iTumes Movies Sound Track and Dolby Digital?

Oh, I should add. Dolby can create 5 channel sound from a regular 2 channel mix. It's best to have the 5 channels encoded, of course. Also, It's possible that not ALL movies are in surround.

I would think that bandwidth limited the sound to 2 channel Dolby rather than Dolby Digital. It would be nice if Apple were to include the Dolby Headphone feature on the iPod, which is a new system to sinlumate 5 channel sound out of your headphones.

As far as I can tell, it's not really 5.1. It's probably 2.1. I can get DVD Player to output 5.1 optical, but not movies played via iTunes (directly or through Front Row.) My Logitech Z-5450 speakers do a good job of simulating 5.1 (Dolby ProLogic II), but it's not actually 5.1. Bummer.

Doug

Okay I purchased "Annapolis" recently from the iTunes store thinking it would be in true surround 5.1. Recently I got a DVI to HDMI cable as well as a TOSLINK cable to get the video and audio out of my MacBook Pro onto my HDTV and stereo. When I started playing the movie from Quicktime, not iTunes, the "auto decode" function on my Sony Stereo, only picked up stereo audio. I went and checked the file, and sure enough it shows only a stereo audio file.

I feel a little mislead that the movies would have a 5.1 audio file connected to them, which they do not. Like some of you, I thought that it might be that way for just the movie I've downloaded, but after reading all the posts in this thread, it sounds like they are all that way. I've also noticed that no tech info is available for each of the movies in iTunes.

Like many of you, I doubt I'll be purchasing any more movies until they include 5.1 audio.

PS. The movie looks pretty impressive on the HDTV. One note, like many others, I would love to see better functionality with Front Row and a second monitor.

As kiwi-in-dc said, pretty much every DVD has a 2 channel track that is Dolby Surround encoded, and it isn't "simulated" surround. The extra channels are encoded into the two stereo channels. Movies have had center/surround channels encoded on their stereo tracks for decades.

Take a look at the audio menu on your DVDs sometime, they are usually listed there. And if you haven't you probably should, some movies don't default to Dolby Digital 5.1.

The more I think about it, the more I think Apple is doing exactly the right thing. They said we'd get "near DVD quality", and both video and audio seem to fulfill that. The stereo or 2.1 audio is fine, and Dolby Pro Logic II does a good job of upgrading it to pseudo-5.1. For most consumers, today, the size of a download matters, especially in terms of download speed and also in terms of disk footprint. If they're guilty of anything, it's perhaps of being imprecise, or of using terms that average consumers may not correctly understand - to many, "Dolby Surround" and "Dolby 5.1" are equivalent, though they're actually not.

Apple's target audience for downloaded movies probably isn't home theatre, it's the iPod video and the *Book owner, and good video and Dolby Surround is fine for the intended buyers.

For videophiles or audiophiles, for tech enthusiasts, for those whose home theatre cost more than my first couple of cars did, for those for whom every last bit of video quality matters, and for those for whom 5.1 versus "only" Surround matters, buying a slightly more expensive DVD or renting it for even less makes more sense than downloading a movie. For many, though, the quality is fine, the convenience is great, and a legal download in a reasonable time and with a reasonable disk footprint makes sense.

Doug

" Will movies support surround sound?

Yes. Movies include audio which is encoded using Dolby Surround which delivers multichannel audio when played using Dolby Pro Logic systems."