Mono Sound on TV Shows Released on DVD/Blu-Ray

[tomswift2002]

Recently I've been watching the 1966 Batman TV series on Blu-Ray and I've noticed that Warner Brothers, for whatever reason, put the mono sound on the discs in Dolby Digital 1.0. I realize the show was mixed in mono back in 1966, but I tend to find that I prefer when studios release TV shows or movies on Blu Ray or DVD that mono should be in a 2.0 track. I find that a 2.0 track gives the mono audio a more livelier playback. (Actually I find that the only studio that puts mono audio on Blu Ray/DVD in 1.0 is Warner Brothers.)

So what do you prefer when you are watching a TV show/movie that has mono audio? 1.0 or 2.0 Mono?

And I realize that the audio codecs used do effect the sound quality on playback. Obviously a Linear PCM 1.5Mbps 2.0 Mono sound track is going to sound better than a Dolby Digital 192kbs 2.0 Mono since it is uncompressed versus compressed.

 

[Enterprise is Great]

I can't really tell the difference between the two so mono is mono.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

I don't notice on regular TV but when everything goes to the center speaker of your sound system it isn't cool. I agree, they don't need to create artificial stereo separation but pumping mono out through 2.0 is a good way to go.

 

[tomswift2002]

I was just watching a Warner's DVD with a 1.0 DD Mono track on a older CRT stereo TV, and the TV only accepts the yellow/red/white, and I was noticing that the sound had a lot of distortion (even with the TV sound and DVD player's sound output turned way down), and seemed to have dropouts, almost like a wire was loose, although on this TV the speakers are internal. I tried a different Warner's DVD with a 1.0 track, and I still get the distortion and drop-outs. I then tried a couple of DVD's that were recorded in 2.0DD and the sound was perfectly fine; even discs with 5.1 tracks were fine. I even switched out the DVD player with another one and the 1.0 track still caused problems (I even hooked up a stereo VHS player by the RCA cables and played a couple of tapes that I knew were recorded in linear mono, not HI-Fi mono and I had no problems.) So I think 2.0 mono is probably better, since some DVD players and TV's don't seem to like, for an analog stereo output anyway, a 1.0 track.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

Can't you set your sound system to a 2.0 setting instead of a 5.1? It should put out the mono track on both main speakers then instead of the center speaker.

 

[tomswift2002]

I wasn't using a sound system. The DVD player was plugged right into the TV, and this isn't my main TV, so I just use it for background noise when I'm working in that part of the house.