I had a somewhat strange experience a few nights ago. I rented Amazing Grace (a solid, if somewhat hagiographic, film about William Wilberforce's efforts to get legislation banning the slave trade within the British Empire through Parliament--a nearly 30 year effort). The DD mix was awful. The rears were louder than the fronts, dialogue was coming from the surrounds instead of the centre speaker (I checked all my levels and none of my settings had been disturbed). After ten minutes of the film I was ready to abandon it. Then I engaged THX Cinema mode on my receiver. I normally use that for bombastic action/adventure/sci-fi movies, not talky period pieces, but, I figured, it can't hurt to try it. MAJOR IMPROVEMENT. The sound quality was still rather poor (in addition to what I mentioned above, the sound was muffled and generally bad) but now the surrounds were not overbearing and the dialogue was properly centred. I was able to finish the film without further issues.
I have to say I'm very impressed that THX Cinema worked this magic, though I was surprised. I thought that mode largely served to tame high intensity audio tracks, not be so active in steering sound to various channels (of course, I'm no expert on the inner secrets of DSP and post-processing). In any event, this certainly makes me more likely to seek out a THX receiver/pre-pro as an eventual replacement for my current one.
Side note: I searched for several reviews of the DVD (specifically audio) and it is universally praised in that department. I'm therefore at a loss at explaining why the audio was so bad on my rental disc (the video was quite good, FWIW). I've never encountered this kind of audio issue.
I have to say I'm very impressed that THX Cinema worked this magic, though I was surprised. I thought that mode largely served to tame high intensity audio tracks, not be so active in steering sound to various channels (of course, I'm no expert on the inner secrets of DSP and post-processing). In any event, this certainly makes me more likely to seek out a THX receiver/pre-pro as an eventual replacement for my current one.
Side note: I searched for several reviews of the DVD (specifically audio) and it is universally praised in that department. I'm therefore at a loss at explaining why the audio was so bad on my rental disc (the video was quite good, FWIW). I've never encountered this kind of audio issue.
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