Short for
Digital Theater Sound - Extended
Surround. It is a
6.1
matrixed
system enabling cinemas to deliver extreme spatial effects that literally
surround the audience. A rack-mounting DTS-ES decoder creates a back surround
channel from encoded surround tracks, in typical theatre applications feeding a
back surround (BS) speaker array (configured as left-back-wall and
right-back-wall for stereo operation). The system is compatible with all current
extended surround formats and an auxiliary surround channel is also provided for
other applications. ES modes can be selected via automation inputs or via the
built in DTS timecode reader, which detects ES serial numbers for automatic
DTS-ES playback.
Star Wars: Episode I was the first of a number of films using an
additional rear channel routed to the array of speakers along the back wall of a
cinema. In the cinemas, this back channel is not a discrete channel, but is
matrixed into the left and right surround channels, much as the center front
channel was matrixed into the left and right front channels in earlier matrix
optical surround formats.
