can we please get dts hd and dts x it is 2022 afterall



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I’m wondering what the point is of adding DTS HD or DTS X support. Or even regular DTS for that matter: most newer TV’s from popular brands don’t support it any longer (also not passthrough).

For example LG’s and Samsung TV’s don’t anymore - so even if you’re Sonos would support it, it would be useless for most people.

 

many blurays only have dts hd or dts x as an audio option and blu rays are of course the best way to watch movies for the quality so this is why it is important to atleast some of us out there who would like to have both best picture and audio possible to them 

Well, even with a bluray player that won’t work - unless you hook your bluray player directly into you Sonos I guess. But with newer TV’s and using ARC/eARC and connecting your bluray player to your TV: that won’t work because the TV’s don’t support DTS(all) passthrough anymore.

I think that is silly btw - I would love it if TV’s would continue to support it, and if Sonos would support it too. But unfortunately as you see with Sonos & LG/Samsung it seems DTS support is being dropped with everything (or never being added).

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Or they're adding it in Arc gen 2 and therefore don't wanna add it to the original Arc so that customers have (another) reason to upgrade.

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Just to be clear, the DTS and LPCM I can get from my Arc home theater sounds great.  It’s just a shame I still cant get the non-lossy DTS-HD or object oriented DTS:X as well.

@LBJ2: I was also surprised when Sony included DTS as a streaming format for some of its newer tvs.

 

i have a hdfury vrroom device you see that would allow me to pass the audio regardless of my tv brand but only thing holding me back is the sonos arcs inability to support it

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“it is 2022 afterall”

The fact that it is 2022 is actually a good reason NOT to offer DTS support. Today, most people are moving away from physical media and are only using streaming services. DTS audio is pretty much non-existent on popular streaming services.
 

I actually prefer Blu-ray discs over streaming so I would love to see DTS-HD and DTS:X supported by Sonos. But I am also pretty content with just setting my Blu-ray player to convert DTS to PCM. I think lossless multichannel PCM audio sounds great from my DTS-encoded discs. And I doubt most people would even be able to tell the difference between DTS-HD Master Audio and multichannel PCM.

Lol, no need for the hostility. They added DTS cause the license was literally free 😅

 

Hostility?  I was just offering historical evidence that your accusation is unfounded.  If you find that hostile, you need some thicker skin.

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You're offering one example where Sonos added an outdated (and license free) codec, something people had been asking for it since the playbar. The situation is a bit different when it comes to the DTS formats still under license, ie. the cost of a retrofit would likely be much higher (especially if rolling it out as a general update). One solution has been outlined here several times: allow the users who want it to pay for the upgrade. Low cost to Sonos (could possibly even make a little change, depending on pricing), users who need it get it, and those who don't want it are unaffected. 

I can understand to a certain degree why they didn't add it to begin with (mostly cost) but not adding it as a paid retrofit option doesn't make sense to me.

Fully agree.

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its not just sonos as bose have took a similar approach along with various tv brands

There is a good reason for this… and it isn’t because of “laziness”.

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many blurays only have dts hd or dts x as an audio option and blu rays are of course the best way to watch movies for the quality so this is why it is important to atleast some of us out there who would like to have both best picture and audio possible to them

I think you are perhaps referring to the older Blu-ray movies, these days they appear mainly to have a Dolby Digital TrueHD (w or w/o Atmos) audio track, which the Arc/Beam g2 will happily play.

That said, I too would like the option to make a ‘one-off’ payment for the DTS HQ/X codecs to be added which then help to cover any development/licensing costs.

I started amassing my blu-ray collection at the start of the pandemic.  I have (happily) invested a lot and probably will hit about 1,000 titles by the end of 2022.  Some people blow money on cars and vacations, for me its been blu-rays.😂.  Anyway, roughly 60% of my movies are either DTS-HD or DTS:X.  For more than a year now, in particular, my purchases have been mostly of new releases, meaning titles that up until now were not offered in blu-ray format.  While it’s true that newly produced movies distributed in the blu-ray format usually include dolby as the audio format, more often than not, existing titles that are newly released in the blu-ray format include DTS-HD as the audio format.  They just do.  And these existing titles are still a big part of the market for new blu-ray releases, which is apparent from sites like www.blu-ray.com.  That won’t be case forever, but that is the reality today.

I wrote that I will be picking up the HT-A9 to compare with my Sonos next week but I just realized I am scheduled pick it up in a few days 🥳. I have plenty of DTS:X object based audio 4K UHD blu-ray's to test and compare between the two systems. And like you wrote there appear to be many others with lots of DTS:X/HD content as well.  With LCPM pass through on my Sonos I don't think I am hearing DTS:X object based audio but surely DTS and DTS: HD via LCPM pass through, which sounds pretty good on the Sonos. This is something I will be paying close attention to during the comparison of both systems in my own environment. Of course hoping to hear what .4 vs .2 can do for Dolby Atmos as well.

I have no idea why some major brands abandoned DTS. Sony OTOH seems to be promoting DTS right along side Dolby. Not sure if its a license expense thing for the other brands or maybe DTS doesn't want to proliferate so much in the consumer market? I've read Dolby Atmos is easier to compress for streaming purposes which I have found to sound very good with Sonos. I know streaming is getting better and better, but also all the major studios continue to produce plenty of physical discs globally with both DTS and Dolby.

 

Very interested in your views comparing between the ARC and the HT-A9, have you gone for the SA-SW5 as well?.

Possibilities like

  1. Hardware incapable of processing codec
  2. codec requires more bandwidth than optical can carry
  3. Huge time investment needed to add codec, very small percentage of customers interested, making cost versus profitability questionable
  4. lingering potential legal issues

?

I don’t think anyone is gainsaying your desire, just that there may be issues that we’re not privy to that make this potentially not quite as easy as may be expected. And no, I don’t know if any of those are valid in this case, but it took about 10 seconds to think of those potential reasons…there could be more. I don’t work for Sonos. 

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its not just sonos as bose have took a similar approach along with various tv brands

There is a good reason for this… and it isn’t because of “laziness”.

yeah and the reason is because customers asked for it thats the reason, so sonos decided to go half measure and add dts when they could have added the whole dts range which is where the laziness part comes from

 

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its not just sonos as bose have took a similar approach along with various tv brands

There is a good reason for this… and it isn’t because of “laziness”.

yeah and the reason is because customers asked for it thats the reason, so sonos decided to go half measure and add dts when they could have added the whole dts range which is where the laziness part comes from

Just curious… if lossless DTS support is so important to you, why did you invest in a system that doesn’t support it?

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Just to be clear, the DTS and LPCM I can get from my Arc home theater sounds great.  It’s just a shame I still cant get the non-lossy DTS-HD or object oriented DTS:X as well.

@LBJ2: I was also surprised when Sony included DTS as a streaming format for some of its newer tvs.

 

FWIW putting together a few DTS: X Blu-rays so I can compare DTS: X on the HT-A9 with Sonos in a few days. I just bought a 4K UHD DTS: X Blu-ray called “Lone Survivor” w/ Mark Wahlberg and tried it out on the Sonos 5.1.2 via LCPM 7.1 pass through. This Blu-ray sounds terrific on the Sonos 5.1.2. Lots of room filling dynamic sound and some good helicopters demos throughout too.* It’s a bloody war movie with many F-Bombs so not for children to hear or see. Very curious how this will sound with true DTS: X on the HT-A9 compared to the Sonos 5.1.2. But if you want to rock your Sonos 5.1.2 with a $15 Blu-ray...“Lone Survivor” 👍🏼

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Hi @daryld1988 

Thanks for your post!

I've marked this thread as a feature request and it will be seen by the relevant teams for consideration.

really appreciate that thank you

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Last time I looked, and it’s been a couple of years at least, the licensing fee was a monthly fee, and not a one time cost. That certainly might have changed, but still…

 

It's never been a monthly fee. DTS charge a license per device. It's around $20, so it's just Sonos being cheap / lazy sound engineers not wanting to tune their devices to support the codec. It's the only reason why the basic standard 15 year old codec is available as the license went free. 

Thanks for the correction, as I said, it’s been several years, and at the time I was looking at a raft of various licensing agreements, not just sound related. Must have a faulty memory about it. 

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Thanks for the correction, as I said, it’s been several years, and at the time I was looking at a raft of various licensing agreements, not just sound related. Must have a faulty memory about it. 

 

Either way, the mark up on devices they could easily add it. DTS:X is coming to Disney+ in 2 months anyway so maybe that will give them a kick up the backside. There's also another streaming platform adding it in June. Can't unfortunately say which one, but that will be 2 major platforms that will have it. 

hi just touching on this which im sure has already been asked plenty of times, but can we just get dts hd and dts x already it seems crazy to me to think a system that can cost up to and over 1500 hasnt the ability to play these modern formats, when you could pick up a standard av receiver for about 300 pound which would support all the mentioned formats

I have found myself more times than enough now sitting down to watch a film and simply getting mute audio just because it is in dts hd or dts x and quite alot of the time this is when i have friends and family over so it isnt a good look for the sonos brand that it cant produce sound for these types of movies or tv shows

it is somnething that could quite easily be achieved since yous went and enabled dts standard after not supporting it, i feel if yous want to be seen as the go to soundbars yous then have to make sure its the go to for audio formats also which currently it isnt dont get me wrong the sonos eco system and products are fantastic and i love my setup but to do dts but not go as far as offering dts hd or dts x is just lazy

I know Sonos defenders talk about how it’s a niche Codec with Blu-ray’s a small part of the market and it’s a business decision etc etc… That’s nonsense though since all of their main competitors offer full DTS support, DTS-X & Neural X upmix; such as, Sony, LG, Samsung & I believe the JBL… Those brands also offer full DTS support for their mid tier soundbars as well. 
 

At $2,400 the new Sonos lacking DTS-X is just silly since they could clearly put the additional costs on the consumer & would not affect sales one bit at that price point. Instead it would add a small percentage of sales. I’m ranting because it’s a missed opportunity, the Sonos Ultimate is the only soundbar I’ve listened too that can give spatial height & does so with a nicely matched crossover. Samsung 990C is about a thousand dollars cheaper with full DTS support & sounds excellent. Sonos seams to have a little more articulation with dialogue idk if they have mid range tweeters similar to Nakamichi? 
Anyways rant over… haha you’re spot on though! Lacking 2.1 HDMI inputs, DTS-X, and at least a basic room calibration on any flagship multi channel soundbar system is just dumb…

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Possibilities like

  1. Hardware incapable of processing codec
  2. codec requires more bandwidth than optical can carry
  3. Huge time investment needed to add codec, very small percentage of customers interested, making cost versus profitability questionable
  4. lingering potential legal issues

?

I don’t think anyone is gainsaying your desire, just that there may be issues that we’re not privy to that make this potentially not quite as easy as may be expected. And no, I don’t know if any of those are valid in this case, but it took about 10 seconds to think of those potential reasons…there could be more. I don’t work for Sonos. 

3 is obviously true: optical cannot pass the more advanced DTS codecs but that only affects the Ray, the Playbar/Playbase are no longer sold.

This request is only valid for the Beam Gen 2 and the Arc, although it seems this is not clear to some.

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Correct, optical can't pass high bandwidth codecs like DTS:X but the products with eARC should have more than enough overhead. Here's a nice diagram techhive made that shows the differences easily if anyone is in doubt:

 

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This request is only valid for the Beam Gen 2 and the Arc

...and (more importantly?) future Home Theatre products. I’m hoping the next generation of Amp will process eARC, although I have some higher priority feature requests there.

I can see why DTS:X support would be desirable - the Jason Bourne UHD Bluray mixes make noticeably more use of the overhead channels than Atmos content does on my AVR setup. However, I’m not convinced my Beam 2 setup is capable of delivering that difference with its speaker set, maybe the ARC can though.

As it stands, unless LG also back port their DTS feature enhancement to C1/A1 generation I won’t be finding out for quite some time.

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Hello,

I would assume if DTS-HD content is not interpreted by the Beam or the Arc, DTS core content should be played instead now that both are DTS compatible, shouldn’t it?

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@MrZeDark just checked my Harry Potter steel book collection and it is hdr10 and dts-hd master 7.1 

The apple tv version I have is dolby vision and 5.1 dolby digital…

Just thought I'd offer that information 😊

Harry Potter is in DTS-HD-MA & DTS:X on 4k UHD Disc. I wasn’t referring to streaming. 

I have streamed it, it’s fine - but I’ll never be able to buy and own this, and enjoy spatial audio in Harry Potter on my Sonos. 

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The xbox one and the Series X upscales DTS X to Dolby Atmos.

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It’s all well and good having DTS, but if the only way to get it relies on either 1. your TV downgrading it if you don’t want surround on other inputs, or 2. your Blu Ray player downgrading all DTS and Dolby audio no matter what (making you lose things like Dolby Atmos)……...then what’s the point of having DTS in the first place?

Please, @Sonos , even if you didn’t support DTS-HD/X, at least a feature which knows to downgrade the audio automatically when it’s not supported?

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DTS support was something that I found extremely annoying, SONOS not willing to pay the measly $1 per device fee in years gone by; when every other vendor can and did ‘afford’ this license! …all the devils advocates on here would discredit anybody that dared insinuate DTS was required

 

Most of my 300+ Blurays were DTS formats….and since I went SONOS to appease my family with ease of use, they are now in a box (for charity or sale) so I’d forgotten about this DTS conundrum

 

Lets hope SONOS listen to customers for a change

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