DTS Bus Tour Comes To End
Staff -- TWICE, 3/12/2001
AGOURA HILLS, CALIF. -DTS Entertainment wound up a month-long 18-city bus tour to promote awareness among consumers and retailers of its catalog of 5.1-channel music CDs and its first DVD-Audio discs.
The DVD-Audio discs feature a backup DTS-encoded program playable on existing DVD-Video players.
The bus, which ended its tour at the NARM convention in Orlando, Fla., featured a Pioneer DVD player and plasma monitor and a JBL 5.1-channel audio system.
The bus hit cities in Arizona, California, Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas and Washington. Retailers visited included Amazon.com, Best Buy, Borders, Fred Meyer, J & R Music World, Musicland, Target, Tower Records, Virgin Records and The Wiz. Some of the retail stops were promoted as consumer events.
To date, 115 DTS-encoded 5.1 Music Discs, formerly called 5.1 Compact Discs, are available and playable on CD and DVD players with digital outputs. The designation was changed primarily to avoid confusion among consumers who might try to play the discs on boomboxes, portables and home audio systems limited to two-channel playback, the company said.
DTS noted that three of its music discs are 6.1-channel discs featuring the DTS Extended Surround (ES) format, also playable on digital-output-equipped CD and DVD players.
The company also said that its first four DVD-Audio discs will be available in March and April and will feature a backup DTS 5.1 program and Dolby Digital 2.0 program for compatibility with existing DVD-Video players. The 5.1 Entertainment label has released 10 of its 36 DVD-Audio discs with backup DTS 5.1 and Dolby Digital 5.1 programs.
