Quoting DarklyNoon:

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Do I understand this correctly, that the surround flag is always there, no matter how it was compressed ?

Donnie

No, the surround data is always there. If you take a 2.0 surround DVD and record the audio to an MP3 file it will still be surround but the flag will be lost (it's data stored as part of the file format, not part of the data, like the meta data a digital camera includes with a photo).

The flag is just a label that can be set to tell the play back equipment what mode to use.  It can be set wrong.

You can't assume that the theatre mix is the same as the DVD mix, I have DVDs that include both 5.1 and 2.0 because the 5.1 sounds bad when mixed down to 2.0 on a stereo TV.

Saying that there are no stereo theatrical movies is bending things a bit.
It's true that movie theatres went from mono to 3.0 in one step, but 3.0 is stereo. The theatre plays a stereo soundtrack and anything where left = right goes to the centre speaker (like prologic). This gives a much wider stereo sweet spot for people sitting off centre in a theatre. Nothing is required encode 3.0 it's all at playback time. There is no difference between 3.0 and 2.0 if you are sitting in the centre.

It's not until they went to 4.0/1 that you have something more then stereo.

Yes there is no plain left and right in theatres. But there are plain left and right sound tracks that were played in theatres, they were not all 3.0, they were stereo tracks that the theatre just added a centre channel to. If I let it my amp will play sound out of all 9 speakers from a mono track it's still mono.

Quoting tas314:

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The centre is created by the theatres sound system, it's not encoded in the sound track like the rear surround channel in Dolby stereo. It's just taking anything that is the same in both left and right and sending it to the centre speaker. [...] It's a 2.0 sound track, the studio did not have to do anything to encode a centre channel. It's the same as feeding a stereo signal into a prologic system. It will play back 3.0 but it's still stereo.[...]

Sorry, but hat's nonsense. The whole sound re-recording process is based on physically discrete sound information. Every channel is discrete in the process of re-recording. No matter whether digital or analog and no matter whether 3-channel, 4-channel or 6-channel mixes, the base is always the discrete center since the talkies started with a single center channel in 1927. In the case of DOLBY STEREO the center signal then (after re-recording has been fnished) is encoded (together with the surround information) in the well kown matrixed two channels. But there was never ever a re-recording mixer sitting in a studio doing a feature film mix with just left and right signals without center. Never!
There have also been 4-channel-magnetic sound tracks on 35mm prints (e.g. STAR WARS), where each signal is discrete and not encoded anyhow. That additionally proofs the existence of a discrete center. As another proof take the DVD of THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH where You have discrete left, center and right information on the DOLBY DIGITAL soundtrack.

Quoting DarklyNoon:

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but others are convinced 100% that it is not.

From what i've read (and said) here most others believe the right answer is based on the information that can be gleaned from the disc.  Not what we believe, but what is fact.

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On most cases it says DD 2.0, and then the stereo believers enter Dolby Digital Stereo into profiler.
FYI DD 2.0 is NO indiication that the soundtrack on the disk is Stereo.

I never trust the case.  I only trust what the disc puts out and what my tools (PowerDVD, my receiver) detect from that disc.  And what the tools tell me is reflected in my speakers.

Assume nothing.  Check the data.

Quoting DarklyNoon:

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But it is impossible to proof what is on the disk.
Power DVD, receivers , nothing can exactly tell you if it is stereo or surround.

Hence the people that voted on my contributions.
Many have checked and tried to confirm that it is stereo or surround and they all came up with a different outcome.

So FOR ME it is a fact, that no equipment can do a definitive proof if it is stereo or surround.

While I agree that some receivers can't tell the difference, I don't agree that none can. Based on my earlier report, mine can and does tell the difference (Pioneer VSX-LX70, don't know the US equivalent model). It displays both a text description such as Stereo and a graphical representation of which channels are encoded in the audio stream.

Quoting DarklyNoon:

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Quoting Forget_the_Rest:

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Quoting DarklyNoon:

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But it is impossible to proof what is on the disk.
Power DVD, receivers , nothing can exactly tell you if it is stereo or surround.

Hence the people that voted on my contributions.
Many have checked and tried to confirm that it is stereo or surround and they all came up with a different outcome.

So FOR ME it is a fact, that no equipment can do a definitive proof if it is stereo or surround.

While I agree that some receivers can't tell the difference, I don't agree that none can. Based on my earlier report, mine can and does tell the difference (Pioneer VSX-LX70, don't know the US equivalent model). It displays both a text description such as Stereo and a graphical representation of which channels are encoded in the audio stream.

I would like to believe this, but people especially stated their receivers and stated what the receivers showed em, still the outcome was about 50/50.

Exactly so those who report all titles one way have a receiver that can't tell the difference!

Quoting DarklyNoon:

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Quoting Forget_the_Rest:

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Exactly so those who report all titles one way have a receiver that can't tell the difference!

If I take this for granted, how in hell should the screeners know which user has enough knowledge to make such a technical statement and how should the screeners know which receiver can do this properly.
This will never work

cheers
Donnie

I'll grant you that & realistically then, the option would be to ONLY use the info as it's called on the disc menus. That way it won't come down to X has this equipment/software & Y has that equipment/software. Everyone will be on a level playing field.