hello, i have an older pro logic receiver and i'm wondering if the AC3 audio track contains the older 4 layer pro logic audio too. if not, does my dvd player somehow downmix the 5.1 to a pro logic compatible signal? i guess my question is, when i play or copy a dvd, which audio track is used and am i getting surround sound or just stereo? as an example, x2: x-men united has dts, ac3 6 channel, and ac3 2 channel tracks. which tracks do what (i understand the different formats but how does my dvd player process them)? the only setting on my dvd player that seems appropriate here is the "speaker setup" in which i can choose to downmix to LT/RT or Stereo and i assume (provided a pro logic signal is there somewhere) i should leave it in stereo mode. i found this curious statement in a definition of dolby pro logic: "Sources for Dolby Pro Logic include TV shows and movies, videotapes, other analog sources and downconverted signal from Dolby Digital (DVD for example)." this insinuates that a dvd player could produce a pro logic signal. i also found another curious bit about spdif (not what i would be using but it seems to insinuate that the prologic signal is in there somewhere): "The main difference between SPDIF/RAW and SPDIF/PCM is that the RAW format leaves the audio untouched in unencoded format. That way, any Dolby Digital, Dolby 5.1, DTS, or any other such formats can be extracted fully from the audio stream. With the PCM format, you force the DVD player to downmix to a 2 channel (stereo) output." to reiterate my question, will a pro logic receiver connected to my dvd player (mintek dvd-1600) produce surround and from which track is that coming?
as a follow up...i found two snippets that may have answered my questions: "Your DVD player extracts digital sound for left and right channels, converts it to analog signals and sends it to your Dolby Pro-Logic sound system, that in turn extracts the center channel and rear channel sound from them." "If you have an "older" Dolby Surround Pro-Logic receiver, you can still enjoy movies from DVD-Video, since all DVD-Video players down-mixes the Dolby Digital information to the Dolby Surround Pro-Logic format, and outputs the signal as a stereo audio pair." so the dvd player "knows" how to convert a dolby digital signal to a dolby pro logic signal and automatically does this. by the way, the setting on my dvd player should be lt/rt (which stands for left total and right total, each containing two different signals for a total of 4). i'm going to then assume that the correct track to save would be ac3 6 channel. when is ac3 2 channel used?
