7.1 and 6.1 audio on 5.1 speakers

[jesse94]

Hi, I'm quite new to this website. Although my question doesn't really concern BD, it will soon enough for me. I'm planning to build my home theater set within 6-12 months and get BD player and discs. But right now, I have SD-DVD and a JVC home theater in-a-box.

My question concerns movies with 7.1 or 6.1 audio i.e. The Lord of the Rings Extended DVDs. They have DTS 6.1. My home theater decodes DTS, but it is 5.1. What will happen if I select the 6.1 sound?

Will it work? Will I lose something sound wise? What will it do?

[Driver_King]

You simply won't hear that channel.

[jesse94]

Cool, thanks.

[David Craig]

I think it depends on the receiver you have.

I believe that my Yamaha receiver blends 7 speakers worth of sound onto the 5 speakers that exist in the system. I don't think any sound is lost, rather it gets combined with the sound for other speakers.

Dig into your manual to find out.

[dobyblue]

I've never heard of a receiver doing that - it should just drop the extra channels.

You can have receivers create 7.1 from any other source (2.0, 2.1, 4.0, 5.1, etc.) but I've never heard of a receiver downmix extra discreet channels into a 5.1 mix.

[mrhonda2]

Pretty sure it will just downmix to 5.1.

[jesse94]

Originally Posted by mrhonda2

Pretty sure it will just downmix to 5.1.

That was my first thought. Sadly, I can't compare.

But what exactly are the extra channels? Side channels or background AFX?

[Driver_King]

They are background effects.