcement Handbook". It's actually published I believe by Yamaha, it's got Yamaha written all over the cover.
But it's all about live sounds like how do you set up a sound system for a concert outdoors or in a concert hall. A big part of the book just teaches you about the fundamentals of sound. So you learn what a decibel is, you learn how sound propagates through air, and a lot of those principles apply very directly to home theater.
Craig: I like that phrase, propagates through air.
Jack: Propagates through air, it's cool.
Craig: That's classy, that's good.
Jack: That happens when you study acoustic in school.
Craig: There you go.
Jack: So there you are, Duane. Hopefully that helps you out and that should be more than enough to keep you busy for some time.
Craig: There you go.
Jack: " Principles of Digital Audio" alone took me quite some time to get through but it is absolutely fabulous and I'm glad that I did it.
One more question here before we go to a break. That question is from Jason, and Jason says, "My question for you is where am I going to be able to get my hands on a receiver with Dolby Volume?"
Craig: Jason, well, we cover this, Jack, in early in our podcast here. Jason, we're working extensively and all the lights are on Dolby all the time. But the lights are on and we're working extensively with silicon implementers because you've got to get it onto that chip set before you actually get it in into the AV receiver.
Jack: That's right.
Craig: So I can tell you that we're working extensively with a number of different chips providers as well as hardware makers. We introduced these technologies for AVRs back in the fall and stand by, we'll have some great news I hope very shortly.
Jack: Coming soon, all right. So we're going to go to a break. When we come back, we're going to answer a question from Danny about portable audio.
[radio break]
Craig: And we are back at Dolbycast with our mega Listener Question Show. Jack.
Jack: All right. Here we go. We got another mega listener question. This one comes from Danny from Arizona and he says he understands that iTunes' movies from the iTunes Movie store come in Dolby surround, and that is correct.
Craig: That is correct.
Jack: That is correct. "Is there any way to get a portable decoder that would put everything in a headphone surround format?"
Craig: Well, Danny, there's lots of answers. I'll start with the first.
Jack: Yes.
Craig: JVC makes a model called the " SU DH1" which is a portable Dolby Headphone decoder.
Jack: That's right.
Craig: You connect your analog left and right from your device directly into that and the device could be an Apple device or it could be a portable DVD player connected directly into that SU-DH1 and you can hear your movies in surround sound with Dolby Headphone.
Jack: That's right, and if you don't remember what Dolby Headphone is, Dolby Headphone is a technology from Dolby that allows any old pair of standard headphones to do 5.1 surround sound.
Craig: Yes.
Jack: And I mean any old pair of standard headphones even the ones that came with your iPod will suddenly be able to do 5.1 surround sound if you connect this SU-DH1 from JVC to your iPod. Suddenly, all those movies you downloaded from iTunes Movie store in Dolby surround will be expanded out to 5.1 and then putting your headphones in a way that you can hear it.
Craig: We should say the beauty of the technology to your point works with any set of headphones, but if you have a higher quality set of headphones, your experience is going to be even better.
Jack: Even better, even better. That's why any time you see me on an airplane, you'll see me with my iPhone with the JVC adapter and a pair of very nice biodynamic headphones. [laughs] That's portable heaven in my opinion.
Craig: I'm so jealous.
Jack: That's just very cool.
So thank you, Danny. Hopefully that answers your question. I do want to also mention that because these movies are all encoded in Dolby surround, you can also play the movies through your home theater system if you have your computer hooked up properly to your home theater system. Or if you want to, I guess, hook your iPod up to your home theater system and watch it on the tiny screen with the big sound. It'll work, it'll work.
[laughter]
Craig: Yeah.
Jack: So anyway, there you go, Danny.
Moving right along, we've got a question here from Christopher, who has written us several questions. Thank you, Christopher, for writing in your questions. He's going to be connecting his PS3 with HDMI to his TV and plans on using an optical cable to run sound to his receiver, because I guess his receiver doesn't have HDMI. Yeah, here it is. He's got a Harman Kardon that's four years old, doesn't have HDMI. So, just going to connect using optical cable to the receiver. Will the optical cable be able to handle Dolby TrueHD?
Craig: The answer to that is no.
Jack: Right.
Craig: It's not going to be able to handle it, but it's certainly a reasonable connection. In one of my systems where I don't have HDMI in my AV receiver, that's exactly what I do.
Jack: That's right. Now the good news is, Christopher, that optical cable will actually carry Dolby Digital, but it's going to be carrying a flavor of Dolby Digital that's better than the Dolby Digital you heard on standard definition TV.
Craig: It's a higher bit rate so it'll be digital.
Jack: That's right. The Dolby Digital on Blu-ray that goes over that optical cable from your PlayStation 3 is going to be at 640 kilobits per second. If you listened to regular DVD, that was only at 448 kilobits per second.
Craig: Exactly.
Jack: So you should notice a pretty big difference and improvement in terms of sound when you play those Dolby TrueHD soundtracks on Blu-ray.
Craig: Good question.
Jack: Absolutely. OK, well listen, we're running out of time. We've got one last question. This one is related to Dolby Headphone, so I thought we'd answer it. The question here is that Dolby Headphone--is this technically the same as a binaural recording? So, what is a binaural recording?
Craig: I'm putting that in you...That's in your...
Jack: [laughs] I'll tell you what a binaural recording is. Here's what a binaural recording is. These are special recordings that done by placing microphones inside of people's ear canals, such that when the recording is played back you actually hear the sound as if they are hearing it, I guess, with their ears. It has this very cool effect of allowing you to hear in full 360 degrees, because it's recorded using binaural techniques. OK?
So the answer to your question is no. Dolby Headphone is not a binaural recording, but Dolby Headphone was built using binaural techniques, such that what you hear is very similar to a binaural recording. But what you're hearing is essentially surround sound as if it was played through a 5.1 channel system.
Craig: So, some of us are familiar with "binaural."
Jack: Right.
Craig: But there's a difference. "Binaural" is not "bi-neural." Right?
Jack: No, I'm sorry. That's my Kentucky accent coming out.
Craig: Is that your Kentucky accent?
Jack: I meant to say binaural, as you guys say out here on the West Coast.
Craig: Thank you, Colonel..
[laughter]
Jack: Binaural. Sorry about that.
So he says also, "What happens when I play 7.1 through Dolby Headphone? What's going on? Am I still hearing a 5.1? What's the deal with that?"
Craig: You're hearing 5.1.
Jack: You're hearing 5.1. That's right. Dolby Headphone, as it exists today, is a 5.1 channel technique. So just like if you had a 5.1 channel system at home and you play a 7.1 soundtrack, you'll be hearing a 5.1 channel version of the original 7.1.
Craig: So, Jack, obviously we've covered a lot of questions.
Jack: Yes.
Craig: And obviously we have a lot more to go.
Jack: We do.
Craig: So I have to say this: let's do another podcast in the near term.
Jack: We're going to have to. We have yet to get stumped. I'm very proud of us actually, with all these questions coming in.
Craig: There have been some tough ones.
Jack: There have been some really tough ones.
Craig: There have been some really tough ones. What's our phone number, Jack?
Jack: Our phone number is, Craig, 888-6-DOLBY-C.
Craig: DOLBY-C.
Jack: C, as in C is for cookie.
Craig: Good.
Jack: So write us or call us and ask your questions. If you want to write us, write us at dolbycast@dolby.com.
Craig: Jack, I just have to say thanks for taking over today. With no voice, I really appreciate it.
Jack: Listen, thank you. You've been doing fabulous. Hopefully you feel a little bit better next time, Craig. And to all our listeners, thank you for listening. Please write in with all your questions. We thoroughly enjoy answering them on-air, and we'll be sure to cover them all.
Craig: Say good bye, Jack.
Jack: See you next time.
[music]
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