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[sonycowboy]

http://biz.gamedaily.com/articles.asp?section=news&email=&article_id=7989#7989

Digital Theater Systems, Inc. has announced that its DTS Coherent Acoustics coding system has been selected as "mandatory audio technology for both the Blu-ray Disc (BD) and High Definition Digital Versatile Disc (HD-DVD)."

Since we know that Sony last week made BD-ROM its official format of choice for the next-generation PlayStation, it's likely that PS3 players will hear plenty of game audio through the crisp DTS format. Additionally, although not confirmed, many suspect that Xbox 2 will support HD-DVD, and therefore it too could have in-game DTS sounds.

"As a mandatory technology in the next generation standards, a DTS decoder will be built into every next generation player that incorporates either HD-DVD or Blu-ray Disc, therefore allowing content providers the freedom to choose the audio technology best suited for their needs," said Jon Kirchner, President and CEO of DTS. "We are both excited and pleased, and believe that this is a vote of confidence in DTS technology and market leadership. Although we do not expect to see revenue until the next generation products become available, we believe the mandatory inclusion sets the stage for a very positive future."

 

[TTP]

Isn't DTS already there is some PS2 games?

 

[Defensor]

What about SDDS for PS3?

 

[Gek54]

Isn't DTS already there is some PS2 games?

Yeah SSX3 off the top of my head. I think GTA:VC did too.

 

[Shompola]

sdds supprt in consumer devices is non existand.

 

[TekunoRobby]

Yeah SSX3 off the top of my head. I think GTA:VC did too.

I confirm that GTA:VC uses it.

 

[WarPig]

4-channel DTS was in some EA games and Vice City, yeah. Nobody uses it now, though -- any PS2 game with multichannel audio is using Dolby Pro Logic II these days.

DFS.

 

[open_mouth_]

What about Revolution? I'm sure it'll be a given there too

 

[Crazymoogle]

Of course, Dolby Digital is also mandatory on the new drives.

EDIT: And it should be mentioned that these are just decoders. If the Xenon, PS3, or whatever is going to use DTS or Dolby Digital, it needs an encoder.

 

[WarPig]

And it should be mentioned that these are just decoders. If the Xenon, PS3, or whatever is going to use DTS or Dolby Digital, it needs an encoder.

Yeh. And Dolby has so far been kicking some DTS ass as far as developer support and general interest in the gaming market.

DTS wins in the journalist support category, though. They hold the somewhat ignominious record for most expensive attempted bribe ever given to yours truly, a $500 Pioneer DVD changer/receiver set (this was back during their brief association with EA, before EA decided to start using DPLII like everyone else). I UPS'd it out to an old college friend who didn't have a DVD player yet.

DFS.

 

[DaCocoBrova]

DTS sounds so much better to me. More robust. I think that also has a lot to do w/ the calibration of my receiver or lack thereof.

This is good news.

 

[MattCoz]

Screw DTS, next-gen consoles need to support HDMI for transfering the audio uncompressed. Why waste processing time encoding the audio only to have it decoded a split second later when it gets to the receiver? There is the inevitable delay as well as the loss of sound quality.

 

[Crazymoogle]

Yeh. And Dolby has so far been kicking some DTS ass as far as developer support and general interest in the gaming market.

DTS wins in the journalist support category, though. They hold the somewhat ignominious record for most expensive attempted bribe ever given to yours truly, a $500 Pioneer DVD changer/receiver set (this was back during their brief association with EA, before EA decided to start using DPLII like everyone else). I UPS'd it out to an old college friend who didn't have a DVD player yet.

DFS.

Nice gift.

Seriously though, DTS' problem is that they weren't trying to cater to the gaming industry. They didn't pay attention when Dolby was bending over backwards to help supply Microsoft with a hardware encoder, their DTS:Neo6 spec (basically the same as DPL2) arrived to market way too late, and PS2/DTS solution was found basically by accident (and tends not to be feasible anyway since there is still a CPU hit and other games tend to want that graphics hardware)

Meanwhile, Dolby has the only hardware audio encoder for a game system, and premiered their DPL2 spec at the Gamecube launch with a company that managed to provide the rest of the development community with audio tools to make it happen. Now with even Nintendo and SCEA floating the DPL2 boat, the only chance of DTS making any inroads would involve bribing one of the big three with DTS5.1 hardware encoders.

 

[WarPig]

It seems like multichannel audio in games kinda snuck up on big chunks of the market. It wasn't touted as one of the big advantages of a next-generation console by any of the major publishers or hardware companies, at least not until Halo came out and people realized "Holy shit, this sounds awesome."

I've met a couple of the guys at Dolby who work on their outreach to developers and publishers, and I think they knew there was real potential there -- they're pretty hardcore gamers, and they were wheeling like crazy to sell companies on the concept. Even when DTS seemed to be making some inroads, they were right there hammering people with DPLII.

DFS.

 

[Crazymoogle]

It seems like multichannel audio in games kinda snuck up on big chunks of the market. It wasn't touted as one of the big advantages of a next-generation console by any of the major publishers or hardware companies, at least not until Halo came out and people realized "Holy shit, this sounds awesome."

DFS.

Well, that was because it was just so damned hard to do. 5.1 encoding is still anything but trivial - some xbox games can't push the full 5.1, and there still is lag to worry about - and Matrixed sounds have a history of being lackluster on all but the finest systems. Dolby did a tremendous job in providing an encoder that could do the job most of the time, and selling developers on a matrixed sound standard that can sometimes do the job.

The timing of Halo couldn't have been better, because by then the PS2 had been out for a year and people really knew what DVD was all about. That noticeable quality jump from stereo to 5.1 on DVDs was such that people would hope to get that out of their video games, and Halo delivered (not surprisingly on the same week that MGS2 delivered some of the first DD5.1 PS2 support for cutscenes, and Rogue Leader debuted DPL2)

That was definitely a crazy year, though. I was so sold on DPL2 based on an audio demo and technical specs that I actually went out and bought a new receiver. (The audio didn't quite turn out as well as I hoped, but the receiver is still awesome)

 

[mrklaw]

sorry, but that is fucked up. Having two multichannel codecs as mandatory on movies is just stupid IMO.

Sure there might be lots of space, but there is always the issue of bandwidth.

 

[WarPig]

sorry, but that is fucked up. Having two multichannel codecs as mandatory on movies is just stupid IMO.

Sure there might be lots of space, but there is always the issue of bandwidth.

Nah, you're reading it wrong. It ain't mandatory on the movies. It's mandatory on the hardware. So companies making players have to support both codecs, but studios can pick and choose what they want to put on a disc.

DFS.

 

[WarPig]

The timing of Halo couldn't have been better, because by then the PS2 had been out for a year and people really knew what DVD was all about. That noticeable quality jump from stereo to 5.1 on DVDs was such that people would hope to get that out of their video games, and Halo delivered (not surprisingly on the same week that MGS2 delivered some of the first DD5.1 PS2 support for cutscenes, and Rogue Leader debuted DPL2)

Funny story about 5.1 support in cutscenes, and it gives you an idea of what the Dolby guys are like. One of the two guys I met who work on their evangelism/support-type stuff played through all of the Japanese Final Fantasy X (not knowing a lick of Japanese) just to hear the sound in the cinematics. He beat the whole game and unlocked all the shit in the cinema just for that.

I asked him if he was gonna play the US version so he could understand the story and he said no, they took the 5.1 surrounds out, so there's no point.

DFS.

 

[mrklaw]

Nah, you're reading it wrong. It ain't mandatory on the movies. It's mandatory on the hardware. So companies making players have to support both codecs, but studios can pick and choose what they want to put on a disc.

DFS.

phew. Hope you're right. Although it'd kind of be nice to see Lucas doing DTS mixes of his movies

 

[Kleegamefan]

http://db.widescreenreview.com/wsrm...Year=2004&Month=09&Day=28&-recid=41991&-find=

DTS (Digital Theater Systems, Inc.) today announced that its DTS Coherent Acoustics coding system has been selected as mandatory audio technology for both the Blu-ray Disc (BD) and High Definition Digital Versatile Disc (HD-DVD), the two next generation high-definition disc formats for home video. In addition to the Company's core technology, DTS' extension technologies have also been selected as options. Encompassing higher data rates, lossless operation and additional channels, DTS' extension technologies, identified by the DVD Forum (HD-DVD) and Blu-ray Disc Association collectively as DTS++, have been approved as optional features on both HD-DVD and Blu-ray Disc. DTS++ is also the only lossless audio technology selected for both disc formats.

This "article" is grasping at straws to link this official dts announcement with speculation of XENON and PS3 using the new dts codec...

Thats right, BRD and HD-DVD will be using the *new* dts"++" codec along with good ol' dts

The "++" is an extension of the current 5.1 dts seen in movies and some PS2 games....

Unlike current dts, "++"is a lossless audio codec ala DSD and MLP, it is capable of up to 24-bit/192Khz sampling and 7.1 discrete full bandwidth channels....remember, this is not like regular Dolby Digital or dts codecs which are lossy codecs....we are talking about DVD Audio/DSD quality sound here.......since it dts ++ is a mandatory requirement of both the BRD and HD-DVD spec, players (including the PS3) will have a dts++ *DECODER* in the player...

This is not to say PS3 *GAMES* will have real-time encoded dts++ sound, and we all know signs point to XENON sticking with regular DVDs not HD-DVDs at this point in time...

This is a non-article, IMO

 

[Eggo]

Cool. DTS rules. Not as supported, but way better sound than Dolby Digital.

 

[SKluck]

What the shit? Maybe I'm dense but any person using surround is going to have a reciever, and any reciever worth its weight in salt is going to decode DTS and Dolby.

I just don't see why there is any point to this.

 

[Crazymoogle]

What the shit? Maybe I'm dense but any person using surround is going to have a reciever, and any reciever worth its weight in salt is going to decode DTS and Dolby.

I just don't see why there is any point to this.

They are links in the chain. The receiver can't do shit with a DTS signal if the video device doesn't support it. So basically, the whole article was saying "BRD players and HD-DVD players have to understand DTS!"

 

[Schmo Florez]

What about SDDS for PS3?

DUDE you've been pimpin' the SDDS for years now Defensor! give it up brotha. until they make a home receiver with SDDS decoding you won't see support for it.

 

[mrklaw]

What the shit? Maybe I'm dense but any person using surround is going to have a reciever, and any reciever worth its weight in salt is going to decode DTS and Dolby.

I just don't see why there is any point to this.

IAWTP

I can understand them having the requirement to support outputting the digital bitstream for DTS++ etc, but not decoding it. Thats always been an additional feature that allowed some manufacturers to differentiate players based on spec and price.

I can't for a second imagine all players being forced to have expensive decode circuitry.

I also can't imagine Yamaha etc missing the opportunity to sell more receivers