Backfoggen
Banned
Yes, it supports up to 7.1 LPCM over HDMI
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Wii U - Surround Sound Guide and FAQ
- Thread starter CLEEK
- Start date
Yes, it supports up to 7.1 LPCM over HDMI
Most monitors for computers expect a color range that is different from what televisions use. In the 360/PS3 there are options to output in either limited or full RGB. Full is the color range that monitors expect to be incoming. If a monitor is not receiving the correct range blacks will be rendered as gray. Unless your monitor can support limited you're going to have a very, very washed out and dull image. The Wii U does not have this option and only outputs in the limited range that televisions, not monitors, expect.
It's the difference between this:
and this:
Here's a good video demoing Mass Effect 2 on the PS3 under both settings. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mqh45N9BYeU
Something like this should be able to be fixed via a patch. It's just when or if Nintendo will ever get around to patching it in.
I wouldn't hold my breath. Nintendo removed mp3! support from Wii after all, if they had any intention of supporting it, it would have been in already.
UltimateIke
Member
We've talked about that here. Some HDMI receivers (usually older ones) are only compatible with 2.0 LPCM.
Yeah, I remember it now
I know this is kind of a video question, so forgive me, but it's at least tangentially related and I figure I'll get a good answer since you all seem very knowledgeable:
I have an Onkyo ONTXSR605S TX-SR605S Home Theater Receiver (Silver) that I ordered back in '08. It's been an awesome receiver and it has two HDMI inputs, and I think it will support surround sound from the WiiU, but my problem is that it doesn't support 1080P and I have a 1080P TV set, so my question is essentially this:
Would I notice a huge difference passing HDMI through the receiver and displaying in 720p instead of 1080p since the games are all being natively rendered around 720p anyways? I feel like any small IQ sacrifice would be worth the gains in sound, right? As of right now I'm going HDMI straight to the TV and then Optic to the receiver and I understand I'm only getting stereo sound at this point.
I have an Onkyo ONTXSR605S TX-SR605S Home Theater Receiver (Silver) that I ordered back in '08. It's been an awesome receiver and it has two HDMI inputs, and I think it will support surround sound from the WiiU, but my problem is that it doesn't support 1080P and I have a 1080P TV set, so my question is essentially this:
Would I notice a huge difference passing HDMI through the receiver and displaying in 720p instead of 1080p since the games are all being natively rendered around 720p anyways? I feel like any small IQ sacrifice would be worth the gains in sound, right? As of right now I'm going HDMI straight to the TV and then Optic to the receiver and I understand I'm only getting stereo sound at this point.
3rdDimension
Member
I just got this home theater reciever yesterday. I'm hooking my Wii U up to it and will adjust the calibrations.
http://www.crutchfield.com/p_580TXN616/Onkyo-TX-NR616.html?tp=179
3rdDimension
Member
Even though games have native 720p, the console is upscaling the visuals to 1080p. So in terms of difference, the visuals will appear a bit sharper when viewing at 1080p. To the majority though, the difference is very minute.
Unless you know what to look for, you may hardly see a difference.
So how are headphone users using the wiiu? I'm guessing most, at least me anyway, are using a headphone amp that powers the headphones. These usually don't have an hdmi input. Even the most popular ones like the astro mixamp don't support hdmi and the best you can do is optical.
I'll clarify this in the OP.
FAQ
I have an AV Receiver with an HDMI input. I'm guaranteed to get surround, huh?
Maybe. As well as needing an HDMI input on the back of your AVR, it must support LPCM 5.1. Some older HDMI receivers only support LPCM 2.0. Check your AVR user manual to confirm it supports six (or more) channel LPCM.
UltimateIke
Member
You might want to even add that some HDMI receivers don't process audio at all!
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=501682
I looked it up after reading that thread, and sure enough, goldenpp72's Yamaha RX-v363 has HDMI ports, but requires another input (such as optical) for audio.
Done.
I have an AV Receiver with an HDMI input. I'm guaranteed to get surround, huh?
Maybe. As well as needing an HDMI input on the back of your AVR, it must support LPCM 5.1. Some older HDMI receivers only support LPCM 2.0. And some AVRs only do HDMI pass-though, which is video only. Check your AVR user manual to confirm it supports six (or more) channel LPCM via HDMI.
UltimateIke
Member
Nice! You're doing a great job keeping the thread up-to-date!
I just noticed that, in the old "no optical" thread, EatChildren put one of my posts in the OP. Haha, I feel special now!
I just noticed that, in the old "no optical" thread, EatChildren put one of my posts in the OP. Haha, I feel special now!
UltimateIke
Member
It all depends on what has the better scaler; The Wii U, or your TV.
In all likelihood, unless your TV is rubbish at scaling from 720p>1080p, you wouldn't notice which looks better when in-game.
I tried the same thing with my 360, as some games (usually Capcom ones) get slowdown when you set the 360 to upscale to 1080p. Just swapping between the console doing the upscaling from 720p, or the TV, in the end I realised there was no discernible difference when playing games.
The only difference will be if/when WiiU games start running at native 1080p. You will lose out playing games at their full resolution if you force the WiiU to run at 720p.
ZedIndyLil
Member
Dumb question--is the start screen ambient audio in 5.1? I'm using an Onkyo which seems to support multichannel PCM and I'm trying to find some surround audio to confirm. So far I hear nothing from the rear speakers.
UltimateIke
Member
The surround sound test in the options menu is probably the best test. You should hear the rear speakers there.
ZedIndyLil
Member
Duh, of course, thanks. And of course I had forgotten I already tested this thing upon first setup with no problems. Nintendo is just messing with my head by not actually providing any 5.1 audio with the OS or the games I own :
Teletraan1
Banned
Downloaded movies from those services should be able to pass through a compressed audio stream through HDMI such as DD5.1 or DTS so they shouldn't have to have LPCM. The issue with games and DD5.1/DTS is that the machine needs to be able to do this compression on the fly and requires licenses to be able to do this compression. I am not sure a license is necessary to simply pass this information through an HDMI cable without the WiiU doing anything to process it but I could be wrong.
Teletraan1
Banned
It is why I haven't upgraded other than costs. The original HDMI receivers on the market just passed the video through. Some of them only supported 720p or 1080i video pass through. Then some of them would pass through 1080p but only LPCM 2.0. Then when 3D came out some receivers couldn't pass through the 3D information properly. I think the fact that this HDMI "standard" has incremented 1.0 to 1.4 has been pretty shitty for consumers. That is why I don't really care for the Join the 21st century and buy a modern AV Receiver (sorry) remark.
SkyMasterson
Member
So I've been out of the game for awhile in terms of receivers and what I need and what's what.
So if I want a receiver where I can plug in my 360/PS3/WiiU and cable box and have the receiver output the video through an hdmi, what am I looking for exactly?
Will this receiver be fine for that? http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007JF8FD8
or should I go with one that upscales, which I'm assuming just upscales analog video(like if I hooked up my SNES) through hdmi?
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007JF85WE
I'd appreciate any insight/advice, thanks!
Edit: and I'm assuming both support LPCM 5.1?
2nd Edit: Yamaha isn't my first choice or anything. I've been looking at receivers on and off the last month(as my 11 year old Sony crapped out on me) and it's just confusing.
Some have features that I want but have poor reviews in terms of sound and the receivers with good sound reviews are missing features I want, unless of course you spend over $500 on one, which I'd prefer not to do.
I'd love for a recommendation haha.
So if I want a receiver where I can plug in my 360/PS3/WiiU and cable box and have the receiver output the video through an hdmi, what am I looking for exactly?
Will this receiver be fine for that? http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007JF8FD8
or should I go with one that upscales, which I'm assuming just upscales analog video(like if I hooked up my SNES) through hdmi?
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007JF85WE
I'd appreciate any insight/advice, thanks!
Edit: and I'm assuming both support LPCM 5.1?
2nd Edit: Yamaha isn't my first choice or anything. I've been looking at receivers on and off the last month(as my 11 year old Sony crapped out on me) and it's just confusing.
Some have features that I want but have poor reviews in terms of sound and the receivers with good sound reviews are missing features I want, unless of course you spend over $500 on one, which I'd prefer not to do.
I'd love for a recommendation haha.
The Xtortionist
Member
Feeding optical from my TV to my Mixamp with the Wii U set to stereo. I think it's the best I can do right now.
MarkMclovin
Member
My surround sound system only has an optical input, no HDMI input, so I'm fucked.
Cheers Nintendo :/
Cheers Nintendo :/
Connected my wiiU dirct to my TV as all my receiver inputs are full of more deserving surround choices. I have an ARC (audio return channel) compatible TV and receiver so I can pipe audio back down the HDMI to the receiver - but unfortunately it only seems to support stereo PCM. When I do the surround test I only get a couple of notes through. Need to check later to make sure it's working ok, and to see if I can at least force PLII on it. In that case I might set the wiiU to stereo and the amped to surround (depending how good the surround effects are with headphones)
I guess I won't get proper PLII with stereo mode as Nintendo won't encode that, but the receiver might do an ok job.
I guess I won't get proper PLII with stereo mode as Nintendo won't encode that, but the receiver might do an ok job.
That 373 is a great choice. It'll support LPCM no problem, and if your TV supports HDMI control (CEC) you can switch the receiver on and control the volume etc using the TV remote. And with ARC, you can feed audio from your TV back down the HDMI to the receiver - eg for OTA TV or if you have a satellite/cable box you want to connect direct to the TV. Both those last two items will need your TV to also support the feature.
The only negative I can think of, is that it doesn't support HDMI pass through when in standby - you need the 473 or above for that. So you can't watch or listen to anything connected to the receiver unless the receiver is on. Might not matter to you, but in our house the kids often play the PS3 just on the TV sound, so I needed it to work even when the receiver was off. I have a Yamaha 767 and like it a lot. Also lets you switch inputs while in standby
Sanctuary
Member
I'm just using the optical out and Dolby Headphone through my Pioneer box. The channel seperation is complete ass (directional cues are so off half of the time it's not even funny), but it's better than plain old stereo. If you can use stereo speakers, you may as well. If you're limited to using headphones later at night, there are recievers that have Dolby Headphone with them, but they are a bit pricey. There's also a pair of wireless Sony headphones that are supposed to emulate 7.1 that has four HDMI inputs, although some are reporting they don't do surround anywhere near as well as Dolby Headphone. They are lossless though, which is a first.
Dunkelgrau
Member
The Wii U has launched today in germany. The setup I mentoined in the quote works well for me. I receive 5.1-Sound! Everything went better than expected.]blacky[;44623542 said:
Dunkelgrau
Member
Thats correct. But that works fine for me.
Dunkelgrau
Member
You should not forget: The gamepad makes sound, too. Which is a really cool effect! With this in mind, nobody should really care (or even hear!), if it is "real" 5.1 or "pseudo" 5.1. The lack of an optical output is anoying, but I think a lot of Nintendo-Bashing has to do with this case, too.
]blacky[;44916495 said:
I... What? This is so astoundingly silly that I'm not even sure how to respond to this. So, because the controller outputs stereo sound no one should care that the Wii U's audio output capabilities are severely crippled in regards to surround sound? This is a doubly weird statement as the pad doesn't mirror the audio output of the system all the time. Games like batman, for example, don't do that. If you're suggesting to use the pad's output for audio rather than the console, yeah that's a great idea. Let's tether the player to a bizarre location in which they need to plug the device with extremely limited battery life into the wall socket followed by then running a long 3.5mm cable out from it into their receiver just to receiver basic stereo audio that won't work with many games. Brilliant solution. That doesn't completely defeat the purpose of a wireless controller and certainly doesn't provide a negative consumer experience.
Just because you don't care, and can't tell the difference doesn't mean it doesn't matter. There are lots of other consumers with very expensive audio equipment who actually do care. Keep in mind that because of this decision every media app on the Wii U is incapable of outputting anything more than stereo. It legitimately negatively effects the system and what it's capable of as a media device.
Palette Swap
Member
Broadcasting a stereo signal over 2 pairs of speakers is not surround sound, it's multi-room, which serves another purpose.]blacky[;44916495 said:
And cut the shit with the persecution complex.
SkyMasterson
Member
Ah, thank you so much! I really appreciate the response!
What?
Actual DPLII surround sound is not the same as somewhat "guessed" surround sound based on a non-DPLII stereo signal.
Just boot up Star Wars Rogue Squadron for Gamecube. The game uses actual DPLII sound. A Tie Fighter, coming from behind you, will have a sound effect coming from behind you. You won't get such thing with a "guessed" surround sound. So it's not similar. Not even quite. Because it's not possible for any receiver in the world to guess what's supposed to be on which channel, when it gets an actual plain stereo signal (not DPLII encoded).
Marty Chinn
Member
DPLII isn't true surround sound though either. It's an approximation.
Frankfurter
Member
So I get my sound via optical from the TV to the receiver, which atleast is working just fine. Am I getting stereo or sth. atleast a bit better? My receiver is showing PCM48khz and Pro Logic (it doesn't support DPL II).
Dunkelgrau
Member
]blacky[;44623542 said:
When you play with my setup (which works fine) you must not choose the option “surround” in the Wii U system menu. If you do so, you will miss some really important sounds, like the hit-feedback in ZombiU. Just choose “stereo” in the Wii U system menu and choose 5.1 in your receiver. Than everything will be fine.
@Frankfurter:
Are you from germany, too? Just drop your Nintendo-ID here and I will add you.
Such a “pseudo”-surround is better than you think. I am quite happy with that solution. But I understand, if others don’t. Nintendo has not done a good job in that case.
What about in Wii Mode? Does DPII still work?
Only on a per-game basis.
I'm replaying some of my Wii library on the U, and this is just really REALLY dumb. The majority of top tier games with DPLII sound a bit worse on the U, but look a bit better.
Sigh.
Only on a per-game basis.
I'm replaying some of my Wii library on the U, and this is just really REALLY dumb. The majority of top tier games with DPLII sound a bit worse on the U, but look a bit better.
Sigh.
Backfoggen
Banned
So do many of the games actually use uncompressed/lossless audio files?
Edit:
It's not an approximation, it's the channels encoded in stereo format, obviously at the cost of a quality loss.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYfqaWSZiuk
Play this through a receiver and you'll hear all of the channels completely separated just like they should be.
Edit:
It's not an approximation, it's the channels encoded in stereo format, obviously at the cost of a quality loss.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYfqaWSZiuk
Play this through a receiver and you'll hear all of the channels completely separated just like they should be.
Marty Chinn
Member
Unless you're using discrete channels, I don't consider it to be true surround sound since it's using matrix algorithms to pull apart the data to try to go to the right speaker. That's an approximation and one of the issues with pro logic 2 is accuracy and echos.
My Wii U is hooked up via HMDI to a Sony STR-DH520 receiver which supports 7.1 LPCM. So far I haven't run into any issues (I only have Nintendoland and Mario Bros.) but the surround test in the system menu is acting weirdly, in that it doesn't use my center speaker; the chimes go FL, FR, BR, BL and then all four at once. Does anyone know what causes this, or what the order is supposed to be? And is there any way to test the center speaker in the menu or the games I own?
*edit: Well I just started the FIFA 13 demo and got the announcer from the center speaker so everything's working correctly. I guess Nintendo just botched the test thingy.
*edit: Well I just started the FIFA 13 demo and got the announcer from the center speaker so everything's working correctly. I guess Nintendo just botched the test thingy.
So, now that I'm a Wii U owner, the most noticeable thing about its audio is that the sound in NSMBU is really weak and lacks bass. The lack of it using my sub is very apparent.
Compared with NSMBW, there were little bass touches in the audio. As soon as you mount a Yoshi, the bongo style drums would kick in, and with a sub, was a noticeably deep addition to the music. In the Wii U game, it just sounds like Nintendo have whacked the Treble up full and the Bass to off.
Tekken Tag sounds great though, so when done properly, the audio from the Wii U is on a par with the PS3.
Compared with NSMBW, there were little bass touches in the audio. As soon as you mount a Yoshi, the bongo style drums would kick in, and with a sub, was a noticeably deep addition to the music. In the Wii U game, it just sounds like Nintendo have whacked the Treble up full and the Bass to off.
Tekken Tag sounds great though, so when done properly, the audio from the Wii U is on a par with the PS3.
UltimateIke
Member
From what others said, Mario outputs 5.1, but the centre, back and LFE channels are silent. So the game is telling my sub to not output anything.
I already did try what you recommended. Put the Wii U into stereo mode and set my AVR to expended stereo. It does give the sound more ummph that way. But the music and SFX still seems to be lacking bass.
Still, it's just that one game, so not a fault with the console, just the sound mix of one of its games.
I already did try what you recommended. Put the Wii U into stereo mode and set my AVR to expended stereo. It does give the sound more ummph that way. But the music and SFX still seems to be lacking bass.
Still, it's just that one game, so not a fault with the console, just the sound mix of one of its games.