Skeptic --
don't worry about it...
I can email you some dolbny digital links --
But if you have Time Warner cable the AC3 is basically a waste of time.
a)AC3 is ONLY supported for digital channels (see a list on http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/Forum13/HTML/002438.html ) -- you have to switch back and forth from composite audio to digital audio when you want to go from an analog to a digital channel (a major pain for me -- my A/V receiver doesn't do this remotely).
b)The AC3 you get is Dolby Digital 2.0
Bare with me if you know a lot about DD systems! DVD style sources provide DD 5.1 -- this includes the Center, Front R/L, Rear R/L, and LFE chanells.
Regular broadcast sound is in analog or digital 2.0 -- over analog and digital cable, off CD's, radio, and other sources. These two channells of audio can be processed by a dolby prologic receiver to give you 4 channels of audio -- Center, Front R/L, and rear.
Your digital box provides two outputs -- the AC3 DD 2.0 output and the R/L composite output.
As far as I have been able to tell, listenting to both sources through the same DD Ready, Prologic Receiver, there is no difference in quality between the signal you get when you do the Digital-to-Analog (D-A) conversion in the cable box, and send the analog output through the Prologic receiver versus sending the AC3 into the same receiver, doing the D-A conversion there and runing it through the Prologic decoder to get the same 4 channels of audio.
This assumes you have no long cable runs or interfernece sources.
I figure the D-A processor in the box must be just as good as the D-A converter in my receiver (I have a Kenwood VR-209).
There are some dolby digital references -- you should be able to find them fairly easily on the Dolby home page, or I can dig around and find them for you, which suggest that it will be years if not ever before digital cable moves to DD 5.1 audio. Has to do with an infrastructure/delivery system problem.
Anyways -- after my first week or so playing with the box -- and the horrible shockk I had when I found out it was DD 2.0 I was one of the first in town to "upgrade" to digital cable -- not only was I shocked to learn about the truth of "digital cable" -- the analog channels and the AC3 DD 2.0 sound, but I had to teach the engineers at Time Warner what was going on -- at one point I went to the head of engineering in Austin -- who had to dig for a WEEK to find out that they hadn't implemented the AC3 output -- his lackeys were telling me my REVCEIVER was dead -- but there was NO SIGNAL!!
Anyways, hope this info helps
Joe
[This message has been edited by DrJoe (edited 11-11-2000).]
don't worry about it...
I can email you some dolbny digital links --
But if you have Time Warner cable the AC3 is basically a waste of time.
a)AC3 is ONLY supported for digital channels (see a list on http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/Forum13/HTML/002438.html ) -- you have to switch back and forth from composite audio to digital audio when you want to go from an analog to a digital channel (a major pain for me -- my A/V receiver doesn't do this remotely).
b)The AC3 you get is Dolby Digital 2.0
Bare with me if you know a lot about DD systems! DVD style sources provide DD 5.1 -- this includes the Center, Front R/L, Rear R/L, and LFE chanells.
Regular broadcast sound is in analog or digital 2.0 -- over analog and digital cable, off CD's, radio, and other sources. These two channells of audio can be processed by a dolby prologic receiver to give you 4 channels of audio -- Center, Front R/L, and rear.
Your digital box provides two outputs -- the AC3 DD 2.0 output and the R/L composite output.
As far as I have been able to tell, listenting to both sources through the same DD Ready, Prologic Receiver, there is no difference in quality between the signal you get when you do the Digital-to-Analog (D-A) conversion in the cable box, and send the analog output through the Prologic receiver versus sending the AC3 into the same receiver, doing the D-A conversion there and runing it through the Prologic decoder to get the same 4 channels of audio.
This assumes you have no long cable runs or interfernece sources.
I figure the D-A processor in the box must be just as good as the D-A converter in my receiver (I have a Kenwood VR-209).
There are some dolby digital references -- you should be able to find them fairly easily on the Dolby home page, or I can dig around and find them for you, which suggest that it will be years if not ever before digital cable moves to DD 5.1 audio. Has to do with an infrastructure/delivery system problem.
Anyways -- after my first week or so playing with the box -- and the horrible shockk I had when I found out it was DD 2.0 I was one of the first in town to "upgrade" to digital cable -- not only was I shocked to learn about the truth of "digital cable" -- the analog channels and the AC3 DD 2.0 sound, but I had to teach the engineers at Time Warner what was going on -- at one point I went to the head of engineering in Austin -- who had to dig for a WEEK to find out that they hadn't implemented the AC3 output -- his lackeys were telling me my REVCEIVER was dead -- but there was NO SIGNAL!!
Anyways, hope this info helps
Joe
[This message has been edited by DrJoe (edited 11-11-2000).]
