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What is Sorround Sound

True surround sound formats rely on dedicated speakers that literally and physically surround the audience.  There is one center speaker which carries most of the dialog (since the actors usually speak while making their on-screen appearance), and part of the soundtrack.  There are left and right front speakers that carry most of the soundtrack (music and sound effects). There is a pair of surround sound speakers that is placed to the side (and slightly above) of the audience to provide the surround sound and ambient effects.  Finally, a subwoofer can be used to reproduce the low and very low frequency effects (LFE) that come with certain movies (e.g., the foot-stomping bass effects in "Jurassic Park" and "Godzilla").
Dolby Digital™.

Dolby Digital is the de facto surround sound standard in today's home theaters.  It is the surround sound format used in thousands of movie theaters today.  And, since about the mid-1990's, it has become available for home theater use by consumers.  Today, a large percentage of the DVD-Video titles come with Dolby Digital surround sound.  Not only is Dolby Digital the standard for DVD-Video, but it is also part of the new High Definition TV (HDTV) standard.  It is used in pay-per-view movies and digital TV channels of digital satellite broadcasting (DIRECTV & Dish Network).  Dolby Digital is the successor to Dolby Surround Pro-Logic. The Dolby Digital surround sound format provides up to five discrete (independent) channels (center, left, right, surround left, surround right; giving it the "5" designation). The low frequency effects channel (subwoofer) gives Dolby Digital the ".1" designation.  When you hear the following terms mentioned they represent the following:

5.1 Surround Sound – 5 speakers (left front, right front, center channel, right rear and left rear) and 1 subwoofer.
7.1 Surround Sound – 7 speakers and 1 subwoofer  (left front, right front, center channel, left side, right side, right rear and left rear) and 1 subwoofer.
5.2 or 7.2 Surround Sound – same as above but with 2 subwoofers (left and right)

DTS Digital Surround™

An alternative and competing format to Dolby Digital is DTS Digital Surround or just "DTS". Like Dolby Digital, DTS is another 5.1-channel surround sound format that is available in movie theaters, and as an optional soundtrack on some DVD-Video movies for home theater viewing.  But unlike Dolby Digital, DTS is not a standard soundtrack format for DVD-Video, and is not used by HDTV or digital satellite broadcasting.
The primary advantage of DTS is that it offers higher data rates than Dolby Digital, leading many home theater enthusiasts to claim that DTS is better than Dolby Digital in sound quality.  The down side is that a DTS soundtrack uses more of the disc's data capacity due to its higher data rate.  This fact plus the fact that DTS is not a standard soundtrack format for DVD-Video makes DTS an optional 5.1-channel surround format that is actually available on few DVD-Video movies.  There are far more DVD-Video titles with Dolby Digital soundtracks than there are those with the DTS surround sound format. 

Extended Surround formats:

 Dolby Digital EX™, THX Surround EX™ & DTS Extended Surround™ (DTS-ES™)

Just when you thought 5.1-channel Dolby Digital and DTS surround sound were enough, at the leading edge today are two new "Extended Surround" formats, namely THX Surround EX™ and DTS Extended Surround ™ (or DTS-ES™ for short).
The THX Surround EX format is jointly developed by Lucasfilm THX and Dolby Laboratories, and is the home theater version of "Dolby Digital Surround EX™", an Extended Surround sound format used by state-of-the-art movie theaters.  Lucasfilm THX licenses the THX Surround EX format for use in receivers and preamplifiers.  And as of November 2001, Dolby Laboratories has begun to license what is THX Surround EX under its own name, Dolby Digital EX ™, for consumer home theater equipment.