Watched Harmageddon tonight and realized it has Dolby Surround. This is the first disc that I've noticed it on. My collection is almost completely US released anime and I was checking if anybody knew of other better-than-stereo US anime discs. I figured some of my Pioneer discs would have it, but a quick scan through only revealed one Tenchi in love. Know of any others?

Project A-Ko, for one. The Kishin Corps discs are, on the Japanese (analog) tracks anyway, as are Ghost in the Shell & Wings of Honneamise ; no surprise that those discs aren't so labeled, as Manga's packaging never even admitted that there was a Japanese soundtrack. The Armitage III movie, which was released in English in Japan, has AC-3 5.1, with Dolby Stereo Surround of course on the PCM track. Sometimes the best way to find out is to check the listings for the Japanese disc, since labeling for American releases is rarely consistent.

There's also Heroic Legend of Arislan: Part 1, but the actual jacket says nothing of the sort

The Venus Wars is marked as Dolby Surround on the Japanese edition — the CPM packaging doesn't even note that it's in stereo.

Criterion's Akira releases are in Dolby Surround.

Disney's release of Miyazaki's Kiki's Delivery Service has an AC-3 track, but only for the English Dubbed soundtrack. The Japanese track is on the other analog track in mono.

That does make me wonder, are the Japanese LDs of Cowboy Bebop in Dolby Surround even though they are marked as Stereo?

I only ask because the original DVD releases of Cowboy Bebop in the US were obviously recorded from Laserdisc (complete with cross color artifacts!) but the sound mix is Dolby Surround.

Probably from the 1" C-Format or D2 master tapes used to make the LDs, but same difference. There's nothing on the packaging to indicate Dolby Surround or any of its equivalents, but I could check the credits.

Yay! Project A-ko is on the list (one of my favorites). Heroic Legend of Arislan Part 2 comes up as Dolby Digital Surround in my receiver (don't have vol 1 to check).

So, what prompted this was that I finally hooked up some rear speakers to my receiver, so I switched the sound mode from stereo to surround. Now, the surround mode has been appearing when I use my laserdisc player. Watching Gunsmith Cats Vol 1 and I'm hearing some explosions coming from the satellite speakers. Perhaps there are many US released anime discs with uncredited surround sound.

I was under the impression that Dolby Pro Logic had to be implemented manually. Can receiver's detect whether a track was encoded in Dolby Surround or not?

I was thinking that, too.

There are two things which we would do well not to confuse. First is "actual" Dolby Surround or its equivalent, ie, two-channel audio (L'R') generated from an original four-channel (LCRS) mix with the intention of separating them again on reproduction. Second is a genuine two-channel original mix created with good stereo separation, ie, big differences (in some scenes, obviously, not all the time) between L & R information. This latter will direct part of its content to the center & part to the rear speakers when run through a Dolby Surround (or similar) decoder.

so is that a no on the detection thing?