I recently rented "The Omega Man" which is encoded with the original mono soundtrack. When played in surround mode, only the center channel is active.

Other mono encoded discs I've played (e.g. "Halloween") will activate more than the center channel. Can anyone shed some light on this? Just curious.

Thanks,
John

I've heard of some DD 1.0 discs that decode with only the center channel. Since it's only one track, that's where the processor throws the audio. I guess if you want the sound to be out of your mains, turn off your surrounds so that you're in stereo only mode. You should then get the sound as a phantom image in the center of your mains.

Hope this helps...

Thanks for the reply. I guess what I'm wondering is if there are different encoding schemes for a mono soundtrack. My experience suggests there are, though I don't know much about this subject. Could it be that some discs, "Halloween" for example, have had the original mono track encoded into the two front channels, thus allowing ProLogic to be applied?

I think some DD 2.0 mono soundtracks put the same signal into both left and right channels, leaving the center, surrounds, and LFE channels empty. Halloween's been released on DVD several times, and with perhaps one exception they've all had a DD 2.0 track on them; they may also have a separate mono track, but it's hard to tell from my bit of poking around Amazon.com and looking at the Digital Bits review of three versions . Other discs (including The Omega Man, according to Amazon.com) use a DD 1.0 mono track; I've already interpreted the "1.0" to mean that it decodes to the center channel only and leave everything else empty.

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

Thanks Gonk, that makes sense. I have the newer Anchor Bay release of "Halloween" which includes a DD 5.1, 2.0, and "mono" track which still activates the 2 front channels. Could it be that this DD 2.0 is a stereo mix and the "mono" is the same track played through the 2 front channels? Otherwise I can't imagine why they would include both.

Thanks for the help.