ESPN & SRS Circle Surround

[squicken]

Here is a link to a great avsforum discussion involving SRS Circle Surround. A guest on the discussion is a tech at SRS. The avs guys really let him have it. Moral of the story, according to SRS: Dolby is an evil monopoly, you should upgrade your receiver to handle our signal. We claim that we're better than DD 5.1, even though nobody else does.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=290975

 

[giveuspurehd]

ya i was going to ask about that.i do not have the circle surround.it comes out a dpl2.imo it does not sound too good.i do not have the $ to support a new format so i will have to live with it.i will admit my first thought when i saw the srs circle surround on espn was "cheezy"!oh well like the guy fom srs said in sports the rears are for the crowd.maybe if they could put a mic in each dugout for each rear or something.i dunno, it is late.

 

[wasch_24]

......i dunno, it is late.

Damn, it's late? I've already showered and dressed by then

 

[wasch_24]

.....i dunno, it is late.

It's late???? I've already showered and gotten dressed by 5:24

 

[wasch_24]

......i dunno, it is late.

It's late????? Dang man, I've already showered and gotten dressed by 5:24

 

[jgantert]

It doesn't even look like Best Buy sells any CS 5.1 recievers.

I'm not going to go out of my way to get one just for ESPN-HD when everyone else is using DD 5.1.

Any reason some HD channels don't use DTS or DD 6.1 (ES or EX, I think).

-John

 

[Sean Mota]

DD5.1 is here to stay... SRS Cirle Surround will stay with ESPN alone and it will die with them. DTS is even better than DD5.1 and you don't see any channel transmitting DTS. DD5.1 is here to stay. ESPN is SRS Circle Surround is trash...

 

[squicken]

I disagree with the whole arguement that there's no benefit to surround sound in sports. The sound in the Wolves game was incredible. When the guys were shooting FT, you could here the thunderstix going on the FR and RR or FL and RL. And the richness (yes, I read where this may have been an audio problem, but it does illustrate the benefits of discrete encoding) of lfe on the sub, when the players dribble. I have never seen footbal in 5.1, and can't wait.

Has ESPN mentioned anywhere about upgrading to dd 5.1? The thread above stated that ESPN chose SRS b/c ESPN didn't have the ability to encode a dd 5.1 signal. Maybe the new facility opening up in June will give them this ability? It certainly is not a money thing. Apparently, broadcasters do not pay Dolby a licensing fee.

 

[jgantert]

More SRS 5.1

DD5.1 is here to stay... SRS Cirle Surround will stay with ESPN alone and it will die with them. DTS is even better than DD5.1 and you don't see any channel transmitting DTS. DD5.1 is here to stay. ESPN is SRS Circle Surround is trash...

Have you taken a look at Merlin: Special Edition DVD? It is now in SRS 5.1. I hope this isn't the beginning of a trend, as I would hate to se more SRS stuff.

I have still yet to see a "consumer grade" receiver with SRS (I consider stuff sold at Tweeter and Grammaphone, etc stores more "audiophile" grade stuff).

-John

 

[hancox]

Some of the Kenwood VR vanilla ones do SRS - take a look online

 

[DrWho]

Yeah, this is kind of ridiculous to add a Surround format that his harldy supported.

Not that ESPN needs that much surround, but CS, come on!

 

[squicken]

I'm not plugging it, but I've seen one from Marantz for about $400 at cambridge soundworks. I thought about upgrading, but it's not worth it. I can live with PLII

 

[theph0xx]

From reading through the thread at AVS it seems as though CS was chosen because it was the best matrixing surround solution available to use at the time, and is likely to be more temporary than anything. ESPN didn't have a way to do DD 5.1 so it instead picked the matrix solution they thought best moved from 2 channel to a 5 channel sound. Like was said before, for those that don't have a receiver that decodes CS, it will be outputted in ProLogicII, assuming your receiver DOES decode that. If not, you're screwed and stuck with DD 2.0, with no surround effects. If your receiver actually does CS you get some added benefits over PL2, according to the SRS rep who was posting at AVS. I think that pretty much sums up the discussion over there, please correct me if anything is wrong here, but this is what I've drawn from it.

To me I don't think it matters that much since most Rear noises are simply crowd noises that don't really rely on position to be immersing. Would I prefer 5.1? Of course, but I'm not gonna throw a fit about CS on one station. Hopefully, ESPN will begin to convert over to DD 5.1 as per the ATSC standard, especially given their new studio, capabilities, etc.

 

[theph0xx]

One other thing:

It seems as though CS is aimed at those who don't have a IRD/cable box that outputs a digital signal, only L/R. That's where the benefits of CS evidently come through because it allegedly does a GREAT job of giving the 5.1 effect from a 2.0 source. This "technology" doesn't seem to really be aimed at Voomers, HDTVers, Audiophiles, Videophiles, etc.