DTS Neo.X - Page 17

Try it and see how it works for you. After I completed the MCACC calibration, I ended up tweaking my listening environment. I increased the volume on my rears (all) in my 11.1 setup.

It's my personal believe that you can tweak anything you want to make it sound better to you. Calibration and all the "professional guides" and settings in the world do not carry weight compared to YOUR eyes and YOUR ears. Go for it! You can always change it back. IMHO

The only caution one can give is that dialing in things until you clearly hear something happening very often makes it a bit much, so backing off one step after that happens can be a good idea.

Ya, I just didn't know if having dialogue coming from the other speakers , means they play less of other sound their supposed to play, and thus I'm trading one for the other. My center channel is an AAD ( any thoughts on those speakers ) , and like I said, sometimes the dialogue is not clear when sitting in the rear of my room. But if I turn the center up too loud to compensate, I feel it takes away from the mains. The SC 65 does have the nice feature that you can raise the dialogue enhancement all the way up to the heights , thus not having to have any of it coming from the main. But you have to use one of the other decoding settings in order to get the heights to work ( I normally use direct or auto surround). So this is my first time really venturing off into using another decoding setting. Does Neo really alter the sound of the original track that much other than matrixing some sound to the heights?

Pioneer's Dialog E "Up1-2-3-4" modes do not actually move any dialog to the height speakers. It appears to apply an HRTF-based filter in the center channel to make it sound as if the voice is shifted up, so it seems to emanate from the screen when the speaker is placed below the display. It may not help with intelligibility, if that is the issue, although since it is applying different EQ curves, perhaps one will sound clearer than another. OOPs, wrong. See post.

Whether raising the center speaker will help dialog intelligibility or not depends on where it is now. If it is well below the bottom of the screen, it will indeed help. Get it as close to the screen as possible without blocking the image. If it is inside a cabinet, that should be addressed, too. Then run the EQ calibrations again, as it will be important to correct for the response changes that happen when the speaker is moved.

I looked at the AAD website. They offer a lot of center speaker models. Which do you have?
Edited by Roger Dressler - 12/9/12 at 6:07pm

No, not correct. When you turn the dialogue enhancement on, it routes some of the dialogue from the center to the mains. When you turn it all the way to up 4 , none comes from the mains , it goes to the height ( when using neo x decoding ) . I'm standing right here and playing with it back and forth, and it goes to the heights, spreading the dialogue out over the 3 speakers .

^^ I stand corrected. This is apparently a new iteration of Dialog Enhancement compared to earlier versions when there were only 5.1 speakers (Pioneer has had such a feature for a long time). I failed to see footnote 'c' in the manual which clearly states >>UP1 to UP4 can be selected only when the front height speaker is connected.<<

So, having settled that, it will probably do nothing for your situation. Splitting the dialog across three speakers is not a well known means to improving intelligibility.

If we can know more about which center speaker is being used and how it is positioned, that could possibly lead to some useful suggestions.

It's the VI 420. And it's right below the screen , almost 3 feet off the floor. But the second row of seats raises about 18 inches over the first row. So it seems that it is a little more ledgeible when some of it comes out higher. But maybe I need a better center ...... I don't know

The VI 420 seems like a decent unit per this review, although there is confusion about the size of the drivers. The review says 5.25", the Phil Jones website says 4". That can make a difference at "home theater" levels at some point.

How are the room acoustics? Are there treatments on walls and ceiling? Bare floor or carpet? Are there pictures posted somewhere?
Edited by Roger Dressler - 12/9/12 at 6:30pm

All drywall .......no treatments other than soundboard in the corners around the subs to stop reverb going up the studs and rattling the hardwood floors upstairs. Had to keep the wife happy there. Been demoing a few different blu ray scenes with enhancement off, auto surround .....then on with neo x cinema. You can for sure hear dialogue better from the back with it on. Just never used neo before , and didn't know how much it really changed the source. I was always one for playing it straight.....but I don't think Im noticing much difference other than the higher , thus better dialogue from the back when all the other chaos is playing

That can be a significant contributor to intelligibility issues. Do you hear a twang when you clap your hands? Or when someone claps right in front of the center speaker? You might want to try some absorber panels on the side walls, or hang some carpets. Plenty of threads around here where great advice can be had.

As for Neo:X, the subject of this thread, I found it to be rather subtle, and did a good job of not smearing the dialog to the height or wide speakers.

Dudes my brain is on fire . My story real quick . I own a Yamaha rx-z11 so I've had a version of 11.whatever for some time now . I just finished watching Dredd and when it was over I tried the DTS neo x test track that it comes with . My impression was ecstatic . The front height dialog was coming out where it should but it was the wide channels that really impressed me . In a previous page on this thread Sdurani wrote about how the wides are derived from the fronts and the rears . When the tracks for those were played back I heard some of the best sidewall imaging ever . I wonder if it is even necessary to have wide channels if more Blu rays are encoded this way . The film has some of the most aggressive front to back use of surround I've ever heard . One concern though . Will they start re mastering older titles with these types of mixes so a double dip become inevitable ? Looking forward to the impressions of the Dredd disc from those with this capability . Like others on this thread I don't intend to upgrade until all the new formats are available . Leading edge can be bleeding edge .

I thought Yamahas don't licence Neo X or DSX. It would be using it's own processing which IMHO isn't as well implemented when I had a few Yamahas in the past.

Then you'd have to wait until hell freezes over. There is no such thing as the definitive format.

And the Z11 is from 2008, which is before DSX came out, let alone Neo:X

Yamaha adds Front and Rear Presence to standard 7.1. I tried the Front Presence with my RX-V2700 and I liked it. Added a real sense of depth to the front scene.

I found it gimmicky adding a pseudo wideness to the sound but didnt have any of the panning/steering of DSX/NeoX

It's not complicated: if certain sounds are mixed equally to the front and surround channels, then those sounds will phantom image between those pairs of speakers.

I was at the DTS booth at CES a couple days ago and noticed that their 11.1 set-up had 7 speakers at ear level and 4 height speakers above. Apparently you're not the only one wondering whether it is necessary to have wide speakers.

Oh no . My thinking behind that statement was that an upgrade to DSX + DTS-neo x is possible now but with MDA and Dolby Atmos on the horizon it seems prudent to wait . I will be looking for some impressions of the Dredd track from those of you with this capability . The steering of sounds with this processing has me intrigued .

MDA and Atmos are years out, my guess is 2 for MDA maybe 3 for Atmos. If you upgrade now to DTS Neo:X and DSX you will be fine for some time. A long time if you think of it in terms of how quickly technology changes...

I'd read a few months ago DTS was planning on MDA this year.

The first AVR with DTS Neo:X was not available for purchase until something around three years after DTS first demonstrated the technology at CES in January 2009.

And Neo:X did NOT require encoded soundtracks . . . MDA will!
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according to DTS rep at DTS booth, MDA will not be introduced until at least 2015. Maybe he just wants to shut me up

What is DTS Neo Fusion post processing technology?

At CES, Samsung is announcing an HTiB with four tallboy speakers that uses DTS Neo Fusion post processing technology, which is "exclusive to Samsung".

From Twice com (link):

Reading between the lines from various posts: It looks like the Samsung HT-F9750W uses a "swivel speaker technology" to project virtual Left|Right Wide speaker content. Apparently this hardware tech is a few years old but needed better processing . . . and so the addition of DTS Neo?

Doing the math: This seems to be 5.1 real speakers, a virtual Left|Right Wide speaker pair . . . and 3 channels of extracted height content...? (Could this be related to a Korean experimental 10.1 Vertical Sound System (10.1-VSS), with 3 height channels, I've seen mentioned in research paper abstracts for the last few years?)

The inference here might be that DTS has now enhanced Neo processing to derive|extract front wide, front height, and rear height content simultaneously from 5.1|7.1 source material...?!
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Edited by SoundChex - 1/11/13 at 10:47am

"Las Vegas – DTS wants to stimulate adoption of its Multi-Dimensional Audio (MDA) surround-sound format by offering the object-authoring format to the content-creation community as an open format much like PCM. The technology places individual sounds inside a movie theater or home theater room in significantly more places than can be achieved with traditional discrete-multichannel surround-sound formats, delivering a new level of realism, the company said.

“Meaningful consumer deployment “could occur in the next two years,” SVP Geir Skaaden told TWICE. SPELLING IS OK The technology was demonstrated last year in proof-of-concept form at CES by SRS, which was purchased in 2012 by DTS.

MDA-enabled soundtracks can be used with digital cinema movies, next-generation movie discs, streaming-video services, and digital-cable and satellite-TV broadcasts. MDA-enabled soundtracks cannot be placed on Blu-ray discs because the Blu-ray spec does not support object-based audio, the company said. With object-based audio, the author attaches specific X, Y, Z coordinates to every millisecond of a specific sound to describe that sound’s location at any given time, a spokesman explained.

Through multispeaker home theater and cinema-sound systems, MDA decoders will capture the metadata and use psychoacoustic processes to place the sounds in the room around and above listeners at various heights and distances, a spokesman said. MDA can also be used in 2.1-speaker systems and soundbars to deliver “a more immersive rendering” than what can be achieved with today’s virtual-surround technologies, the company added. MDA is compatible with today’s HDMI inputs and outputs, the company noted."

This mean 2015,

I guess I can start saving so I can update my SSP-800 plus it will give me time so have the room set up properly, Three 800 Diamonds in front, 4 802Ds as surrounds, two B&W in ceiling all powered by Classé

The downside is that since it will not be available on Blu Rays the adoption will be somewhat limited until a new format is adopted. I would guess that the audio stream is going to be larger than today's audio streams and so you will have to increase bandwidth for streaming services. This is not a hard thing to accomplish, currently the US is lagging far behind most of the other mid to upper tier countries in terms of Internet speeds to residences, but it means that someone has to tell the Internet providers to shut up in terms of trying to charge on usage.

Rats! My home theater is located in "old fashioned" three dimensional space! Now I guess I'll have to run down to Home Depot to buy an "Add An Extra Dimension To Your Home" Do-It-Yourself kit.

I just hope adding only one more dimension this year will be enough to handle all future DTS technologies...?!
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"You got the wrong TV silly head!"

Didn't I just wrote the same thing 2 posts before you?

For those DTS NeoX lovers/users, give me your top 3 bluray demo material that showcased DTS NeoX , and the scene/chapter.

I'm gathering suggestions for a future HT showdown.

Above configuration now reflected on the Neo:X page at the DTS website:

http://www.dts.com/consumers/entertainment-audio/neox.aspx





Look ma, no wides.

How was the DTS booth at CES this year?