Before HD was a gleam in anyone's eye..
my failing memory suggests to me that..
fron time to time on the TV..particularly with the BBC progs..
we had at least a form of Dolby sound..when it was most likely to be appreciated..
Tonight we had 'Over the Rainbow' which i recorded in SD and HD..
Now the sound is only ever listed as Dolby on the HD progs..
surely this is penny pinching for the same programme
as it is hard to believe that transmission of Dolby is but a miniscule amount of bandwidth..
Although.. as an aged cynic.. to up the differential for the HD reduced rate ..
it is widely accepted that 50% no less of the enjoyment of any TV experience should be the Sound..
hence surveys of reduced rates always start with a huge betterment to start with..
But why oh why cannot we have the dolby on SD?,,
especially as so many FMs have nice audio systems..
Is there any Dolby on the radio channels I wonder?

Not quite what you are asking, but the sound on Over the Rainbow is being discussed over at http://www.digitalspy.com/forums/sho....php?t=1236023

Basically it was a recorded show not live and was in DD2.0 - BBC TV Centre has limited Digital and HD capabilties - hence them desperate to sell the dinosaur off.

When the whole BBC sherbang move to their new Salford base next year things will improve.

Live shows can be broadcast in 5.1 - so look out for next week's live show.

Sky Movies have broadcast DD5.1 since 2001 on their SD channels.

Thanks for the link db.. that part of the forums has all been uncharted territory for me until now..
I now see that M &M are closing in a few days..
I will certainly look out for next weeks 'Rainbow'show..
the more so as 'Dancing on Ice' comes to an end tonight..
When i bought the hUMAX..
I upgraded the old Sony Prologic to a nice Panasonic and upgraded the Woofers so was hoping to hear the better sound on other than the HD channel ..
as I was reasonably sure that decades ago the Sony pumped forth from time to time..??
I have been reading a lot and it seems strange that only the 'Definition/Bitrate'.. is ever mentioned/moaned about..
Some cameras have umpteen megpixels and a bottletop lens..
so why never a comment about depth of colour ...Sound..Viewing distance etc ?? or are all the other parameters of HD..
{Not yet easily found by me] easily met by all manufacturers

You need to remember that you can't just have an AC3 track you also need to keep the standard PCM stereo track as anyone without the benefit of a dd decoder won't get any sound, so the extra bitrate is added to the existing one. There's no reason why the pcm track can't have prologic surround though. Of the free to air HD sat channels only Luxe HD and BBC HD use DD 5.1 and much of the BBC HD output like ITV 1 HD is stereo only (DD2.0)

An interesting question and one I certainly can't seem to find a quick answer to.
Since Dolby Surround/Pro Logic (and DTS Neo 6) utilised in-audible artefacts in the audio stream and we are now using compression schemes that are designed to achieve a higher compression ratio by eliminating in-audible components, have we now lost the capability to transmit sound with Dolby Surround/Pro-Logic or DTS Neo 6?

Many stereo transmissions have prologic surround sound information. No one transmits DTS it uses too much bandwidth.

Analogue or Digital? Do you know any examples of DTT/DSat TV/Radio programmes that use it? My AV receiver will do Pro-logic but I never normally bother using the AV receiver for general (i.e. non-BBC HD) TV watching I might give it a try if I knew there was Surround sound available.

They don't normally tell you, about the only way is to try it. Analogue channels actually have better sound than the digital ones (Nicam sound is less compressed than the MP2 sound used by SD channels). Dolby Digital as used by the HD channels has a wider dynamic range than so it's worth using an AV amp even if it's only DD2.0 thats being used.

My lifelong hobby has been Astronomy and within that interest sound as such has no part to play.
Hence your inputs and others..have been
very useful to me too Graham..
as i struggle to update myself from the 'Nepers' which were my bread and butter for so long
We still have the excellent output of the 5 basic channels for several years yet ..
and the video is comparable in every way with the digital ones..
They are part of the Hitachi anyway so very easy to watch..
but recording and timers is a bit of a pig.
I was hesitant about mentioning the analogue sound in case i was seen as a Luddite...
Surely the fact that so few people are aware.. or even care about.. the totality of the sound aspect..
would make a visitor from Mars think in all Logic ..
that the World's Entertainment Experts 'THX' are an ill-informed bunch.. if not liars when they preach..
"Sound is 50% of any viewing experience".
I do note however a good sprinkling of audio equipment listed by FMs..
Why is the 'Gospel of Sound' so hard to propogate relative to the 'Gospel of Pixels'..let alone 'Colour Depth' I wonder