I just read a review of the new "Hunt for the Red October" DVD on dvdfile.com. It seems the reviewer noticed a problem with the EX processing on the DVD. He describes it as a shift in the balance of the surrounds requiring an adjustment of the gain of his center surround.

Just wanted to bring this up as it shows the issue of surround processing problems with DD EX may be more software related than hardware related.

I've watched Episodes I and II using 6.1 surround and haven't noticed any issues. Then again, I haven't been all that impressed with the sound on those movies. I just haven't agreed with some of sound effects choices.

Johnathan: Can you please confirm, if I am reading your post correctly and what I believe you are inferring.

1) You have a rear center channel speaker. 2) When you play an EX coded DVD the db level for the left and right surrounds drops with the result being most of the rear information is focused on the rear center.

If so, do you get bursts of strongly directional sound at the correct sound level from your right and level rear surrounds?

To me this would be potentially indicative that the 1050 is handling 6.1 information correctly (by moving general non specific rear information to the rear center) and only giving the right and left surrounds more than a minimal signal when appropriate.

If I am correct, the flaw in 5.1 processing is the problem. If true the workaround is flawed because it would be equivalent to listening to a front configuration without a center channel and without turning on phantom mode to simulate this speaker by redirecting the signals to left and right fronts.

Of course, everyone could be right (for their 1050) if there are differences in 1050 signal processing firmware in how the 1050 handled 6.1 sound.

To answer bruin73's question. No I don't get "strong" directional sounds from my R and L rears when 6.1 is on, if it did I wouldn't mind and use the 6.1 mode. But with 6.1 on, the L and R speakers db seems to acutally drop a couple of levels.
And I agree with u that there isn't a work around to the EX problem on the Harry potter DVD or any other DVD's with the EX flag problem. Because if you leave the center surround on without a actual speaker there then won't you be loosing all the info that's being taken from the Rear L+R and being sent to the Rear Center? Also I tried gonk's suggestion by just setting the center rear "on" and not using the outlaw's 6.1 processing, but that doesn't work either because the receiver automatically keeps turning back on 6.1 if the center surround it set to on. So unfortunately DVD's like Harry potter that doesn't come with a DTS track can't be played "properly" unless u have a rear center speaker. But then still for me still doesn't sound.

Some others around here (such as Soundhound) may be able to help more on this, but the way I understand 6.1 (including the 1050's Surround 6.1, the 950's Cirrus Extra Surround, and Dolby Digital EX), the surround channels are reduced by 3dB because some of the information is being re-routed to the surround back channel(s). Taken from this article : "Surround Centre information is split equally between Surround Left and Surround Right with a drop of 3dB (needed to maintain a correct level when the signal is extracted)"



If the Surround 6.1 processing is kicking in automatically (as it seems to be on Chamber of Secrets), I certainly agree. But this problem originally appeared on three different movies in late 2001, and none of them seemed to override the user and automatically enable Surround 6.1. Hence the confusion (at least on my part) with this issue recently.

For people with 6.1 speaker setups who are still experiencing some trouble, it may be possible to re-visit their speaker calibration to make sure they have things balanced well. If the surrounds are a little on the low side or the surround back is low, it would not be surprising at all for the entire rear soundstage to wimp out on you in Surround 6.1. I can't guarantee that it'll solve the problem, but it's worth a try if you haven't tried it already.

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gonk -- Saloon Links | Pre/Pro Comparison Chart | 950 Review

I am with Gonk. I own Pearl Harbor and have not experienced any drop outs with the CS on, but I also have never had the 6.1 turn itself on (in fact I have never used it). I have never experienced that, but I also have not watched HP. Maybe this only happens with HP? I believe that you would be pleased if the 6.1 did not turn itself on or you could turn it off (assuming you do not have a cs speaker). Then I think your issue would be resolved. Wish I had HP to check it out for you....but maybe someone else can.

My hope in posting to this thread (and calling Outlaw technical support) was to hopefully get some direction on what 1050 owners options are. You would think that someone at Outlaw had the disk and could bring into the "Office" to test and then let us know.

Unfortunately, I am not sensing that anyone from Outlaw is even working on the issue. I certainly haven't even had an email, or a post to this thread that indicates that they are testing and have at least confirmed the situation. I am not thrilled with a response that says in effect "What a lousy sound track". I would like to point out that Outlaws specification sheet for the 1050 says (minus the trademarks)

"The Model 1050 uses a proprietary 61. algorihtm developed by Outlaw and chipmaker Zoran Corporation. This processing is 100 percent compatible with all Dolby Surround EX 6-1 channel theatrical soundtracks."

It doesn't say all but a few.

I seriously doubt that Outlaw is ignoring this issue. It would be a departure from their previous customer service policies. On the other hand, the original solution to the problem (which was traced back to Dolby's software, not to any hardware manufacturers) was tested internally and very quietly. They contacted an original 1050 beta tester (everybody wave to Pat!) for external verification, but otherwise kept pretty quiet about it. The first we knew of their efforts was a post here documenting the solution. The current problem appears somewhat stickier, but I very much doubt that Outlaw is shrugging their shoulders and saying "bummer." If you want some confirmation on this, I'd recommend a phone call (866-688-5292) or e-mail ( info@outlawaudio.com ) to Outlaw to quiz them about it. With their "hands-off" policy in this forum, they are unlikely to directly involve themselves in the debate until they have some sort of answer for us.



It was also written before this EX flag cropped up and caused headaches for most every proprietary 6.1 "EX clone" developed between 1999 and late 2001 (when Dolby finally allowed licensing of Dolby EX). As I've said here before, I'm disappointed to see Warner even using this EX flag on a title after all the trouble it originally caused -- there are quite a few receivers out there that are susceptible to it, not just the 1050.

Anybody heard how the Onkyo receivers are coping with Chamber of Secrets? There were at least as hard-hit by it originally as the 1050 was.

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gonk -- Saloon Links | Pre/Pro Comparison Chart | 950 Review

Hello 73Bruin,

An e-mail was sent to you yesterday to inform you of our continual attention into this issue. I have not posted it here out of respect for your e-mail address privacy. However, it did indicate that we were continuing to look into this issue and that we would be getting back to you with more details as soon as possible.

Scott

Scott: There must be some confusion on my email address. The one in my profile is correct. I just tested it from my company email. Possibly I miscommunciated this when I called in. However, I did check my email last night and again this morning before posting.

I do not have a CS speaker but I have it turned on on the 1050. My DVD player is connected via optical and set to bitstream. If I play a 5.1 movie, the 1050 displays the word "Digital" and the CS speaker light is OFF. Everything sounds good. If I play HPCOS or Terminator II Ultimate which are encoded in 5.1 EX, the 1050 displays "Digital Surround 6.1" and the CS speaker light is ON. If I hit the "SURR 6.1" button on the 1050, the display returns to "Digital" and the CS light goes OFF but as soon as there is some CS content, these automatically revert to "Digital Surround 6.1" and CS light ON. The HPCOS soundstage is more toward the front than I would expect. If I switch the DVD player from bitstream to PCM, then Prologic decoding is forced and there are no dropouts. This looks like a software problem, the 1050 is correctly detecting the 5.1 EX signal, but there seems to be a missing block of code:
If EX=TRUE) {
do 6.1 decoding
if CS=ON feed the CS speaker else merge the CS signal with the signal for RS and LS}
else {
do 5.1 decoding
endif