This Effect, available only in DC-1’s equipped with THX or Dolby Digital processing, provides Home THX Cinema surround decoding for any Dolby surround encoded movies, music or television programs. The effect is similar to Pro Logic, but includes the features of re-equalization, timbre matching and decorrelation. The surround channels are monaural, but can be decorrelated. This effect can be reset to use the Logic 7 stereo surrounds with the Stereophonic setting of Surround Mode, although full separation between the sides and the rear speakers is not available.
THX Cinema (THX and Dolby Digital versions)
Parameter | Initial Value | Range | THX Cinema Parameters |
AUTO AZIMUTH | ON | ON/OFF | |
SURROUND MODE | DECORR | STEREO, DECORR | |
RE-EQUALIZER | ON | ON/OFF | |
SUBWOOFER LVL | +0dB | -5 to +5dB | |
CUSTOM | | | |
AUTO AZIMUTH is short for auto azimuth error correction/automatic input balance. Auto Azimuth should be set to ON for films, and OFF for music. When ON, special patented algorithms continually monitor the input signal and adjust both the relative level and time offset of the two channels to keep the dialog properly centered and special effects properly localized. This automatic feature is the reason the unit does not need an input balance control for Dolby Surround decoding.
SURROUND MODE selects the type of surround decoding used by the DC-1. STEREOPHONIC provides extraction of five channels of surround information from a standard 4-2-4 matrix-encoded soundtrack (Dolby Surround, Ultra*Stereo, etc.) The drama of this effect is dependent on the source material and is most noticeable with strong stereo music soundtracks. The DECORRELATED setting electronically scrambles the monaural sur- round channel to provide added spaciousness and envelopment.
RE-EQUALIZER equalizes the left, center, and right channel outputs to match the overall frequency balance of the original recording. Without this re-equalization, many films and some television programs will sound too bright.
SUBWOOFER LVL boosts or cuts the subwoofer output level. Although the normal subwoofer level is set during the calibration procedure, with some recordings it may be desirable to increase or decrease this deep bass level.
