How does works the Dolby Dynamic Range Control in the menu settings?

WD Legacy Products WD TV Live Streaming
1

Good evening,

seen that I coud not find any topic on this I ask you guys to explain me how the dolby dynamic range control on the WDTV works. 

In the menu setting there are 4 options:

1 - Disabled

2 - Enabled it for all files 

3 - Enabled it ONLY for the compatible files 

4 - Maximum

What does these options do? The only one that it’s for me clear is the option No.1 but I don’t know nothing on the others…

BTW also in the WDTV manual there is no trace regarding this aspect.

Thanks in advance

2

The 3 first ones are pretty much self explanatory…

Don’t know about the last one

3

I’m sorry but I am not in accord with you, first of all there is not a list of these files and in addition there are not explanations of what exactly this features does to these files. The option “Enabled only for the supported files” could apply only the DRC as it is listed in the meta data of the audio source or could also apply another kind of dynamic range compression.

Thanks anyway for your answer.

4

This is his description from the manual:

Dolby Dynamic Range Control (DRC) Setting

Use this menu to set the dynamic range control, which reduces or increases sound
levels. This setting can be useful when, for example, you want to watch a movie
without hearing wide volume swings between loud and quiet sounds. DRC thus
enables reduced peak volume levels without loss of overall sound quality. Default
setting is On. Options are Off, Enable DRC for All Files, Enable DRC for
Compatible Files, and Max.

5

I’m kinda interested too.  What’s the difference between the DRC enabled for ALL files vs. DRC for Compatible files?

Tnx

6

Thanks for the copy and paste from the manual but as I said in the first post the part of the manual related to this feature is very poor, it does not answer to any of my questions.

7

I’ll take a stab at this. My guess is that for all files the player will try to keep volume spikes at a minimum reguardless of what audio codec was used in ur video file, wether it be DTS and so on. Now my belief would be that since this is a Dolby tech being used your results would be mixed with DTS or MP3 stereo an so on. The option would try to compensate reguardless of how well it can actually do it. Only compatible files would then be anything or possibly just some depending on the requirements in the form of Dolby Digital. Another guess is it’s mainly for 5.1 and above bc if u don’t have a full surround setup it could get quite annoying when u can’t hear dialect and you turn it up then a gun fight follows making u go deaf and scaring the **bleep** out of you.

I would also assume that Dolby has a way of knowing from the get go ur audio source and created some super algorithm for their codec specifically so that this works effectively for their own. Then all other audio codec it’s less effective and could definitely take away from your movie experience. Now to the maximum option this would obviously be for all files as maximum is going to try to normalize all audio as much as possible and make things a lot more consistent as for volume of the movie, why on earth anyone would want that is beyond me.

My opinion if u do have surround set up don’t even bother just leave this off. If you don’t then consider playing around with the option for compatible files only first and run that with some DD audio and see how u like it then u can try the one for all and see the effectiveness of this feature up against some DTS audio. And as personal opinion goes stay the **bleep** away from maximum, it would be totally deservicing the sound effect producers and the effect of music and everything audio adds to a movie.

8

Hey, thanks for the reply.  I will check this out and see whether it works for me.

Thanks!

9

I have done some tests but for my point of view there is a bug or something that is not clear enough, on the DTS audio sources seems that none of the options works (with a particular attention to “MAX” and “Enabled it for ALL files” options).

In the Dolby Digital sources seems that using the option “Enable it for supported files” something works but I would like to verify with some professional instruments the output volume with it applied and without it cause the dialog scenes seems to be unchanged instead of to be raised up a bit as per the Dynamic Range Compression theory.

Now guys you should do your own tests in order to compare them with my results/idea.

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