[Chris Auld]

Last night I watched T2: Extreme Edition. It was late so I disabled my speakers, plugged in headphones, and enabled the Dolby Headphone audio track. The movie started and immediately I was mildly annoyed to find that my 5.1 setup was still active and probably waking the neighbours.

So I took the headphones off to go muck with the receiver to find that, in fact, it was only the headphones on! I was completely amazed at the Dolby Headphone track.

My question is this: this movie is rare in that it includes a DH track. If I buy either a receiver or headphone setup with built-in DH decoding, will the quality be comparable? How about the DH processing from software such as PowerDVD?

 

[filper]

Which headphones do you have ?

 

[Chris Auld]

I have a set of modest Sony headphones (Dolby Headphone is two-channel).

 

[Chris Auld]

Update:

I downloaded the trial version of PowerDVD 6.0, which includes Dolby Headphone decoding.

I put on the T2:EE DVD and switched back and forth between the DH track on the DVD and the DD5.1 track decoded using PowerDVD's Dolby Headphone algorithm.

I found the DH track on the DVD to be more spacious and convincing than the DD5.1 track decoded in realtime using PowerDVD. But the difference was rather small and the PowerDVD DH decoding was quite impressive. I am going to buy this software for both late-night listening on my home rig and for use on my laptop.

 

[filper]

I give T2 a blast tonight on the cans with Dheadphone...

 

[e268]

There are three setting is DH software (at least in winDVD that I know of). You can set it to a small, medium or large room size. I find the medium is best.

As for music, MusicMatch used to have a plugin call Lake Technology (who is the real owner of DH technology), but you have to rally search in difficult places in MusicMatch and download it for trial. The price to purchase used to be about $13.00 US.

I really like this technolgy in that music do not just blast into you ear and head, gives the feeling of "presence". Too bad I cannot have it on my portable jukebox.

 

[JesseJ]

I know Pearl Harbor also has a DH track. It was the first DVD to feature a DH track. It's also on the Vista Series Director's Cut.


Pearl Harbor DVD: an example of a pre-encoded Dolby Headphone soundtrack

The first DVD-Video title to feature a pre-encoded Dolby Headphone soundtrack is Pearl Harbor, first released to DVD on December 4, 2001. (Click here to read our full review of the Pearl Harbor: 60th Anniversary Commemorative Edition DVD. Pearl Harbor is available in three versions. Read about them here.)
On June 3, 2003, Artisan Home Entertainment will release T2: Extreme DVD, the second DVD-Video title to feature a pre-encoded Dolby Headphone soundtrack.

 

[filper]

That is kinda cool how spacious the sound seems...