Dolby Digital has become the standard for audio most DBS systems. Essentially Dolby digital means the audio of your programming is encoded both for maximum clarity, but its real advantage is its 5.1 channels. Think of it this way. When you are watching television sound only emits from one speaker. With Dolby digital you can have up to five simultaneous audio tracks. These five separate tracks can give the effect that there are five distinct audio events happening at the same time.