NETFLIX 5.1 Dolby Digital Plus PLAYBASE

First, Sonos can’t interpret Dolby Digital Plus or DTS, only Dolby Digital, so you’ll need to restrict whatever device you’re using to stream Netflix to do only Dolby Digital. 

After that, beyond the ‘dialogue enhancement’ setting in the controller, there’s not much Sonos can do, its more up to the sound engineers who worked on the show/movie who created the soundtrack. 

I have, on occasion, found that turning on night mode helps, but not always. 

thanks for the reply but because sonos does not adapt to netflix prime etc ... many movies see spider man away from home is in DTS so it is widely used, the fact that sonos does not care about customers

Ah, you’re just here to complain, not actually seeking assistance. I’ll go away. 

as you accept praise, you must also accept criticism, this is reality! I do not question the product you understand well..only the obstinacy of sonos

is there full on the community, or write what you like?

https://en.community.sonos.com/home-theater-228993/dolby-digital-plus-update-6816303

Too many issues with the Dolby codec licensing on the hardware that’s already been sold perhaps?... so it’s far more likely we will see the DD plus codec (and possibly other codecs) on the next generation of the PlayBase and Sonos HT devices.

I note too that Apple TV 4K streaming has access to Dolby MAT codec (which decompresses on the Receiver) so the guess is the next gen hardware will perhaps jump to eARC too, but that’s just a guess of course.

No point adding Atmos to the DD+ codec either at the moment, as the current generation of Sonos hardware has no access to additional downward (or upward reflective) firing speakers in anycase.

It will be interesting to see how Sonos will choose to deal with the ‘new’ audio codecs that are now just starting to be widely used by the streaming services.

On a similar note it’s also very interesting what Amazon and Tidal are now doing with their Dolby Atmos music services.

We will just have to see what exciting things Sonos may have planned for us all in their roadmap ahead.

Lets not forget that the Playbase only has optical input, and DD+ is not practical over s/pdif, it needs HDMI.

If you want to talk about DTS, well lets not flog that dead horse any more.

Ah yes, I was wrongly thinking in terms of the Beam and its ARC connection and forgot the PlayBase has the slower* (*less through-put) optical port connection, so thanks @controlav for putting that straight for me. The hardware is simply not upto the task.

A slight possibility for DD+ codec on the Beam, but I just can’t see that happening due to the licensing aspect I mentioned earlier, plus the benefit over DD 5.1 is negligible, I personally think.

Netflix down under is all 5.1 so my Playbase is fine. As for the centre channel it's there but not as much seperation perhaps as the Playbar? I find dialogue fine perhaps you need both dialogue enhancement and night mode on!

Slower? You’re suggesting light travels slower than electricity? I’d have thought the difference was bandwidth, not speed. 

Goodness me..!! I did have a bad day yesterday with my ‘no-so-thinking’ head on straight. Yes indeed, I meant “bandwidth” rather than speed. I know, I will change it to “through-put” to hide my embarrassment. I’ll just go have a lie down Bruce. Thanks for putting that straight.

Slower? You’re suggesting light travels slower than electricity? I’d have thought the difference was bandwidth, not speed. 

Goodness me..!! I did have a bad day yesterday with my ‘no-so-thinking’ head on straight. Yes indeed, I meant “bandwidth” rather than speed. I know, I will change it to “through-put” to hide my embarrassment. I’ll just go have a lie down Bruce. Thanks for putting that straight.

 

on the playbase with optical output you can have the dts, I don't say atmos because it takes hdmi

TOSLINK now 125 Mbit/s

Serravalc,

Sonos seem to be firmly in the Dolby camp with their HT products too date (both new and old) and if you look at today’s primary streaming movie services, like Netflix, Amazon, Rakuten, Hulu, Apple etc… all are Dolby based too. We even now often finding Dolby TrueHD on blu-ray Movies and games .. and of course things are heading towards Atmos with downward firing (or upward reflective) speakers to create audio objects in a 3D space.

Couple that with what Amazon and Tidal are doing with Atmos too .. it seems obvious to me that it’s unlikely DTS will attract Sonos away from their current chosen path.

Apple and Microsoft are already down the Dolby MAT/TrueHD path too with Apple TV 4K and XBox One S.

I think that even ignoring licensing matters, that current Sonos hardware should stick with Dolby 5.1 for now (it’s extremely compatible with most things these days) then let’s hope the next generation of Sonos Hardware steps past DTS and aims for DD plus (in the least) or maybe goes full Dolby Atmos (compressed and uncompressed formats) over HDMI-eARC… that would be a “true” winner in my book.

Sadly, Sonos do not announce their roadmap going forward, so we will all just have to wait and see what comes next.

hopefully ... although in May in my opinion something will come out anyway a great pity because the quality is excellent, with netflix I always have to keep the remote in my hand and turn the volume up or down, do you also have the playbase?  Does it make a difference to replace the optical cable by taking a better one?

I think Sonos are quite lazy and complacent, only updating products when absolutely forced to. They managed to get any customer wanting DTS to find their own solution hiding behind pretending to be only catering for streaming services. Now with those providers moving to high res, DD+, Atmos etc they now have no choice. Expect the bare minimum of features they can get away with even with the competition catching up and even overtaking them. Given the fiasco around their May announcement I still like the audio quality but not the company any more. Rant over!

My hope of course is that the next generation of HT hardware will at least support all the Dolby formats DD.2.1/DD5.1 DD+5.1/DD MAT. It would be nice if they were to also include Atmos and perhaps Dolby TrueHD (uncompressed) too.

I will just wait patiently and see what happens.