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Wii U - No optical audio connector? Nintendo. Fix this!!

look, not that i want to go back to DPL2, but there isn't anything stopping a game developer from licensing DPL2 themselves and the system outputting surround sound that way (albeit not discrete) just as many games on the GameCube and Wii did.

if i output stereo PCL on my PS3 uncharted 3 has positional sound effects with DPL2. now, i have no idea if that is happening in code that Naughty Dog implemented, or if that is a feature of the PS3, but on paper we might not be without surround sound using stereo PCL, just discrete surround sound.

i mean, i presume if i play Skywards Sword on my Wii U i'm still going to get surround sound, as that's a DPL2 game.

edit: note, i am in no way shape or form defending this. i'm pretty disapointed about it and can't afford a new surround sound set up any time soon after just splooging on the Wii U (and an Oculus and a shit load of blu-ray boxsets). DPL2 support would make the wait to finally save up for a good DTS MA, Dolby Tru-HD, PCL 7.1 receiver and set of speakers more tolerable though.
 

mhayze

Member
Hell no. And less than 1% of gamecube owners used the component video output, which is why they discontinued it in the later models.
I was one of that 1%. Even enjoyed the DPL II surround sound :)

The HDMI board died on my previous receiver (Onkyo) and then my current receiver (Pioneer). So yeah, I support optical since I have little desire to drop another several hundred on a new receiver

I recommend buying a 90 degree or swivel connector next time like one of these. Chances are the weight / torque on an HDMI cable is leading to your HDMI receiver breakage woes.
 
Why are people still pretending that surround headphones are a good thing?

i'll take something like Dolby Headphone over a pair of cans with multiple drivers in each ear any day. sometimes some of us have to use headphones so as not to disturb family, neighbours, roommates, whatever, and that positional information is useful for gaming.
 

jimi_dini

Member
look, not that i want to go back to DPL2, but there isn't anything stopping a game developer from licensing DPL2 themselves and the system outputting surround sound that way (albeit not discrete) just as many games on the GameCube and Wii did.

I just wrote an email to Nintendo about this whole mess.

I asked them specifically, if Dolby Pro Logic II is even possible via analog video out and if it is, if it's developer specific (which would suck horribly) or if it's system wide.

Problem is: if it's possible, but developer specific, that would mean that most developers won't care at all and not implement it. People like us also could never be sure, if a game is compatible or not. If it's systemwide, they could have just licensed Dolby Digital 5.1 though, so I have no hopes for any positive reply :/

I mean on Wii Dolby Pro Logic I/II was the only possibility to get surround sound. So the developers either implemented that or not. On Wii U there will always be LPCM 5.1.

If it's really not supported, one could at least hope that there are enough like us and someone will create some audio decoder for just PCM over HDMI. Which should be much cheaper than the current decoders, that also support Dolby and DTS codecs. If everything else fails, I will wait till the Wii U is 130$ cheaper, because that's the price of the cheapest decoder.
 

mrklaw

MrArseFace
I think pretty much any HDMI enabled receiver that processes audio should handle LPCM. Early HDMI receivers are video switching only, then LPCM came along, and then Dolby TrueHD/DTS-MA later on.

And with the use of the gamepad supporting audio, perhaps stereo might be the best option anyway? Dolby headphone encoded if you plug headphones in to the gamepad, DPLII encoded if you're routing stereo to a receiver. You can still position sounds fully using DPLII, so it's the equivalent of DD5.1

Not sure on the situation regarding whether developers would have to license encoding tools separately or not - hope not.mobviously the ideal solution would be for nintendo to have a system level way of encoding multichannel audio into Dolby headphone or DPLII
 

Teletraan1

Banned
Just speculation here. This thing has a DSP for audio as has been mentioned by a dev in that WiiU Now in HD thread. That DSP should be able to handle a real time encode of DD5.1 based on some early speculation that it was based on an ARM Cortex-M3. At this point I don't think it is even an internal hardware issue and only a licensing issue. If the machine is able to do this processing for free on this DSP and since HDMI can also transport a DD5.1 audio stream a dongle would be possible if Nintendo would simply license some software.
 

Foxix Von

Member
Just speculation here. This thing has a DSP for audio as has been mentioned by a dev in that WiiU Now in HD thread. That DSP should be able to handle a real time encode of DD5.1 based on some early speculation that it was based on an ARM Cortex-M3. At this point I don't think it is even an internal hardware issue and only a licensing issue. If the machine is able to do this processing for free on this DSP and since HDMI can also transport a DD5.1 audio stream a dongle would be possible if Nintendo would simply license some software.

Hey this is good news :D although certainly ridiculous if they already have the hardware in place and still don't want to license other compression formats. Is it something that might possibly only be handled on a game to game basis? Sort of like how not all PS3 games support DTS?
 

jimi_dini

Member
Just speculation here. ... That DSP should be able to handle a real time encode of DD5.1 based on some early speculation that it was based on an ARM Cortex-M3.

Interesting. I found some details
http://www.iqmagazineonline.com/current/pdf/Pg38-42_IQ_32-Audio_on_ARM_Cortex-M.pdf

The cortex M3 takes around 22% load for encoding to MP3 (stereo, 128kbps). Does anyone know how much more intensive encoding to AC3 (Dolby Digital) would be in comparison to MP3 encoding? I was only able to find AC3 codecs for the Cortex M4, which could mean that the M3 isn't fast enough to do it. In any case, it could take up too much load.

At least it seems like they could encode to DPLII using that DSP, which would solve most of our problems. Why can't Nintendo just put "Dolby Pro Logic II via analog out" on their spec sheet :/ Would make me happy.

similar to Samsung LCD issue

Don't remind me. F'cking Samsung. My LCD died just because of that. I replaced them, but it still didn't work. And I was not man enough to try to shorten the EEPROM (power supply is 10cm away from it). Quite a few models used those bad capacitors :( And Samsung even has the nerve to ask for money to fix the issue (which is even half the money that one would spent on a brand new LCD/LED).
 

sangreal

Member
How does that even happen?

In the first case, it's because Onkyo used shitty capacitors (similar to Samsung LCD issue) and all of them die eventually. In the latter case, I had a power surge through coax cable that killed my ONT and the HDMI board on my STB, TV (1/2 ports) and Receiver.

HDMI board issues are actually incredibly common in receivers from my research on avsforums. As is what happened to me with the surge
 

Teletraan1

Banned
Maybe I was overzealous. Perhaps the DSP doesnt have the chops to encode on the fly and do whatever else its supposed to do if that is even the correct DSP in the box. Again it was just wishful thinking on my part.
 
I just wrote an email to Nintendo about this whole mess.

I asked them specifically, if Dolby Pro Logic II is even possible via analog video out and if it is, if it's developer specific (which would suck horribly) or if it's system wide.

Of course DPLII is possible on analog, that's the entire pint of DPL/DPLII/DPLIIx. It's designed to "fake" surround through a stereo signal, the better separation from a good mix is what allows it to not sound terrible, but it's still not discrete. This is why you can, essentially, turn ANY stereo mix into a DPLII sound field.
 

jimi_dini

Member
Of course DPLII is possible on analog, that's the entire pint of DPL/DPLII/DPLIIx.

Of course, it would be possible. I didn't mean "is it possible in general". I meant "is it possible on Wii U" / "does Nintendo offer it or not".

Question is, if Wii U offers APIs to create PCM 5.1 surround sound and those APIs just mix everything together and output that as plain stereo signal or if those APIs encode the PCM 5.1 data into a DPLII stereo signal. Or they just don't offer any API at all and leave it up to the developer.

They could even shut down analog video out, if something is connected on HDMI. Who knows.

I mean it would also be possible to send Dolby Digital over HDMI. But the spec sheet says that they don't do that. So who knows. That's why I ask.
 
Could you guys help me out here? So I'm trying to figure out whether or not my TV will still output surround sound to my speakers for the Wii U when I came found this in the owner's manual under the HDMI input section:

HDMI Audio:2-channel Linear-PCM; 32/44.1/48 kHz sampling frequency; 16/20/24 bits per sample

So does that mean that it will only accept/output stereo LPCM signals? Sorry for the noobish questions.
 
Could you guys help me out here? So I'm trying to figure out whether or not my TV will still output surround sound to my speakers for the Wii U when I came found this in the owner's manual under the HDMI input section:

HDMI Audio:2-channel Linear-PCM; 32/44.1/48 kHz sampling frequency; 16/20/24 bits per sample

So does that mean that it will only accept/output stereo LPCM signals? Sorry for the noobish questions.

Right.
 
Of course, it would be possible. I didn't mean "is it possible in general". I meant "is it possible on Wii U" / "does Nintendo offer it or not".
i don't think Nintendo could prevent a software developer from supporting DPL2 if they want to license it, but i don't know much about how the DSP works. it seems very very unlikely that a developer wouldn't at least be able to support DPL2 through software, which is how i think the GameCube and Wii both did it.
 

jimi_dini

Member
it seems very very unlikely that a developer wouldn't at least be able to support DPL2 through software, which is how i think the GameCube and Wii both did it.

Like I already said - this wouldn't be a good solution in any way. Why should a developer care about DPLII support? And if a developer wanted to support it, they would even have to add audio setup menus into their games.

On Wii/Gamecube, DPLII was the only way to go. They either had surround sound using DPLII or they had plain stereo.
On Wii U however you can have surround sound as LPCM 5.1 via HDMI. So the developer could check off surround sound without implementing DPLII support. The developers that created Orange Box on PS3 did this.

Which would result in a guessing game for people like us. Does the latest game X support DPLII? Someone has to buy it and find out. Not acceptable.

HDMI Audio:2-channel Linear-PCM; 32/44.1/48 kHz sampling frequency; 16/20/24 bits per sample

So does that mean that it will only accept/output stereo LPCM signals? Sorry for the noobish questions.

I just tried something out, because I was curious, if the Ninty spec sheet made sense (as in Wii U only outputting LPCM 5.1, although most TVs only support LPCM 2.0). I switched my PS3 to LPCM 5.1 and tried to watch a BluRay using audio, that went through my TV. My TV only supports LPCM 2.0.

And I still hear audio. I got LPCM 2.0 on my receiver via optical. It seems that sending LPCM 5.1 to a LPCM 2.0 device will still work. It probably just cuts off all the extra channels.
Setting the PS3 to DTS-HD capable and then trying the BluRay resulted in no audio at all (as expected).

Sorry I have read several pages of the thread and I still don't understand what is important about this optical audio connector, does it means we are not going to get any sound from the TV?

You are going to get sound from your TV. The problem is surround sound. If you don't own a surround receiver (or a surround receiver with HDMI support) and you also don't own surround headphones, then don't mind.

If you own a surround receiver without HDMI support, our current knowledge is: you won't get surround sound, because Wii U outputs surround sound as LPCM 5.1 and that can't be sent via optical or coax to your receiver. Wait: you could buy a HDMI audio decoder for 130$ to make it work. Although this will only work, if your receiver has multichannel analog in. For surround headphones this won't work.
 
Sorry I have read several pages of the thread and I still don't understand what is important about this optical audio connector, does it means we are not going to get any sound from the TV?
 

Foxix Von

Member
Sorry I have read several pages of the thread and I still don't understand what is important about this optical audio connector, does it means we are not going to get any sound from the TV?

Yeah it's kinda complicated. Basically if you have the wii hooked up directly to the TV it'll work just fine. If you have a home theater set up that gets audio from an HDMI source then it will be fine too.

The only problem is if you want full 5.1 surround sound and have a receiver that's more than a couple years old and isn't compatible with HDMI. That's where people are having problems. Hope that helps.
 

alr1ght

bish gets all the credit :)
Sorry I have read several pages of the thread and I still don't understand what is important about this optical audio connector, does it means we are not going to get any sound from the TV?

It means that unless your receiver has HDMI inputs, you're not getting surround sound. Period. If you're just using TV speakers, it really doesn't affect you.
 

richiek

steals Justin Bieber DVDs
Sorry I have read several pages of the thread and I still don't understand what is important about this optical audio connector, does it means we are not going to get any sound from the TV?

If you want surround sound, you need to hook it up to an external audio receiver. The Wii U doesn't have an optical port, which alot of older receivers have.

I suppose I could use the optical port on my TV, but I'm not sure it will output 5.1 surround sound.
 

Foxix Von

Member
If you want surround sound, you need to hook it up to an external audio receiver. The Wii U doesn't have an optical port, which alot of older receivers have.

I suppose I could use the optical port on my TV, but I'm not sure it will output 5.1 surround sound.

It won't. Even if your TV is capable of passing through AC3 or DTS audio from an HDMI source, the Wii U doesn't support those formats. You'll just get stereo.

We should really get a mod to come in and change the OP and title with some relevant information.
 

PetrCobra

Member
Lots of audiophiles in here, maybe I could find someone to answer this little question I have...

I won't be using the Wii U with a TV set but with a monitor and separate stereo speakers, so I will need some sort of splitter to get audio out of the HDMI. Nintendo probably won't include anything useful in the box so I'll need to buy something on my own. Can this be solved by a simple connector adapter (something like HDMI -> HDMI + 2 x CINCH) or do I need some sort of device to decode the audio from the HDMI signal?

Thanks for any help :)
 
Yeah it's kinda complicated. Basically if you have the wii hooked up directly to the TV it'll work just fine. If you have a home theater set up that gets audio from an HDMI source then it will be fine too.

The only problem is if you want full 5.1 surround sound and have a receiver that's more than a couple years old and isn't compatible with HDMI. That's where people are having problems. Hope that helps.

I hate to sound like a broken record, but a lot of the Surround Systems out there are of the Home Theater in a Box variety. Many of those sold this year even do not have HDMI inputs. So there are people currently spending $300-$500 on audio systems TODAY, TOMORROW, and even after the Wii U comes out that will not be able to listen to surround sound from the Wii U.

People will be upset (furious even) about this and will have good reason.
 
Yeah it's kinda complicated. Basically if you have the wii hooked up directly to the TV it'll work just fine. If you have a home theater set up that gets audio from an HDMI source then it will be fine too.

The only problem is if you want full 5.1 surround sound and have a receiver that's more than a couple years old and isn't compatible with HDMI. That's where people are having problems. Hope that helps.

It means that unless your receiver has HDMI inputs, you're not getting surround sound. Period. If you're just using TV speakers, it really doesn't affect you.

If you want surround sound, you need to hook it up to an external audio receiver. The Wii U doesn't have an optical port, which alot of older receivers have.

I suppose I could use the optical port on my TV, but I'm not sure it will output 5.1 surround sound.

Thanks! All that means I'm in the safe zone. :)
 
So is it possible Wii U actually does support the formats necessary to easily get surround sound? I guess what I'm saying is are we drawing all these conclusions based solely off that spec sheet or is there another source for it?
 
I bought my current receiver back when Super Mario Sunshine came out, for the sole purpose of having Dolby Pro Logic II. Now I'm looking at buying a new receiver because of Wii U. Weird.
 

Sanctuary

Member
Don't most receivers from the last 4-5 years have a HDMI connector...?

Not everyone uses a stereo receiver when playing games for their sound source. Many use the Astro Mixamp, Tritton headset or better yet, the fabulous Pioneer SE-DIR800C (does DTS as well). All of which use optical inputs.
Currently with the Wii, I am just taking the signal from my television and sending it to my Pioneer box. What I end up with isn't really 5.1 or even emulated 5.1, but more of a Prologic/Matrix sound; which still sounds much better than just stereo.

There are however HDMI input boxes that output in optical and coaxial, so it's not like you won't be able to get around this.
 

CLEEK

Member
Sorry I have read several pages of the thread and I still don't understand what is important about this optical audio connector, does it means we are not going to get any sound from the TV?

Before HD was standardised in the mid '00s, you had a mish-mash of audio and video connections and formats for AV equipment. Optical audio was one method used to hook devices (consoles, DVD players etc) up to amps / receivers to output surround sound. HDMI came along as a world wide standard single connector for video and audio, supporting all the various legacy and modern video and audio formats.

If you have bought a TV or AV receiver during this gen, unless its bargain basement, it will have HDMI as the default connector. The 'issue' with the Wii U is that, like every other Nintendo console before it, doesn't have an optical out port. This mean that folks who are still rocking very old audio equipment won't be able to get 5.1 surround.

This just reminds me the complaints that the PS3 didn't support the funky, US only 1080i rear projection HD sets that existed before HD became a standard. A bummer for people who do have older equipment, but really, any gamer who genuinely cares about audio will have compatible equipment and enjoy uncompressed 5.1 surround from their Wii U console.
 

Pezking

Member
Would this thing work?

Ligawo ® HDMI Decoder

It has an HDMI input and a Toslink output.
It supports LPCM (but not 7.1 surround sound - but I only have an 5.1-setup anyway).

The price isn't too bad either.

So is this a good solution?
 

Foxix Von

Member
Would this thing work?

Ligawo ® HDMI Decoder

It has an HDMI input and a Toslink output.
It supports LPCM (but not 7.1 surround sound - but I only have an 5.1-setup anyway).

The price isn't too bad either.

So is this a good solution?

The problem isn't that the Wii U doesn't have a built in optical out. The problem is that it does not support Dolby Digital or DTS, it only supports 5.1 PCM which due to bandwidth constraints cannot pass through a toslink cable.

At best you will get a Pro Logic stereo mix from a stereo PCM source with that setup.
 

Pezking

Member
The problem isn't that the Wii U doesn't have a built in optical out. The problem is that it does not support Dolby Digital or DTS, it only supports 5.1 PCM which due to bandwidth constraints cannot pass through a toslink cable.

At best you will get a Pro Logic stereo mix from a stereo PCM source with that setup.

Thanks. This is really just ridiculous.

For Mario and Nintendoland, I can live with stereo sound.

But "ZombiU"? Or every 3rd party game that I could play in DD5.1 or DTS on another console? Yeah, after 10 years of surround sound gaming in our living room, I won't buy those games until I can enjoy them in surround sound.

And a console launch is expensive enough in itself. Having to buy a new AV receiver at the same time is just not possible.
 

Pezking

Member
Nope, like Foxix said.
But a HDMI audio decoder with multichannel analog out would work (in case your receiver has multichannel in of course).

Yeah, but I guess that would be at least as expensive as selling my old receiver and getting a cheap new one, right?

I guess I could sell my old Denon receiver from 2002 for at least 60 Euro, and get the Sony STR-DH520 for 200 Euro from amazon.de.

That would be one of my most reluctant purchases ever...
 

jimi_dini

Member
Yeah, but I guess that would be at least as expensive as selling my old receiver and getting a cheap new one, right?

over 100$. If your option is buying that or buying a 200EUR receiver, go for the receiver of course. In any case, you should better wait for now. Maybe we are lucky and Nintendo supports DPLII standard-wise somehow.

I guess I could sell my old Denon receiver from 2002 for at least 60 Euro, and get the Sony STR-DH520 for 200 Euro from amazon.de.

People in here own much more expensive receivers, where going to a 200EUR receiver would be a serious downgrade. Although it's still 200EUR, which would make the Wii U cost 500/550EUR.
 

Teletraan1

Banned
Yeah, but I guess that would be at least as expensive as selling my old receiver and getting a cheap new one, right?

I guess I could sell my old Denon receiver from 2002 for at least 60 Euro, and get the Sony STR-DH520 for 200 Euro from amazon.de.

That would be one of my most reluctant purchases ever...

I am in a similar situation. To do what I feel would be a lateral move feature and sound quality wise to a receiver with HDMI is too much right now. I could go and buy a $200 HDMI receiver but I know I am not going to be satisfied with that product. I will bargain hunt for something decent.
 
Really? While gaming? On a medium which is almost entirely visual? Could you justify this by explaining the quality jump from 2 ch stereo to 5.1 Surround versus PQ going from 480i to 720p+? Some games are unplayable at lower resolutions, and interlacing is a terrible way to watch anything now a days.

Audiophiles and their finely tuned ears make no sense to me :p

Pretty much this.

I do enjoy 5.1 surround while playing games but there are plenty of times where I just use my TV speakers. The bump from 480i to 720/1080p is much bigger than the bump from 2.0 to 5.1.
 

SmokyDave

Member
Before HD was standardised in the mid '00s, you had a mish-mash of audio and video connections and formats for AV equipment. Optical audio was one method used to hook devices (consoles, DVD players etc) up to amps / receivers to output surround sound. HDMI came along as a world wide standard single connector for video and audio, supporting all the various legacy and modern video and audio formats.

If you have bought a TV or AV receiver during this gen, unless its bargain basement, it will have HDMI as the default connector. The 'issue' with the Wii U is that, like every other Nintendo console before it, doesn't have an optical out port. This mean that folks who are still rocking very old audio equipment won't be able to get 5.1 surround.

This just reminds me the complaints that the PS3 didn't support the funky, US only 1080i rear projection HD sets that existed before HD became a standard. A bummer for people who do have older equipment, but really, any gamer who genuinely cares about audio will have compatible equipment and enjoy uncompressed 5.1 surround from their Wii U console.
Pretending that toslink is some archaic niche connector is ridiculous.

but really, any gamer who genuinely cares about audio will have compatible equipment and enjoy uncompressed 5.1 surround from their Wii U console.
Any gamer who genuinely cares about audio will be scratching their head wondering why this 'next-gen' console gets thoroughly bested by the PS3 in the audio department.
 
People in here own much more expensive receivers, where going to a 200EUR receiver would be a serious downgrade. Although it's still 200EUR, which would make the Wii U cost 500/550EUR.
That's what many people really don't get and should be emphasized. There's no linear progress here where suddenly, supporting more formats instantly means a better sound.
Hell, at any given price point, you couldn't (or should not) differentiate between receivers just by looking at specs, mostly because fidelity isn't an objective measurement and it tends to trump many considerations.
 

Kyoufu

Member
I'm so confused with what I need to get 5.1 sound. Think I might just not bother if it means investing in a sound system just for this one console.
 

jimi_dini

Member
That's what many people really don't get and should be emphasized. There's no linear progress here where suddenly, supporting more formats instantly means a better sound.

It depends on the innards of the receiver/amplifier. And you won't get proper innards without paying for them. My original receiver was a high-end Sony ES. Super expensive, but totally worth it. It supported Dolby Pro Logic, because Dolby Digital wasn't available at that time. Funnily even nowadays that one is sold used for more than a new Sony STR-DH520 :p

Used it for public movie viewing outside (100-150 people). We showed Dragonheart once (using a beamer too) and the surround sound was incredible. And it also had multichannel in of course, so Dolby Digital would have even been possible.
 

kami_sama

Member
Lots of audiophiles in here, maybe I could find someone to answer this little question I have...

I won't be using the Wii U with a TV set but with a monitor and separate stereo speakers, so I will need some sort of splitter to get audio out of the HDMI. Nintendo probably won't include anything useful in the box so I'll need to buy something on my own. Can this be solved by a simple connector adapter (something like HDMI -> HDMI + 2 x CINCH) or do I need some sort of device to decode the audio from the HDMI signal?

Thanks for any help :)
I have the exact same problem, can someone explain it to us?
 
I have the exact same problem, can someone explain it to us?

If you are using a monitor and just need to break out an analog, stereo audio feed that should be easy. It won't come in the box, but Nintendo will sell standard analog A/V cables. You'll just need to plug those in to the multi-out port on the WiiU, ignore the yellow video connector from the cord and plug the Red/White stereo RCA audio connectors into whatever receiver, Amp, multimedia speakers or adapter appropriate to your setup.
 
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