Xbox One getting Dolby Digital support in March
The Xbox One's March update is set to include a feature that couldn't make it in time for the console's launch: Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound.
Microsoft wasn't able to include Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound support on Xbox One at launch, mostly due to time constraints. A little over three months after the console's launch, the publisher is now ready to launch the feature, alongside an upcoming system update expected to deploy in March.
According to Polygon, the system update will allow Xbox One consoles to output Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound through the use of an optical audio cable via bitstream. This audio support should also make third-party surround sound headsets compatible with the console, as well.
The March update is also slated to include updated party and friend features. The update is expected to arrive just before the release of Titanfall.
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Ozzie Mejia posted a new article, Xbox One getting Dolby Digital support in March.
The Xbox One's March update is set to include a feature that couldn't make it in time for the console's launch: Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound.-
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Something is not exactly accurate about this news story. I am 100% sure I was listening to Forza 5 in Dolby DIgital 5.1. Sound was definitely coming out of the surround speakers. I am using an HDMI cable to carry both the picture and HDMI audio directly to my receiver. Maybe what is new is the bitstream option over optical?
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Chances are, you were getting surround via uncompressed PCM, which is better than Dolby Digital. Dolby Digital (and DTS) is required for transferring surround sound over SPDIF (digital optical or coax) because SPDIF doesn't have the bandwidth to send uncompressed surround sound. With Dolby enabled, the audio is compressed (like MP3) and can then be transferred to a receiver to be decoded. HDMI has enough bandwidth capability to transfer uncompressed surround sound (LPCM) so Dolby or DTS aren't really necessary with HDMI.
Video games can make their own surround sound environment, you don't need Dolby for that. Dolby is just an audio compression format. Dolby True-HD and DTS-MA are newer, lossless formats but are still not necessary. That's just used for encoding movie audio.
P.S. The 360 didn't support PCM over HDMI for some reason. The PS3 did.
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