DTS (sound system)

DTS is a series of multichannel audio technologies owned by DTS, Inc. (, formerly known as Digital Theater Systems, Inc.), a company specializing in digital surround sound formats used for both commercial/theatrical and consumer grade applications. It was known as The Digital Experience until 1995.

History

Work on the format started in 1991, four years after Dolby Labs started work on its new codec, Dolby Digital. The basic and most common version of the format is a 5.1-channel system, similar to a Dolby Digital setup, which encodes the audio as five primary (full-range) channels plus a special LFE (low-frequency effects) channel for the subwoofer.

Note, however, that encoders and decoders support numerous channel combinations, and stereo, four-channel, and four-channel+LFE soundtracks have been released commercially on DVD, CD, and Laserdisc.

Other, newer DTS variants are also currently available, including versions that support up to seven primary audio channels plus one LFE channel (DTS-ES). These variants are generally based on DTS's core-and-extension philosophy, in which a core DTS data stream is augmented with an extension stream which includes the additional data necessary for the new variant in use. The core stream can be decoded by any DTS decoder, even if it does not understand the new variant. A decoder which does understand the new variant decodes the core stream, and then modifies it according to the instructions contained in the extension stream. This...
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