Sayer,
Quote:
...does it convert the 6.1/7.1 formats reasonably well to the 5.1 format?
Just some clarification. There is no 7.1 encoded format on the consumer level. On the 6.1 channel formats, whether the 6th (surround-back) channel is discrete or has been matrixed in, there is no need to convert to to 5.1 because those soundtracks already arrive in a 5.1 channel format. In fact, on EX/ES soundtracks, the 6th channel has to be extracted via matrix decoding. Even on DTS ES discrete 6.1 soundtracks, the 5 main channels contain ALL the soundtrack info; the 6th discrete channel contains redundant info.

Bottom line: while not optimal, 6.1 material will sound absolutely fine on a 5.1 speaker set-up.

Best,
Sanjay
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Sanjay