LaserDisc Audio Guide – Part 4: DTS

Culturedog Sam Hatch has returned with a small series of videos hashing out the convoluted history of the audio portion of LaserDisc history. Analog, digital, mono, stereo, surround, Pro-Logic, AC-3, Dolby Digital, DTS… all those confusing acronyms and output jacks… all will be broken down and explained.

In this fourth video, Sam discusses the long-awaited LaserDisc implementation of Digital Theater Systems’ 5.1-channel “Coherent Acoustics” surround sound format. Primed to explode on the market as a Dolby killer following a stellar period of theatrical growth, DTS dropped into home theaters in 1997 with no less than Jurassic Park in its corner.

Was it worth the wait? And how does one go about listening to these discs in the present day? Hold onto your butts as we flip the switch and shine a light on DTS 5.1!

Strap in and crank it up!

Chapters
0:00 Opening Titles
0:14 Intro / Recap
1:10 Digital Theater Systems
2:26 Discrete 5.1 Surround
3:17 Audio Compression
4:35 DTS Software Rollout
6:06 5.1 LaserDisc Implementation
8:10 Backwards Compatability
9:28 Market Approaches
11:13 Playback Issues / DTS Drawbacks
15:22 Speaker Level Quirks
16:49 LaserDisc Surround Mixes
18:15 Injecting New Life in LD Format
19:40 Collectability Factors
21:46 Player Needs
22:20 Connecting/Decoding
23:50 Wrap-Up

Check out the roster of all known DTS LaserDiscs on the LaserDisc Database:

Listen to "Culture Dogs" Sunday nights at 8pm EST on WWUH, 91.3 FM in CT. Also streaming live (and then archived via StreamRewind) on:

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Intro music: "Anger Mgmt." by Sever the Drama.

[abcdefg-udcu]

Thank you Sam. I am loving this series! You go into depth in a way that is easy to understand. Which is a problem when getting involved in a so called dead format. I am the type of person that when I get into a hobby I want to know everything about it that I can learn and nowhere have I found the in depth explanation that I crave until I found your channel. Thanks so much! Keep up the great work!

[machiwoomiapoo]

I love watching Jurassic Park DTS. When T-Rex shows up and eats the lawyer, that was the best. I remember going to see it in the theater and all the seats were taken up, so I just sat down in the aisle. I think they totally over sold the tickets that day. What an amazing movie! I watched Waterworld for the first time on a DTS LaserDisc, and I loved it. I tried to stay away from Kevin Costner in the 90's because I didn't like him, but nowdays I can stand him. Especially since that movie was unique as hell. I love the part where the old guy on the oil rig says, "Thank God!" just before he dies from the explosion. He wanted to die since his life completely sucked. I can relate on certain days. Anyway, I'm loving your series. I just bought another DVL-919 since my Sony from work started acting funny. I guess I'm going to have to find another one of the RF Demodulators to get the Digital track. Have you repaired any of your players? I'd love to see some YouTube videos with people repairing old Sony, Pioneer LaserDisc players. :) Just food for though. Take care, Sam from the Synthesizer channel, machiwoomiapoo. :) Go listen to some synthpop. :)

[MovieGuy]

Thanks Sam. I thought I knew just about everything regarding DTS but you did bring up some aspects that I had no idea about. In particular, I was always confused about what everyone was saying about levels being too high on DTS and now I know. Looking forward to the next video. 🙂

[NickMichalak]

Great video! I didn't know that the DTS track only needed a Digital Coxial or Toslink cable. I only have the RCA outputs on my CLD-D502, but next year I will start the Goodwill hunt for one of those digital-out players. I always avoided buying the DTS discs because of my setup, but I do have a Sony A/V Receiver I bought from Best Buy two years ago with both inputs. Thanks for educating the masses, Sam!

[Paranimal]

Thanks for all your knowledge, I love watching and reading stuff on these old formats. It’s cool to see the evolution of audio and video tech, and how ahead of its time this stuff was.

The laser disc format it’s so fascinating, everything from the cool album like covers to the ground breaking digital formats is interesting.

I recently started collecting UHD because it’s the best way to watch and listen to movies. Just like Laser disc was the end all be all... we have it to thank for bringing digital audio and video theater formats to the home theater.

I’m considering getting a laser disc player for the heck of it, I think it’s really neat. I love the old DTS and THX start up sounds, I wish more movies would do that now.

[Medioc]

I know it’s 2 years old, but I’m really enjoying this series!

[net_news]

super interesting and informative man, thanks!

[Killertamagotchi]

A good decoder for AC3RF and DTS is the Denon AVD-2000.
It can often be found on eBay for almost the same price as a standard Yamaha AC3RF demodulator

[Riddler]

The first time I heard DTS in the home theater system was in early 2003 and I was blown away. The movie was the Extended Edition of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring on DVD.


I really like DTS audio and it is too bad that it wasn't as common on DVD as Dolby Digital is. I always thought it was a nice treat when a movie on DVD had a DTS track.


I've got a couple old DVDs that have full bitrate DTS tracks and they sound terrific!

[MrPhenom]

I still have such a soft spot for The Shadow 🤩

[robertromero]

Gary Reber of Widescreen Review magazine hyped DTS like crazy. He even had a DTS system in his car. I get amusement out of an anecdote that a friend of mine related to me: He played DTS and Dolby Digital for Reber in a movie theater (he was a projectionist). What made it interesting is that the comparison was done BLIND, ie Reber did NOT know which was which. When he was asked which sounded better, he Digital.

[VONDOOM]

My brother and I were early adopters of DTS laserdiscs. Sherwood Newcastle 945 (iirc) was the first home receiver that featured onboard DTS decoding

[paulj]

I think JP on dts laserdisc is the best sounding home version available. Just wish I had a way of backing the mix up and syncing it to a 3d blu ray and uhd.

[austinwillcut]

Honestly I kinda prefer DTSHD over DolbyTrue or Atmos, Atmos sounds amazing in a theater though because Avengers Endgame had it and holy it was immersive! It makes you feel like you're actually there. DTS is more like a rock concert which I kinda prefer. The DTS DVDs are pretty good but the HD blu rays in lossless are just amazing even when played through tv speakers, it feels like you're in a theater. I'm probably going to post quite a few comments on this one! The different stereo track options for blu ray or LD fascinate me.

[unixsuperuser]

Excellent and accurate history lesson.

[austinwillcut]

I don't get why people are so concerned with re buying movies they already have for an upgrade, you can always sell the old copies on ebay/garage sales or to someone you know and get most of your money back. I've bought DVDs online on Facebook from a friend with Paypal so they got their money back on those old discs! I couldn't resist an OOP DVD of Peter Jackson's Dead Alive unrated.

[AnthonyMaw]

Note that both Dolby Digital and DTS were lossy compressed digital audio. The 5.1 audio sounds OK but it takes Blu Ray disc to finally get the bandwidth necesary for Dolby HD and DTS HD lossless multi-channel audio.

[martinmcfly]

is it fair to say that AC-3 Start up initially is costly but then you can get awesome rocking AC-3 discs for next to nothing, where as with DTS almost no cost initially but each disc are quite expensive there-on??

[prp]

this guy reminds me of a best buy employee in the 90s....I don't know why

[strictlysega]

does the dts noise damage ur speakers?.. i didnt know that, , i thought it sounded very simular to when my mate listens to dub step.. great vid again boss, ,