Enthusiast II

Feature Request: Enable Dolby Digital Plus (E-AC-3 or DD+) for Better Audio Quality

34 replies
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This feature request is for Sonos support Dolby Digital Plus, also known as E-AC-3 or DD+. This would permit a higher quality audio experience when watching surround sound-enabled videos.

Sonos currently supports PCM stereo and Dolby Digital (AC-3) surround sound. This made sense for the Playbar and Playbase, which only have a S/PDIF connection.

With the Sonos Beam's HDMI ARC connection, it is now possible to deliver a Dolby Digital Plus bitstream to the Sonos 5.1 system. Many Blu-rays include a 1.5Mbps Dolby Digital Plus track. Many streaming services including iTunes, Netflix, and Amazon Prime Video support the Dolby Digital Plus codec both for efficiency and in order to deliver Dolby Atmos. Further, it is possible for an app (like Plex) to transcode in a perceptually transparent manner from lossless codecs like TrueHD and DTS:X (as well as lossy codecs like DTS that are unsupported by Sonos) to Dolby Digital Plus. This is because DD+ can support up to 6Mbps throughput versus Dolby Digital's 640Kbps cap.

A simple software upgrade would deliver higher audio fidelity to systems with a Sonos Beam in a 5.1 arrangement (i.e. a Beam + 2x Sonos Ones + a SUB).

Note: this request is separate from delivering true home theater Dolby Atmos in a 7.1.4 speaker arrangement.

For more details:

https://developer.dolby.com/blog/dolby-audio-over-hdmi-part-1-codecs/

https://developer.dolby.com/blog/dolby-audio-over-hdmi-part-2-signaling-and-carriage/

https://developer.dolby.com/blog/dolby-audio-over-hdmi-part-3-reality/

https://developer.dolby.com/blog/dolby-audio-support-on-apple-tv/

https://www.avsforum.com/forum/39-networking-media-servers-content-streaming/2378442-dolby-digital-plus-dd-atmos-over-hdmi-arc.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolby_Laboratories

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BrussRUs

Lyricist III

More vitriol. Not surprised. Whining? Don't recall doing that but I'm only assuming you think I am seeking your validation or acceptance which is far from the truth. I already read the article you linked and the reason I was more interested in understanding common mode within ARC. Thanks. Try having a conversation instead of seeing everything as an argument.

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SpannerBracket

Lyricist I

Just stumbled upon this thread while considering Sonos as a 5.1 solution rather than installing dedicated speaker cabling in a room.

ARC has two operating modes. Single Mode and Common. There are suggestions single mode supports up to 3Mbps, but I believe the bandwidth is very dependent on cable length so likely the 1Mbps measure mentioned is a safe compromise that allows it to work consistently. Common mode can support up to 12Mbps and would therefore be ample to support Dolby Digital+. The problem is that both the sender and receiver have to support Common mode and with most manufacturers not even stating whether they support Common mode - it seems unlikely to gain significant traction. LG do support it, and apparently even support a compromised Dolby Atmos over it.

For me the Sonos brand wants to be like Apple where 'stuff just works' (even if that is more marketing than reality!). Adding DD+ using Common mode would likely result in a hit and miss experience for customers, damaging the perception of 'stuff just works'.

I can't believe Sonos want to get into the space of some of the other soundbar manufacturers where they are taking full HDMI video feeds, stripping the audio and then passing the video on to the TV and even if they did, they'd need new hardware to do that.

Much more likely is a replacement Playbar with eARC sometime in the future.

This article gives a pretty good understanding of the challenge here if you want to draw your own conclusions:
http://community.cedia.net/blogs/david-meyer/2018/06/25/dolby-atmos-over-hdmi-arc

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Herr_Vlad

Avid Contributor I

HDMI ARC can and in many implementations DOES DD+.

Atmos was originally encoded in TrueHD (lossless) codec, but there are implementations (like Netflix) that use DD+ to carry Atmos soundtracks in a lossy codec.

A good thread to read:
https://www.avsforum.com/forum/39-networking-media-servers-content-streaming/2378442-dolby-digital-plus-dd-atmos-over-hdmi-arc.html

However, we're not talking Atmos, but DD+ in "regular 5.1". Yes, ARC supports DD+.

Would I love it if Sonos implemented it on the Beam? Damn right I would!

Do I know if the hardware is the limitation? No. I have no idea what HW is under the hood, and if it can be upgrade to support DD+. If you know what HW is there, please do share, along with proper specifications.

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Onyo

Contributor I

I think the best solution to this request is make a teardown of the Sonos Beam ,and see what DSP ic they are using and from there you will know it can be implemented with a software update.

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