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No Dolby 5.1 support with Xbone optical port (surround headphone users beware!)

netBuff

Member
This is a pretty serious loss, as pretty much any current surround headset available for consoles today runs on the optical connector and requires a Dolby Digital 5.1 signal. These headphones will be limited to stereo with Xbone (but 5.1 is supported on PS4):

Or take my peculiar AV setup: I like to play games and watch movies with an Astro surround-sound headset, which decodes Dolby 5.1 audio from an optical input cable. However, the Xbox One is currently only able to output stereo and DTS Digital through its optical output. My headphone receiver can't read DTS Digital, so I have to output in stereo, and my surround headphones turn into regular old headphones. I've been asking Microsoft for the last week if they intend to add Dolby output to the optical audio port in the near future (it's an option for HDMI output), but haven't gotten a solid answer on whether a fix is coming.
http://kotaku.com/the-xbox-one-the-kotaku-review-1467960010
 

Daffy Duck

Member
Wait, what?

Am I reading this wrong or is this only a problem with TV stuff?

If I use the optical out to my astro mixamp and use my headphones on games it will be surround sound?
 

user_nat

THE WORDS! They'll drift away without the _!
That seems rather odd.

Wonder if I can just plug my headphones into the TV optical out instead to get 5.1.
 

ElTorro

I wanted to dominate the living room. Then I took an ESRAM in the knee.
Can it play Dolby Digital from Blu-Rays over HDMI? I hope that it's not a system-wide licensing-related issue.
 

netBuff

Member
That seems rather odd.

Wonder if I can just plug my headphones into the TV optical out instead to get 5.1.

The vast majority of TVs only carry stereo audio on their optical ports, you'd have to be exceptionally lucky to own one of the few sets that carry 5.1. Plugging into the console is the only viable option, unfortunately not with Xbone.
 

Daffy Duck

Member
The vast majority of TVs only carry stereo audio on their optical ports, you'd have to be exceptionally lucky to own one of the few sets that carry 5.1. Plugging into the console is the only viable option, unfortunately not with Xbone.

i don't understand what you are talking about to be honest.

Is this just a problem for people with AV setups or people who have headsets?

My current Astro A40's give surround sound via the 360 optical out, are you saying this is not the case on the XB1?

The Astro site says this:

XBOX ONE COMPATIBILITY

Our headsets will all deliver Dolby® Digital GAME AUDIO on the Xbox One, just like they do for the Xbox 360. However, the chat connector on the controller is now a proprietary connector, meaning that our current products will require an adapter to connect to the controller for Xbox Live voice chat. Fortunately, until this chat adapter is available, the built-in Kinect microphone will provide full voice communication access to Xbox Live while using ASTRO headsets on the Xbox One.

PS4 COMPATIBILITY

ASTRO headsets are fully compatible with PS4 once the Firmware 1.50 update has been applied to the console. Our headsets will deliver Dolby® Digital 5.1 and 7.1 game audio and full voice chat functionality over the PlayStation Network.

I see for XB1 they just say Dolby Digital, yet on PS4 that Dolby digital is 5.1 and 7.1....does that mean it's not 5.1/7.1 on XB1?
 

CLEEK

Member
The article is saying the Xbone doesn't output DD over optical, just DTS and stereo.

Pretty much all surround headphones work by accepting a DD signal over optical. Hence, you won't be able to get surround (on you headphones) from an Xbone.

As far as it impacting your AV set-up, I've never known an AVR that only accepts DD and not DTS, so it shouldn't be a problem and you'll get 5.1.

I see for XB1 they just say Dolby Digital, yet on PS4 that Dolby digital is 5.1 and 7.1....does that mean it's not 5.1/7.1 on XB1?

Normally, when things just refer to Dolby Digital without the channel count (5.1 etc), they just mean DD 2.0 (stereo).

If you look at the wording, they explicitly mention DD 5.1 and 7.1 for the PS4, but just DD (stereo) for the Xbone.
 

Blizzardsc

Neo Member
i don't understand what you are talking about to be honest.

Is this just a problem for people with AV setups or people who have headsets?

My current Astro A40's give surround sound via the 360 optical out, are you saying this is not the case on the XB1?


Edit. Shouldn't have a problem with AV setups
 
Is this just a problem for people with AV setups or people who have headsets?

My current Astro A40's give surround sound via the 360 optical out, are you saying this is not the case on the XB1?

It's a problem for people with 5.1 headsets that don't do DTS (most of them) and AV setups that don't do DTS (not a lot of those). Current A40's will be stereo only with optical out as it is now.
 

Metfanant

Member
That seems rather odd.

Wonder if I can just plug my headphones into the TV optical out instead to get 5.1.

id say with 99% confidence that your TV's optical out will only carry a stereo signal...

i don't understand what you are talking about to be honest.

Is this just a problem for people with AV setups or people who have headsets?

My current Astro A40's give surround sound via the 360 optical out, are you saying this is not the case on the XB1?

The Astro site says this:





I see for XB1 they just say Dolby Digital, yet on PS4 that Dolby digital is 5.1 and 7.1....does that mean it's not 5.1/7.1 on XB1?

apparently the Xbone cant send an actual DD suround signal over optical...so wether you have an AV receiver or headphones....if youre not using HDMI you cant get DD surround...DTS should work though
 

netBuff

Member
i don't understand what you are talking about to be honest.

Is this just a problem for people with AV setups or people who have headsets?

My current Astro A40's give surround sound via the 360 optical out, are you saying this is not the case on the XB1?

This is mainly a problem for headphone users as well as people that own older AV receivers.

Pretty much any modern surround headset available (including the excellent Astro models) for gaming relies on Dolby Digital 5.1 encoding via the Toslink/optical audio connector. As the Xbone lacks support for that encoding, you'll be relegated to hearing stereo only.

The other poster was contemplating getting 5.1 audio through his TVs optical audio out port (Dolby Digital encoding via HDMI, then TV optical out -> headphones), something that is impossible with almost all sets as they tend to only carry stereo on their outputs.

I see for XB1 they just say Dolby Digital, yet on PS4 that Dolby digital is 5.1 and 7.1....does that mean it's not 5.1/7.1 on XB1?

Exactly.
 

Daffy Duck

Member
I'm not so sure the OP is 100% on with the info here:

Another example: The units we've been testing mess with the audio that comes from the cable box, and are currently only able to output surround sound if you dig into the menus and tick off a "Surround Sound (BETA)" option. Otherwise, it downmixes your cable's 5.1 surround to stereo. My boss Stephen Totilo likes to watch pro wrestling, and when he does, he likes to watch it in surround sound. (The better to hear the taunts and the body-slams, I guess.) But if he runs his cable box through his Xbox One, the audio comes through in mere stereo. Microsoft assures us that a non-beta option for surround audio throughput is coming, but it won't be there at launch.

Or take my peculiar AV setup: I like to play games and watch movies with an Astro surround-sound headset, which decodes Dolby 5.1 audio from an optical input cable. However, the Xbox One is currently only able to output stereo and DTS Digital through its optical output. My headphone receiver can't read DTS Digital, so I have to output in stereo, and my surround headphones turn into regular old headphones. I've been asking Microsoft for the last week if they intend to add Dolby output to the optical audio port in the near future (it's an option for HDMI output), but haven't gotten a solid answer on whether a fix is coming.

The Kotaku review states input cable, this seems like an issue with the reviewers set-up.
 

user_nat

THE WORDS! They'll drift away without the _!
id say with 99% confidence that your TV's optical out will only carry a stereo signal...

Well that's dumb. Never actually tried it, but always assumed I could if I needed to.

So how can you get 5.1 headphones then?
 

EvB

Member
I'm confused, is this headsets, surround systems or what?

Basically if you have a device that *Only* accepts Dolby 5.1 then you won't get a surround signal.

This mostly affects "surround sound" headsets as they often don't do DTS.
 
A/V receivers that support Dolby Digital but not DTS certainly exist, but they're fairly rare. But there are a number of relatively popular PC surround sound systems that do just that. I had a 5.1 channel set of Klipsch multimedia speakers like that.
 

netBuff

Member
I'm not so sure the OP is 100% on with the info here:

The Kotaku review states input cable, this seems like an issue with the reviewers set-up.

You're the one that is confused: The fact Xbone can't pass through surround audio from the "HDMI in" is completely independent of the "no Dolby 5.1 on optical" issue.

This is a problem for any surround headphone user.

so we need to buy the Beyerdynamic Headzone then

Guess that's a way to empty the piggy bank ;)
 

dallow_bg

nods at old men
I'm not so sure the OP is 100% on with the info here:





The Kotaku review states input cable, this seems like an issue with the reviewers set-up.

All cables are input/output.
The whole point here is that optical out only does stereo and DTS.

This mainly affects surround headphone users and the very few with ancient receivers.
 

CLEEK

Member
I'm not so sure the OP is 100% on with the info here:

The Kotaku review states input cable, this seems like an issue with the reviewers set-up.

Seems like the OP has totally got the wrong end of the stick and blown it into something that isn't there unless you have an AV set-up.

Unless I am totally wrong.

You're wrong, I think.

Kotaku are saying the Xbone can decode DD from an input (e.g. a cable box). I'd assume it then passes the decoded 5.1 audio as PCM to the AVR via HDMI.

But it won't output DD over its optical port. So you're fucked if you have DD surround headphones.

Which is exactly what the OP has said.
 

Metfanant

Member
Well that's dumb. Never actually tried it, but always assumed I could if I needed to.

So how can you get 5.1 headphones then?

you need to pass the audio directly from the source to the headphones...

so...either directly from your PS3/360/PS4/cable box/etc...to the headphones...or pass it through a A/V receiver
 
A/V receivers that support Dolby Digital but not DTS certainly exist, but they're fairly rare. But there are a number of relatively popular PC surround sound systems that do just that. I had a 5.1 channel set of Klipsch multimedia speakers like that.

Oh yeah. That's true. A lot of the PC speaker 5.1 systems doesn't support DTS either, so users of those will only get stereo sound too.
 

netBuff

Member
Surround headphone are mostly terrible anyway.

This is not true: Headphones that rely on virtual surround technology like Astro (Dolby Headphone) tend to be excellent. Regular surround headsets that use multiple speakers are terrible.

I use an Astro Mixamp in conjunction with a headphone amp and BeyerDynamic DT 990 Pro (250 ohm) headphones, the sound quality and surround effect are very convincing.
 
Some people are dumb when it comes to audio and would never know.

Had a bug in our game on high-end headsets, but only from certain people.

Turns out they had them plugged in wrong and the gaming headsets ($200 expensive ones, mind you) were only outputting monaural. They couldn't even fucking tell.
 

CLEEK

Member
Interesting. Is this something that can be remedied via patch? I would assume so.

There's certainty no technical reason for this. It sounds like MS are pulling a Nintendo and just being cheap and saving on the licensing cost of including DD codecs.
 
This is not true: Headphones that rely on virtual surround technology like Astro (Dolby Headphone) tend to be excellent. Regular surround headsets that use multiple speakers are terrible.

I use an Astro Mixamp in conjunction with a headphone amp and BeyerDynamic DT 990 Pro (250 ohm) headphones, the sound quality and surround effect are very convincing.
My experience has been fairly negative, but I suppose I just haven't tried the right ones then. I'll have to give it another look.
 

Dahaka

Member
This is not true: Headphones that rely on virtual surround technology like Astro (Dolby Headphone) tend to be excellent. Regular surround headsets that use multiple speakers are terrible.

I use an Astro Mixamp in conjunction with a headphone amp and BeyerDynamic DT 990 Pro (250 ohm) headphones, the sound quality and surround effect are very convincing.

agree

Until True Audio titles become a "norm" so we can directly go into the DAC/AMP of our choice this is the best way for some.
 
There's certainty no technical reason for this. It sounds like MS are pulling a Nintendo and just being cheap and saving on the licensing cost of including DD codecs.

It says it supports Dolby over HDMI though in the review/article.
 

netBuff

Member
My experience has been fairly negative, but I suppose I just haven't tried the right ones then. I'll have to give it another look.

There's certainly plenty of crap on the market, it's why I prefer to use the Astro Mixamp as a surround decoder only and pass the sound to the excellent DT 990 Pro :)
 
There's certainty no technical reason for this. It sounds like MS are pulling a Nintendo and just being cheap and saving on the licensing cost of including DD codecs.

This is the part i don't understand. They've already paid for DD as they can transmit it over HDMI - surely you don't pay per output/per console?
 
We're talking about virtual surround, right? How well does that really work?

I'm a head-fi geek and virtual surround always goes wrong, sound-quality-wise. Still a bummer they don't have it.
 

CLEEK

Member
This is the part i don't understand. They've already paid for DD as they can transmit it over HDMI - surely you don't pay per output/per console?

As far as I'm aware, you can get legal freeware DD (AC-3) decoders. You have to have a licence from Dolby to output DD.

The Xbone could decode DD 5.1 and output it over HDMI as LPCM. Optical doesn't have the bandwidth to carry a mulit-channel LPCM signal. That's just a guess, but sounds likely.
 
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