Other Digital Formats
Several other digital formats are not surround sound formats at all, but rather systems for digital 2-channel recordings.
PCM 2-channel:This is an uncompressed 2-channel digital signal such as that used for standard CD recordings and some DVD re- cordings, particularly of older films.
HDCD®: This system uses higher bit rates a variety of enhancements to improve the sonic performance compared to standard audio CDs. These discs, labeled HDCD, can be played on standard CD players. However, when the digital signal is decoded using an HDCD decoder like that in the RSP-1098, they will provide exceptional musical reproduction.
DTS Music 5.1 Discs: These discs are a variation of audio CDs that include a DTS 5.1 channel recording. The RSP-1098 decodes these discs just like a DTS movie soundtrack when played on a CD player or DVD player with a digital output connection.
DVD-A music discs: Taking advantage of the increased storage capacity of the DVD disc, new high bit rate multichannel audio record- ings are available on DVD-A discs. DVD-A discs may include multiple versions of the record- ing including standard PCM stereo, Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS 5.1, and 96kHz/24 bit (or higher) multichannel recordings using MLP compression. Several of these formats (stan- dard PCM, Dolby Digital, and DTS 5.1 can be decoded by the RSP-1098 when the DVD player is connected with a digital cable. How- ever, the existing optical and coax digital connection standard does not provide suffi- cient bandwidth for multichannel high sampling rate MLP recordings. Therefore, DVD-A discs with these high-resolution audio soundtracks must be decoded by a the DVD player and the resulting analog signals sent to the RSP-1098’s MULTI INPUT.
SACD®: This is a proprietary high-resolution audio standard for use on SACD compatible disc players. As with high-resolution DVD-A discs, the bandwidth is too high for today’s digital connection. Thus, these discs must be decoded by SACD compatible player, with the output sent to the RPS-1098’s MULTI INPUTS.
MP3: The RSP-1098 also features a decoder for the digital MP3 (MPEG1- Audio Layer 3) compression format. MP3 format recordings are available on the Internet and can be played on portable MP3 players or some disc play- ers that can read CD-ROM discs connected to the RSP-1098’s digital inputs.
MPEG Multichannel: The RSP-1098 can decode MPEG Multichannel digital recordings. Widely used in Europe, this format uses MPEG data compression to record up to 5.1 chan- nels of discrete digital audio, similar in func- tion to the Dolby Digital and DTS formats.
Automatic Surround
Modes
Decoding of digital sources connected to the digital inputs is generally automatic, with detection triggered by a “flag” embedded in the digital recording telling the RSP-1098 what decoding format is required. For example, when Dolby Digital 5.1 or DTS 5.1 channel surround is detected, the RSP-1098 activates the proper decoding.
The unit will also detect DTS-ES Matrix 6.1 or DTS-ES Discrete 6.1 discs and activate DTS-ES®Extended Surround decoding. Dolby Digital Surround EX recordings also trigger automatic decoding (although not all Surround EX DVDs have the necessary flag and may require manu- ally activating Surround EX decoding). Like- wise, a digital input from an HDCD® encoded compact disc, a standard CD, a DTS 96/24 disc, or MP3 player will be auto-detected and properly decoded to 2CH stereo operation.
Rotel XS processing is automatically active in all systems configured with center back speaker(s) and will ensure proper extended surround decoding of all multichannel digital signals, even those that might not otherwise trigger the proper extended surround mode.
In many cases, the RSP-1098 will also recog- nize a digital signal with Dolby Surround encoding (such as the default soundtrack on many DVDs) and activate Dolby® Pro Logic II® decoding.
NOTE: A digital signal coming into the RSP-1098 will be recognized and properly decoded. However, on a DVD with multiple soundtracks, you must tell the DVD player which one to send to the RSP-1098. For ex- ample, you may need to use the DVD’s menu system to select the Dolby Digital 5.1 or DTS
5.1soundtrack rather than the default Dolby Digital 2.0 Dolby Surround soundtrack.
Additionally, you can configure a default sur- round mode for each input using the INPUT SETUP menu (see the Setup section of this manual). Combined with the auto-detection of Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS, this default sur- round setting makes operation of the RSP-1098 surround modes totally automatic. For example, if you set Dolby Pro Logic II movie mode as the default for all of your video inputs, the RSP-1098 will automatically decode Dolby Digi- tal 5.1 and DTS soundtracks when they are played and use Pro Logic II matrix decoding for all other recordings. For stereo inputs such as CD and Tuner, you could select STEREO mode as the default for 2-channel playback or Dolby Pro Logic II music mode if you pre- fer to hear music sources in surround sound.
Manually Selecting
Surround Modes
As described in the previous section, the com- bination of auto-detection of Dolby Digital and DTS recordings and setting default surround modes for each input during the setup of the RSP-1098 makes operation of surround modes totally automatic. For many users, this auto- matic surround mode selection will meet all of their listening needs.
For users who prefer a more active role in setting surround modes, buttons on the remote and the front panel provide manual selection of surround mode that are not automatically de- tected or, in some cases, to override an auto- matic setting.
