Xbox Series S|X/PlayStation 5 Audio Discussion.

Negotiator117 · Oct 25, 2020

arsene_P5 said:
Dolby themselves already debunked this. Sure, Cerny wasn't lying, because on Xbox One the limitations were as he stated. But the technology isn't limiting as one could believe after listening to the deep dive. We don't know how many sources Series X|S support, but as I said Dolby debunked the statement of Cerny rather quickly.

Spatial Audio and the PS5

Do you have questions about Dolby Atmos for console and PC games? Learn more on Dolby Developer.

developer.dolby.com

Please someone correct me, but I think you pay for everything, unless it's a headset for Dolby.

Great Post getting the facts out there.

RedHeat · Oct 25, 2020

arsene_P5 said:
Dolby themselves already debunked this. Sure, Cerny wasn't lying, because on Xbox One the limitations were as he stated. But the technology isn't limiting as one could believe after listening to the deep dive. We don't know how many sources Series X|S support, but as I said Dolby debunked the statement of Cerny rather quickly.

Spatial Audio and the PS5

Do you have questions about Dolby Atmos for console and PC games? Learn more on Dolby Developer.

developer.dolby.com

Please someone correct me, but I think you pay for everything, unless it's a headset for Dolby.

So what was Sony's response to THIS?

DJ Lushious · Oct 25, 2020

Hasney said:
Hm, I might be assuming since XB1X does already support it. Gaming is a different beast entirely, because there's a special implementation called Dolby Vision Low Latency for games. With standard Dolby Vision, the display does the heavy lifting, so the console just needs to send the data. On low latency, it's handled at the console end of things, which I why I suppose there's a delay.

To be clear, Dolby Vision Low-Latency is not a gaming-specific arm of Dolby Vision's profile. It's simply a deployment that seeks to, as you said, put the processing on the end-chain device, not source device.

arsene_P5 · Oct 25, 2020

Liabe Brave said:
You're right that we haven't been told how many objects Atmos can support on Series X and S. But the simple fact they haven't told us is itself suggestive that the limits aren't going to improve radically from Xbox One. (Of course, this isn't conclusive.)

Microsoft just haven't talked about audio in their marketing. But their dedicated hardware is very powerful (iirc stronger than the Jaguar CPU) and Dolby Atmos already said 32 isn't the limit. So there is only one conclusion someone can make. More powerful chip -> more sources possible.

I could be wrong on this, but I believe they even talked about hundreds of sources in their Hot chip teardown.

RedHeat said:
So what was Sony's response to THIS?

Silents iirc. They haven't talked about it since.

Negotiator117 · Oct 25, 2020

Both will be very similar that I am sure of.

Iron Eddie · Oct 25, 2020

Negotiator117 said:
Great Post getting the facts out there.

Well yeah. It's great Sony is focusing on sound and their own solutions but this all sounds like (no pun intended) paying for licensing. Consumers should have as many options as possible. DTS is another that is a licensing issue and why some don't have it, it's not about the consumer.

RedHeat said:
So what was Sony's response to THIS?

That they have a better solution but likely don't want to pay licensing for Dolby Atmos?

gozu · Oct 25, 2020

So, is this correct? The following is for games only. Movies should be the same on both with bitstream passthrough to receiver.

For users with 2.0, 2.1, 5.1 or 7.1 Home theaters, Atmos and Tempest should offer similar levels of audio quality.

For users lucky enough to have 5.1.2, 5.1.4 or 7.1.4 Atmos-enabled surround systems, Atmos could provide better sound as it has ceiling audio and Tempest doesn't have a way to convey that to the receiver as there is no such thing as "tempest audio certified" receivers?

I have 5.1 because I rent and mounting ceiling speakers is out of the question, but otherwise I would totally get some when receivers have at least 3 HDMI 2.1 ports and don't cost $700. I bought my Denon AVR-1713 5.1 with ethernet, AirPlay and Audyssey16 for $349 in 2013. Why are receivers so ridiculously expensive now?

Finally, for devs, I imagine Atmos would be better as it can be used with virtually no extra work on PC and X4 whereas for PS5, they would have to do more work to convert things between both, though I imagine eventually, IDEs will exist that abstract all that.

ShapeGSX · Oct 25, 2020

gozu said:
So, is this correct? The following is for games only. Movies should be the same on both with bitstream passthrough to receiver.

For users with 2.0, 2.1, 5.1 or 7.1 Home theaters, Atmos and Tempest should offer similar levels of audio quality.

For users lucky enough to have 5.1.2, 5.1.4 or 7.1.4 Atmos-enabled surround systems, Atmos could provide better sound as it has ceiling audio and Tempest doesn't have a way to convey that to the receiver as there is no such thing as "tempest audio certified" receivers?

I have 5.1 because I rent and mounting ceiling speakers is out of the question, but otherwise I would totally get some when receivers have at least 3 HDMI 2.1 ports and don't cost $700. I bought my Denon AVR-1713 5.1 with ethernet, AirPlay and Audyssey16 for $349 in 2013. Why are receivers so ridiculously expensive now?

Yes that is accurate. Except you don't need to mount speakers on your ceiling to use Atmos. There are Atmos speakers that aim upwards and bounce the sound off the ceiling to your ears.

Shoeless · Oct 25, 2020

ShapeGSX said:
Yes that is accurate. Except you don't need to mount speakers on your ceiling to use Atmos. There are Atmos speakers that aim upwards and bounce the sound off the ceiling to your ears.

Yeah, this is my plan. I'm looking at a couple of .2 speakers to just sit on top of my L and R front towers. But I'll need to get a new receiver that actually DOES Atmos. I was hoping that would be the new HDMI 2.1 receivers and then do a passthrough from the PS5 to receiver to X900H, but I may wait on that with the news that they're buggy. Might just go for an older receiver and go PS5 to X900H, then eARC to the receiver. That's my current set up now, but ARCing to my old receiver so I'm back to lossy sound.

Feenix · Oct 25, 2020

Not sure if it was addressed here already and I missed it but do we know if Sony and MS are supporting usb Amp/Dac with these new units? I am new to the scene so my lingo might be a little busted. I thought I heard JeffGrub said he had no luck on Series X with usb Dac Amp.

gothi · Oct 25, 2020

gozu said:
So, is this correct? The following is for games only. Movies should be the same on both with bitstream passthrough to receiver.

For users with 2.0, 2.1, 5.1 or 7.1 Home theaters, Atmos and Tempest should offer similar levels of audio quality.

For users lucky enough to have 5.1.2, 5.1.4 or 7.1.4 Atmos-enabled surround systems, Atmos could provide better sound as it has ceiling audio and Tempest doesn't have a way to convey that to the receiver as there is no such thing as "tempest audio certified" receivers?

I have 5.1 because I rent and mounting ceiling speakers is out of the question, but otherwise I would totally get some when receivers have at least 3 HDMI 2.1 ports and don't cost $700. I bought my Denon AVR-1713 5.1 with ethernet, AirPlay and Audyssey16 for $349 in 2013. Why are receivers so ridiculously expensive now?

Finally, for devs, I imagine Atmos would be better as it can be used with virtually no extra work on PC and X4 whereas for PS5, they would have to do more work to convert things between both, though I imagine eventually, IDEs will exist that abstract all that.

I think there's some nuance to it. Sony's big push with Tempest is binaural 3D audio which will only be available on stereo headphones day 1. They want to take it to stereo speakers and eventually surround sound systems but due to it's very nature that's a huge challenge, the mic on the controller will go a long to way partially solving this for the player though (less so for everyone else in the room)

I expect PS5 games will fall back to a basic Dolby 5.1 mix when not using headphones so you're still getting a decent sound mix but PC/Xbox will be able to have 3D audio via Atmos for supported surrounded sound systems as well as 3D audio by headphones on day 1.

Darknight · Oct 25, 2020

bakedpony said:
Will PS4 games played on PS5 support the Tempest? Will this need to be patched in to make it work?

Games have to be specifically made to support Tempest. So I don't think it's guaranteed that even all PS5 games will support it.

Liabe Brave · Oct 25, 2020

DJ Lushious said:
Here's Dolby's official response to Mark Cerny, correcting him.

See my link above. I believe Dolby's official response addresses Cerny's claims and answers your second question.

I have of course read this before, and it does not do either. Mr. Cerny was clearly referring to Atmos for games, not for theaters, concerts, and event spaces. Dolby's press release purposefully ignores that context, and answers a different question they'd rather respond to. They could've easily said "Dolby Atmos supports hundreds of objects on Xbox Series X", but they didn't. They merely said it can support hundreds "as a technology". This was never at issue.

As I said previously, we don't know how many objects Atmos will support on the new Xboxes. It could well be higher. But the very fact neither Dolby nor Microsoft have announced a specific number--or even an approximation--means we also lack any evidence it supports more than 32.

arsene_P5 said:
..Dolby Atmos already said 32 isn't the limit.

For the technology, yes. But that was true this gen as well: there are Atmos installations which support greater than 32 objects, but Xbox One and Windows are nonetheless limited to 32. So the fact that there are still Atmos installations like this has no bearing on the number of objects Atmos on Xbox Series X or S can support. That's a separate decision, and we don't know.

arsene_P5 said:
I could be wrong on this, but I believe they even talked about hundreds of sources in their Hot chip teardown.

You're wrong. The top half of this slide is what they presented at Hot Chips about audio. Channels is not equivalent to positional objects.

arsene_P5 said:
Silents iirc. They haven't talked about it since.

You do not remember correctly. Sony have in fact mentioned Tempest audio since then, such as in this blog post about how to hear it. Or in this one, where developers were asked to talk about its benefits.

Darknight said:
Games have to be specifically made to support Tempest. So I don't think it's guaranteed that even all PS5 games will support it.

That's almost certainly true. Thus I wouldn't expect 3D audio support in any PS4 games, even ones patched to take graphical advantage of PS5.

2Blackcats · Oct 25, 2020

Hasney said:
Hm, I might be assuming since XB1X does already support it. Gaming is a different beast entirely, because there's a special implementation called Dolby Vision Low Latency for games. With standard Dolby Vision, the display does the heavy lifting, so the console just needs to send the data. On low latency, it's handled at the console end of things, which I why I suppose there's a delay.

Except X1X doesn't support it for Blu-ray playback. Just for apps.(unless I missed them adding it)

Cyrus365 · Oct 25, 2020

Not sure related but it looks like alot of the new A/V Receivers out there will not be able to pass through 4K/120 or 8K/60:

PS5 And Xbox Series X-Friendly AV Receivers Reportedly Hit By Major HDMI Bug

Unfortunately, though, according to German website Heisse Online, based on original reports in computer magazine c't, a bug in the HDMI implementations of all these new receivers has rendered them incapable of passing through either 4K video at 120Hz or 8K video at 60Hz from the Xbox Series X and Nvidia PC cards. Trying to do so just results in a black screen on your TV or monitor.

It's suggested that the PS5 might actually not be affected by the problem due to its use of a different HDMI implementation, but we won't know for sure until more PS5 units arrive in the hands of people who have one of the affected AVRs.

The cause of the problems, it's alleged, is a known bug in the Panasonic Solutions HDMI chips the AVRs use (Panasonic Solutions is now under the ownership of Nuvoton Technology). The bug apparently affects the way HDMI 2.1's Fixed Rate Link (FRL) feature works - and unfortunately, early investigations suggest that the problem cannot be fixed by a mere firmware update.

Click here for rest of the article

gothi · Oct 25, 2020

2Blackcats said:
Except X1X doesn't support it for Blu-ray playback. Just for apps.(unless I missed them adding it)

I was surprised by this so had a quick google, apparently you just need to turn it on in settings and make sure your blu-ray player settings are correct and it works.
Are you having issues or were you recalling something you read as we could probably troubleshoot the issue if you're experiencing it yourself.

Edit: Ignore this, thought we were talking about Dolby Atmos for a minute..

Darknight · Oct 25, 2020

gothi said:
I was surprised by this so had a quick google, apparently you just need to turn it on in settings and make sure your blu-ray player settings are correct and it works.
Are you having issues or were you recalling something you read as we could probably troubleshoot the issue if you're experiencing it yourself.

Unless something has changed, the Xbox One has never supported Dolby Vision for UHD BRs. It's only the media apps that support it. People thought it would get updated later to support UHD BRs but it never did as far as I know.

gothi · Oct 25, 2020

Darknight said:
Unless something has changed, the Xbox One has never supported Dolby Vision for UHD BRs. It's only the media apps that support it. People thought it would get updated later to support UHD BRs but it never did as far as I know.

Ahhh, forgive me, long day and we're in the audio thread so somehow went from reading Dolby Vision to Dolby Atmos.

Darknight · Oct 25, 2020

gothi said:
Ahhh, forgive me, long day and we're in the audio thread so somehow went from reading Dolby Vision to Dolby Atmos.

Ya, no worries. I had a feeling that there was probably some confusion between the two and heh ya being in an audio thread doesn't help at all to stop that confusion.

2Blackcats · Oct 25, 2020

gothi said:
I was surprised by this so had a quick google, apparently you just need to turn it on in settings and make sure your blu-ray player settings are correct and it works.
Are you having issues or were you recalling something you read as we could probably troubleshoot the issue if you're experiencing it yourself.

Edit: Ignore this, thought we were talking about Dolby Atmos for a minute..

Exact same thing happened me earlier in the thread

gozu · Oct 25, 2020

ShapeGSX said:
You don't need to mount speakers on your ceiling to use Atmos. There are Atmos speakers that aim upwards and bounce the sound off the ceiling to your ears.

True, but they feel like a half measure, and if there is one thing I've learned from TV, its:

arsene_P5 · Oct 25, 2020

Liabe Brave said:
They could've easily said "Dolby Atmos supports hundreds of objects on Xbox Series X", but they didn't.

No, they couldn't. Dolby can't announce details for Xbox, when they aren't the plattform holder.

Liabe Brave said:
You do not remember correctly. Sony have in fact mentioned Tempest audio since then, such as in this blog post about how to hear it. Or in this one, where developers were asked to talk about its benefits

He asked if Sony ever referred to the Dolby blog again, which Sony stayed radio silent on. Anyway, I'll leave it at that for now. This thread deserves better than us discussion why Microsoft said or didn't say something and what this means xD

Liabe Brave · Oct 25, 2020

arsene_P5 said:
No, they couldn't. Dolby can't announce details for Xbox, when they aren't the plattform holder.

By default they can of course discuss what their own product does, on whatever platform. The same way Crunchyroll and Plex separately announced launch availability for their streaming apps on PS5, even though Sony didn't list them in their platform announcement. I'd think Dolby would only be restricted from doing this if their partnership agreement with Microsoft specifically stipulated they couldn't mention number of audio objects. Which would be...odd.

arsene_P5 said:
He asked if Sony ever referred to the Dolby blog again, which Sony stayed radio silent on.

Ah, I missed that specific. In that case you're correct, Sony has never referred to the Dolby blog entry.

arsene_P5 said:
This thread deserves better than us discussion why Microsoft said or didn't say something and what this means xD

Actually, determining exactly what the platform holders have actually said is very useful for the thread's discussion. That's why I corrected your inaccurate recall. I do agree that my or your opinion on what these facts mean isn't the point, though, so that can be let rest.

Powerofthecloud · Oct 25, 2020

Whats the wine glass looking picture by the region picture mean?

M.Bluth · Oct 25, 2020

Powerofthecloud said:
Whats the wine glass looking picture by the region picture mean?

Fancy AF™

I guess fragile? No idea why it's not a cracked glass tho

Powerofthecloud · Oct 25, 2020

Mifune · Oct 25, 2020

One ancillary benefit of Sony's Tempest engine is that we will probably see increased 3D Audio support across the board as a result. It's a little frustrating to see so few Atmos supported titles on the Xbox One and this can only prod more third parties to support it.

arsene_P5 · Oct 25, 2020

Liabe Brave said:
The same way Crunchyroll and Plex separately announced launch availability for their streaming apps on PS5, even though Sony didn't list them in their platform announcement.

That's a stretch. Announcing a product for a console is different than doing a deep dive what a other companies product can do. Even if that's related to your product. Dolby already did what crunchyroll has done with announcing their product for a plattform.

It's hard to find something similar with a app compared to audio, but you won't see crunchyroll announcing how much CPU resources they can use from the PS5 or any other consoles. That's a grey area and imo the plattform holders decision.

Liabe Brave said:
That's why I corrected your inaccurate recall. I do agree that my or your opinion on what these facts mean isn't the point, though, so that can be let rest.

Fair enough and I was wrong in some ways. I just think you are to focused on what's being said instead of what evidence, even if that's not much, we have. Sony, Microsoft and all other companies are weird sometimes. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I guess we just have to wait on the details, if those ever get announced. I am just happy that both companies are pushing audio design. I don't know a awful lot about it, but I really appreciate good audio in games.

Liabe Brave · Oct 25, 2020

arsene_P5 said:
It's hard to find something similar with a app compared to audio, but you won't see crunchyroll announcing how much CPU resources they can use from the PS5 or any other consoles. That's a grey area and imo the plattform holders decision.

I see the distinction you're drawing, and I don't have any knowledge regarding the subtleties of technical marketing. I agree it's best to just focus on the evidence--no one has informed us how many objects Atmos will support in new Xbox games--and not speculate as to why something was said or not said.

I also concur that audio is an often overlooked component of primarily visual entertainment, and I'm glad to see both Microsoft and Sony pushing forward on the technical side.

Wollan · Oct 26, 2020

A helpful post from the PlayStation Studios thread where it is pointed out that PS3 & PS4 can bitstream Atmos content from discs:

Joystick said:
Atmos for discs can be bitstreamed and, like PS3 and PS4, will very likely be supported on PS5. Unlike Dolby Vision, Atmos doesn't need to be supported by the player. Here are Dolby's instructions on using it on PS3/4:

Enabling Dolby bitstream pass-through on Playstation | Dolby Developer

developer.dolby.com

Atmos for games is not likely to be supported. For that we have Tempest, which on paper should be an improvement over Atmos but only supported on headphones at launch, TV/soundbars soon, surround systems later.

Likely this is the same for PS5 as well, meaning you should be able to enjoy Atmos sound from films (while the gaming side is covered by Tempest).

EvilBoris · Oct 26, 2020

Hasney said:
Hm, I might be assuming since XB1X does already support it. Gaming is a different beast entirely, because there's a special implementation called Dolby Vision Low Latency for games. With standard Dolby Vision, the display does the heavy lifting, so the console just needs to send the data. On low latency, it's handled at the console end of things, which I why I suppose there's a delay.

Yeah, the "Full fat" Dolby Vision is where the frame by frame metadata is used to merge in in the additional SDR data into the HDR10 stream to allow a little more overhead for color transforms and luminance mapping.

I thnk The Low Latency one just sends the HDR10 base and tells the TV to treat it as Dolby Vision and Dolby's luminance map is applied by the TV , rather than with whatever the TV might normally use.

zombiejames · Oct 26, 2020

New info?

Deleted member 9857 · Oct 26, 2020

zombiejames said:
New info?

wow that sucks if true, I don't have a Dolby Vision 4K TV yet but my next TV likely would & I'd rather not need a standalone blu-ray player

Grugga Pug · Oct 26, 2020

I LOVED 3D World, so this is absolutely up my alley. Cannot wait, my partner and I are planning to co-op this entirely. Day one!

Deleted member 27723 · Oct 26, 2020

All is speculation mind you

zombiejames · Oct 29, 2020

Barneystuta · Oct 29, 2020

zombiejames said:

It is bizarre that this is still a thing, really disappointing.

DJ Lushious · Oct 29, 2020

zombiejames said:

LG OLEDs have a long-standing problem that passing through Dolby via ARC causes an additional delay. John is very incorrect in attributing it to the Xbox family of devices and not the true culprit. Shoot, a quick Bing search brings up plenty of articles. I don't believe the delay exists with DTS and I don't remember if it also affects eARC.

Barneystuta said:
It is bizarre that this is still a thing, really disappointing.

I find it super disappointing he would spread such misinformation.

Gorthaur · Nov 1, 2020

I don't know if this is the right thread so bear with me.

I need to buy some headphones for my new Xbox series X. I want a pair that's wireless with good support for simulated spatial sound (I think that's all software, soevery headphone will do?). I don't really care for microphone as I don't play online, so if it's there it's ok but not a requisite.

Do you have any advice? I'd like to spend 100€ max.

Deleted member 75819 · Nov 1, 2020

DJ Lushious said:
LG OLEDs have a long-standing problem that passing through Dolby via ARC causes an additional delay. John is very incorrect in attributing it to the Xbox family of devices and not the true culprit. Shoot, a quick Bing search brings up plenty of articles. I don't believe the delay exists with DTS and I don't remember if it also affects eARC.

I find it super disappointing he would spread such misinformation.

I have a C9. I'm hooked up TV -> soundbar via eARC and delay only seems to be present when using Dolby—not when using uncompressed pass-through.

DJ Lushious · Nov 1, 2020

BigEvilTurtle said:
I have a C9. I'm hooked up TV -> soundbar via eARC and delay only seems to be present when using Dolby—not when using uncompressed pass-through.

Correct, it only affects Dolby. I had mentioned that above, but it's worth repeating. And, if I remember correctly this is a long withstanding issue that gones back to the 2017 models. If not that far back, than 2018.

Zael Stormborn · Nov 5, 2020

Have we heard anything about USB dacs on PS5? I have the SoundBlasterX G6 and the DT 1990s that I'd like to use with the Tempest 3D audio.

flipswitch · Nov 5, 2020

Aren't games in PCM audio format? That's what I have selected on my PS4 instead of bitstream. Why would I want to use Dolby audio when it's compressed? ( excuse the ignorance)

Darknight · Nov 5, 2020

flipswitch said:
Aren't games in PCM audio format? That's what I have selected on my PS4 instead of bitstream. Why would I want to use Dolby audio when it's compressed? ( excuse the ignorance)

You need Dolby Atmos or DTS:X, both which can be done lossless, in order for a receiver to understand height speakers. LPCM cannot carry height speaker data.

flipswitch · Nov 5, 2020

Darknight said:
You need Dolby Atmos or DTS:X, both which can be done lossless, in order for a receiver to understand height speakers. LPCM cannot carry height speaker data.

Ok. But with PS5 is it still recommended to use PCM as it doesn't support atmos? Its 3D audio will be in it surely.

Darknight · Nov 5, 2020

flipswitch said:
Ok. But with PS5 is it still recommended to use PCM as it doesn't support atmos? Its 3D audio will be in it surely.

With PS5, the best option right now is PCM. We have no idea how 3D audio is going to work though because of the limitations of PCM and height speakers and Sony not supporting object based audio formats that audio receivers can understand. It right now is a problem for anyone who has a speaker setup that has height speakers in it. Sony's solution doesn't match up with the audio hardware that people have.

Diogo Arez · Nov 5, 2020

As someone that uses TV speakers, didn't Sony announce 3D audio would eventually be supported there too? Do we have more info on that?

Lowrys · Nov 5, 2020

Does anyone know if the PS5 can be set to output Bitstream? I know the XSX can, but I can't find out the answer for the PS5.

I need to be able to pass through bitstream 5.1 via my TV to my old AVR.

It's ridiculous this info isn't readily available.

Darknight · Nov 5, 2020

Diogo Arez said:
As someone that uses TV speakers, didn't Sony announce 3D audio would eventually be supported there too? Do we have more info on that?

They said it would come at a later date but beyond that we don't know anything about it.

Lowrys said:
Does anyone know if the PS5 can be set to output Bitstream? I know the XSX can, but I can't find out the answer for the PS5.

I need to be able to pass through bitstream 5.1 via my TV to my old AVR.

It's ridiculous this info isn't readily available.

You can.

Lowrys · Nov 5, 2020

Darknight said:
They said it would come at a later date but beyond that we don't know anything about it.

You can.

Thank you for confirming. I was a bit worried they'd only have PCM as an option for games.

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