Newbie needs help re: PC DVD & DTS

[Mpeg]

Hello, a real newbie here

I recently bought a dvd-rom and since then i've been watching dvd's on my pc.

I'm still using my monitor, my 2 comp speakers, asus dvd, windvd3.1 and an sblive5.1 soundcard.. and i'm satisfied, sortof.. I'm not that rich so projectors and such are out of the question.

Last week i stumbled across a couple of movies with dts sound (as well as dol 5.1 / dol surr 2.0) and people are telling me dts is superiour to the old (2.0) surround sound..

So i tried to play the dts-stream without any luck. I am told Windvd 4.0 supports dts.. but it's a pretty expensive program, so i have a few questions for you.

1. will dts work on home pc?
2. will it work with 2 speakers?
3. is it better than 2.0 surround?
4. worth upgrading from windvd 3.1 just to play dts-streams?

Any tips, hints and such you can give me regarding this is very much appreciated!

Help a poor noob out

[setarip]

I believe that the first thing you have to determine is whether your soundcard supports DTS. Additionally, I do not believe you can utilize DTS with a 2 speaker setup...

[Enchanter]

It does not matter whether you are using a 2.0 or DTS source if you are only using a 2 speaker setup. The software will still downmix all multi-channel sounds to 2 speakers.

From my experience, downmixed DTS sounds actually sound worse in a 2-speaker setup than 2.0.

[Mpeg]

First of all, thanks for replying.

Well, that's bad news.. i was hoping Windvd would take care of the DTS-stream.

My soundcard is SBLive 5.1 with optical out.. But i'm only using two speakers as said before.

So i should use Dolb surround 2.0 instead? Forget about DTS?

Just had a look at PowerDVD4, and there's 2 releases..
2 channel version and a 6 channel version. But both has built in "DTS Digital Surround decoder".

Enlighten me please.

[Enchanter]

So i should use Dolb surround 2.0 instead? Forget about DTS?

The best thing to do would be to listen to both formats yourself and determine which sounds better to your ears. I personally found downmixed DTS sound inferior to 2.0 for a 2-speaker setup. It may not necessarily be the same with you.

By the way, PowerDVD XP (or 4) supports DTS decoding. I suppose you will need the 6 channel version for it to support the said format.