FM to DPL II ?

When my 950 arrives , it will take up residence in a Suite at the new American Airlines Center , Home of the Stars & Mavericks. While I would very much prefer to have a live mike feed without announcers piped into the Suite , I'll have to make do with what is offered , which is an in House FM Broadcast.

Will the 950 be able to take this FM signal to DPLII? The Diva Swans already in place are hoping that the answer is yes!!!



[This message has been edited by Damon (edited February 18, 2002).]

Damon,

Sure. Any 2 channel (stereo) material can be processed by PL II to yield a 5 channel surround sound presentation.

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Sanjay

This is good news! I understand DPLII quite well & realize that it is intended to "augment" 2 Channel source material, but was not sure whether or not an internally generated FM source would be applicable.

I have always found DPLI to be a complete waste of time.

Now lets get greedy. What other formats will best let me utilize the the 5 Diva Surrounds?

I do not know much about the Cirrus surround algorithims that the 950 offers.

Which means you know as much as the rest of us!

Believe me, I've tried searching the 'net and asking everyone I know; still, Cirrus Extra Surround remains a mystery. At various times I've heard it talked about as: an EX-like enhancement to 5.1 channel sources and/or a multi-channel processor form 2 channel sources and/or even being the equivalent of PL II. (The latter two, if true, would apply to your situation, if the FM reception you're receiving is in fact real stereo.)

Unfortunately, the beta testers haven't been much help shedding any light in this particular situation. I'd love it if someone (anyone) could educate me on what CES actually IS.

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Sanjay

[This message has been edited by sdurani (edited February 19, 2002).]

There's also DTS NEO:6. I don't know how well that works, but it might be useful.

Is this a potential problem?

Respone from the Arena as the whether or not broadcast will be in stereo:

Here's the word from our radio engineer Bill Guyger....

"Mono only. No chance for Stereo, that would require a different transmitter.
More $$$. Also, no need since the source material is mono".

This guys an engineer??
I for one am very impressed that hockey players can play in mono!

Damon,

Matrix decoders, like PL II and Neo:6, use the differences in the 2 channels of stereo material to create surround sound. However, the information on PL II at Dolby's website says: "An optional Matrix mode can be included to produce surround sound from mono material." Now I don't know whether that 'option' is included in the 950 or not.

Also, surround sound from mono material sounds kinda gimicky; the decoder tries to keep what it thinks are the frequencies of the human vocal range locked into the centre while it takes the other frequencies and spreads them around to the other speakers. Without the directional cues that come from a real stereo signal, the best you can hope for with mono is a sort of stereo smear.

What may sound better is taking the mono signal and sending it to all the speakers without any processing. I know that the 950 can do this with stereo material, but again I don't know if this can be done with mono (though I don't see why not). Once the owner's manual goes on-line, we'll be able to know with more certainty.

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Sanjay

I believe that Outlaw said a while back that they had included all of the DPL II modes in the 950, so the "matrix" mode that sdurani mentioned is likely included. A quick e-mail to Outlaw might shed some light on the subject, or a post on Home Theater Forum asking the beta testers to try it out. Either way, the manual will likely shed some light in this subject before long.

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Gonk