Dolby Atmos



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Praying to see SONOS announcing Atmos / DTS on CES this week!
I just pulled the trigger on an LG OLED65C7P with Atmos sound. I have SONOS audio all over the house but never hooked my TV/Surround system into it. I'm looking for the right audio system to go with it as my 5.1 with the old TV is pooched. The Playbar looks very long in the tooth and while I'd like the TV hooked into the audio system - it doesn't look like money well spent now. I'll hold off for a new Playbar with Atmos support - but I hope it will be soon in 2018...if it takes too long...I'll have to find another solution...maybe add a Connect to be able to put music through it.

I got a OLED65B7A this holiday season, which does not support Atmos, for a very simple reason in this thread: Sonos does not support Atoms and HDMI. My wiring is very typical: HDMI to TV, optics to soundbar. I doubt Sonos would make the Atoms happen without a new product. However, a product that solved this kind of backward compatibility issues would sell.
I just pulled the trigger on an LG OLED65C7P with Atmos sound. I have SONOS audio all over the house but never hooked my TV/Surround system into it. I'm looking for the right audio system to go with it as my 5.1 with the old TV is pooched. The Playbar looks very long in the tooth and while I'd like the TV hooked into the audio system - it doesn't look like money well spent now. I'll hold off for a new Playbar with Atmos support - but I hope it will be soon in 2018...if it takes too long...I'll have to find another solution...maybe add a Connect to be able to put music through it.
I’m patiently waiting on Sonus to offer something. I currently have a play 1 but have held off getting anything else because of this issue. I have a feeling I will be investing in Denon or Bluesound if Sonos does not adapt. I would be happy with simple acknowledgment that a product to address the issue is in the works.

Guys. If you read these threads listen to us. Don’t think someone can’t take your spot.
I'm hoping for something like a Play 3-Remake with an HDMI-Input. It could be used as center and send the DTS / Atmos / etc to any other Sonos-speakers which can then be used as left, right, rear and atmos channels.
PLEASE! I'd immediately go for this.
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New product ($900) for television application with no HDMI? Get the fuck out of here. Who is running this company?!

Someone pretty senior at Blackberry and look how that went !
https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/feature/2473044/6-reasons-blackberry-crumbled-in-the-smartphone-market
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The original response from Ryan, 8 months ago, was that high fidelity codecs were a long way off or irrelevant to the target Sonos market: streamers.

In a few short months that has turned out to be entirely false. All major video streamers (Netflix etc) are incorporating these codecs (DD+/Atmos) with regularity now.

Sonos has no answer and is getting lapped by weaker products that are easily integrating this audio capability into its sound bar home theatre solutions.

In short, the standard Sonos reply (that they were never after the bluray market) no longer holds water. They have failed to adapt. The fact that they released a new home theatre product in 2017 that runs an optical cable (and thus handicaps its capability now and in the future), is comical, really. I laughed at my dad’s Bose system 8 years ago for not having an HDMI port.

New product ($900) for television application with no HDMI? Get the fuck out of here. Who is running this company?!
Sonos, you are way outside "cutting edge" right now. This is not how you became so successful... step it up!
Thanks in anticipation of your future plan in this direction.
I'm seeking for a Sonos Playbar (not the Playbase) including BOTH DTSX and Dolby Atmos (along with Sub & a pair of Play3), free of issues or bugs, and at a reasonable price. I'm from a country where there is no outlet of SONOS, nonetheless I'm eagerly waiting for such an exotic sound system (even from a third party).

NB. Playbar of length not greater than 43" is desirable since the standard size of the present day 4K HDR TV starts from 43" & most suitable for a compact living room)

In my view, the aforementioned system must defeat all the available atmos soundbar e.g., sony st5000, samsung kw950 or lgsj9.
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Been following PlayBar for a while now. With Apple announcing AppleTV 4K with software update coming soon for Atmos support. I’m hoping to see fresh hardware from Sonos on PlayBar. I feel the PlayBar is extremely limited and dated honestly. I’ve been there done that with high end home theater and now just want simplistic setup, but still supporting latest tech. Let’s do this Sonos, streaming is clearly the future and it seems all hardware vendors are jumping on Atmos bandwagon.
I'd be surprised if it were on their roadmap, given the potential licensing issues, much less backwards compatibility problems. If, and it would be a pretty outside chance, that they were to do something, I'd assume it would be in a new speaker, and not a simple add-on.
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Ok thanks - so some sort of mod/extra piece of Sonos kit or an entirely new Playbar do you think?
Yes, this thread is saying that, given the current (optical) connection. They would have to change that for it to be able to handle Atmos.
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Shame as looks like Atmos being broadcast for all UHD sports/movies on the Sky Q box...

Is this thread saying that the Sonos HW will never be capable of supporting Atmos or just that it could, but Sonos have made the concious decision not too yet...? (& could therefore develop & release as a future update?)
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Dolby Atmos is not a codec, but an immersive audio format, which can be delivered with Dolby TrueHD codec and DD+(http://developer.dolby.com/News/Dolby_Audio_Over_HDMI_Part_1__Codecs.aspx).


Amazing link, thankyou!
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Anyway, you always can choose, either you go with 1 soundbar and 32 devices or you can have 2 soundbars, 2 wifi routers and have 64:) I would say the majority of people who want Dolby Atmos will accept this kind of limitation
I guess you're contending that the 32 device limit on the Sonos stream would cover all of the needs for Atmos, which I suppose is indeed possible. Hadn't thought of it in that fashion, but then with two TVs, and needing 12 speakers for each, I'd be pretty close to the limit of devices, which would cut down on my music only speakers. Interesting problem.
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I'd love to have an engineer weigh in on how much bandwidth there is available, and how much a fully saturated 7.1.4 sound system would take.


Well, it is not a problem for Sonos as we know it supports up to X speakers for multi room setup and 7.1.4 is basically the same. If the format is processed by soundbar than it is correctly distributed across speakers. The b/g wifi can go up to 54mb/s and it is more than enough for any format
Atmos supports 7.1.4 speakers. That's 7 regular speakers, 1 subwoofer, and 4 in ceiling or upward firing speakers, according to Dolby's website. How much bandwidth across wifi would all of that take? i.e. I'm not convinced it's only an issue with optical cabling, although I do think it's also part of that. But with so many additional speakers, I wonder how much space their is in the bandwidth. Right now, Sonos deals with basically 3 speakers in their 5.1 system in terms of wifi, the two surrounds, and the SUB. The Center, Right, and Left are all inside the same box, and consequently not streamed on the 5Ghz that is used.

I'd love to have an engineer weigh in on how much bandwidth there is available, and how much a fully saturated 7.1.4 sound system would take.

I think at the end of the day, Sonos will have to go away from the optical connection, and provide perhaps HDMI connectors. The problem is from a marketing standpoint, where it makes the system that much more complex for the "average" user, while making the advanced users more happy. And then there will be the inevitable complainers that they don't offer more than X inputs...but I digress 🙂
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Okay, here is the deal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOSLINK
Max bitrate is 3mb/s. Thus, forget about Dolby TrueHD(which is a codec with average bitrate of 6mb/s). Dolby Atmos is not a codec, but an immersive audio format, which can be delivered with Dolby TrueHD codec and DD+(http://developer.dolby.com/News/Dolby_Audio_Over_HDMI_Part_1__Codecs.aspx).

Eventhough, the TOSLINK can handle the DD+, but it is limited to 3mb/s, thus, theoretically, Sonos can do DD+ and Atmos, but the end user will need to look for a content with bitrate lower than 3mb/s, which is not an option as in real world you do not want to go with "half supported feature)

However, there is an option. Sonos need to create a pre-processor that will connect to one of the soundbar ethernet ports and have hdmi input. Preprocessor should take TrueHD from hdmi input, convert to data, send it over ethernet to soundbar, convert it back in soundbar and play:) As far as i understood from the entire Sonos ecosystem, the only limitation is a bandwidth of the TOS and you can potentially resolve it with hdmi to ethernet convertor and new soundbar software
Seems like Atmos is omitted...

https://arstechnica.co.uk/gadgets/2017/07/sky-soundbox/

Oops... :8
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Sky is also now supporting Dolby Atmos - and releasing its own sound bar later this year. [...]
Methinks the soundbox won't turn out to be a wireless one. Dolby Atmos & Wireless = Wishful thinking.


Seems like Atmos is omitted...

https://arstechnica.co.uk/gadgets/2017/07/sky-soundbox/
Sky is also now supporting Dolby Atmos - and releasing its own sound bar later this year. [...]
Methinks the soundbox won't turn out to be a wireless one. Dolby Atmos & Wireless = Wishful thinking.
Sky is also now supporting Dolby Atmos - and releasing its own sound bar later this year. Seems as if I’ll have to consider a Sonos alternative for video/TV. Seems a shame but there is no indication that Sonos is interested in supporting it.