DTS

Initially the investment in DTS research was funded by the famous film director Steven Spielberg and some other persons who were not satisfied with the quality of the theatrical sound formats available until then. These persons thought that the formats did not deliver optimal quality of sound in projects where it was considered to be of utmost importance. The research work on DTS started four years after the Dolby Labs had started their work on its new codec, Dolby Digital. Since only Dolby Digital and DTS are mainly used on DVDs and implemented in home theater hardware, Dolby Digital and DTS are main contenders with each other in cinema and home theater market.

It must be noted that DTS delivers better audio fidelity in theatrical presentations. This is because its CD-ROM media can afford a higher data rate. As, against this, the Dolby Digital audio is placed between the perforated holes of the film that leaves the content vulnerable to physical damage due to wear and tear of the film and also because of its mishandling. It goes to the credit of DTS developers that the CD-ROM discs rarely get damaged or degraded by the repeated screenings. Therefore the need for their replacement during the theatrical run of a movie never occurs.

The first film director to come up with the DTS format was Steven Spielberg who debuted it in his film Jurassic Park in the year 1993, around one year after the first theatrical presentation of Dolby Digital in the film ‘Batman Returns’. Moreover, the Jurassic Park was the first home video release to contain the DTS sound in laser disc in January 1997. Two years before this presentation, Dolby Digital format had been released in home video on Laser Disk for a film called ‘Clear and Present Danger’ in January1995.

In order to put the DTS in theatrical use, the audio signals are optically imaged on to the film in form of a modified time code data. This data is read by an optical LED reader from the film and transmitted to the DTS processor which uses the time code data to integrate the projected image with the sound track audio. The final audio product is recorded in a compressed format on the standard CD-ROM media at a bit rate of 1103 kilobits per second. The DTS processor also holds and reads the audio discs as it transports them.