DTS

Type of format	Lossy audio format
First published	1992
Developed by	DTS, Inc.
Compression Type	CBR
Bitrate	1.524 Mbit/s (190.5 KB memory)
Channels	5.1
Bits	16, 20, 24
Sample	48 kHz
Filename extension	.dts
Open Format?	No
Free Format?	No
Magic Number	7F FE 80 01 FC 3C

  DTS (or DTS Digital Surround) is a lossy audio codec developed by Digital Theater Systems, Inc. in 1991. This codec is based on the adaptive differential pulse-code modulation (ADPCM) audio data compression algorithm. It uses linear prediction and adaptive quantization. It is natively coded in big-endian byte order. One of the main advantages of DTS is that it provides high-quality audio while taking up less space than PCM. As a result, DTS has become one of the most widely used audio codecs for Blu-ray Disc titles, including both movies and music. Its popularity can be attributed to the fact that it delivers high-quality audio without taking up too much storage space, making it an ideal choice for developers who want to deploy high-quality audio without sacrificing storage capacity. It can go up to 5.1 channels and has a max bitrate of 1.524 Mbit/s (190.5 KB memory).

DTS Master Audio is an optional extension rather than an entirely new coding mechanism; it encodes an audio master in lossy DTS first, then stores a concurrent stream of supplementary data representing whatever the DTS encoder discarded. If you don't have a BD player that plays DTS-HD MA, it will only play the core lossy DTS instead. DTS:X is another extension that allows the "location" (direction from the listener) of "objects" (audio tracks) to be specified as polar coordinates. It is under the .dts extension name. For a core substream, the sync word is 0x7ffe8001. For the extension substream, the sync word is 0x02b9261.

Links

• DTS Digital Surround White Paper - 1999: http://www.mp3-tech.org/programmer/docs/dts_whitepaper.pdf

Author(s) : Æ Firestone - Last Updated: 9/3/2026