Have a gander over to the site glossary (under info, on your left)
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Clothes shopping can be a nightmare. Remember these tips to keep you right;
*Always try on something before you buy it.
*Always keep the reciept in case you need to return something
*Do not POINT and LAUGH if YOU see MR T trying on a SPORTS BRA!
It stands for Digital Theatre Systems and it`s a rival format to Dolby. Many people maintain that it produces superior audio quality because it encodes at a higher bitrate than Dolby (typically 768Kbps as opposed to 448Kbps), but this isn`t always the case. A lot of the films with huge differences were encoded using completely different mixes of the soundtrack (Saving Private Ryan being the most famous example). That said, the best tracks I`ve heard have been DTS, but those are typically tracks encoded at the 1536Kbps bitrate. DTS tracks are often encoded at a louder volume than Dolby, so to do a fair comparison you must take that into account.
People often refer to DTS 768 as `half bitrate` and DTS 1536 as `full bitrate`, but this isn`t how DTS like to describe their technology. This is fair enough, because people generally don`t bother to make a distinction between Dolby`s 384Kbps and their 448Kbps 5.1 formats. Also note that it`s improper to use the terms `DTS mix`, because they have sod all to do with the mixing of the soundtracks (same applies to Dolby).
DTS also has a true discrete 6.1 format, called DTS ES. Dolby also has a pseudo 6.1 technology called Dolby Digital 5.1 EX, which is basically a matrixed 6.1 track. Dolby themselves refer to it as 5.1 EX because it`s not true 6.1 (unlike DTS). To make matters more confusing, DTS ES also comes in a matrixed format, but is still referred to as 6.1 regardless. They differentiate by putting Discrete or Matrix after the ES bit (occasionally).
All DVD players are capable of downmixing and letting you hear Dolby on your TV without a separate decoder, but the same is not true of DTS. Some players have built-in decoders, but those that don`t will need a separate decoder if you want to be able to hear anything.
This is all a bit rough and ready, but it covers the basics.