Please add support for DTS for the Sonos Playbar.

@Sonos - as DTS-support is already being considered, how long will this consideration process take? Any time-tag on that?

@Sonos - as DTS-support is already being considered, how long will this consideration process take? Any time-tag on that?
That's as good as you're going to get. It should be noted that there are other requests "Under consideration" which have been around a lot longer than this one.

I have a very satisfactory solution. I have playbar the SUB and 2 play 3. I bought a Samsung blu ray player that can stream audio bitstream re-encode in Dolby. Playbar recognizes the signal and indicates dolby digital 5.1. Rendering a DTS HD track is very good. As good in any case by choosing an audio track in another language in Dolby. Tested with the film The Town
Frustrated with not being able to play my blu-ray discs in discrete surround sound, I decided to bite the bullet and buy one of these Samsung BD-F5100 network blu-ray players. I own a Panasonic plasma TV that has an optical out, but will only output a 2.0 stereo signal. If I feed it DD5.1, it downmixes. If I feed it DTS, I get silence. If I connect my existing Panasonic blu-ray player directly to PLAYBAR, I get 5.1 from a Dolby Digital source, but silence from DTS as PLAYBAR refuses to support it. As described in the manual above, the Samsung will transcode on the fly from DTS to Dolby Digital - but there is a lot of small print to go with it. I bought the new player for around £65 on Amazon, but also had to spend an extra £10 on an adapter to convert the BD-F5100's co-axial output to an optical one - unlike previous Sonos products like ZP80/ZP90/Connect, the PLAYBAR only support an optical connection. My Panasonic blu-ray was pretty much first generation blu-ray. It was big, slow and clunky. Booting up and getting to the menu on a blu-ray might take a couple of minutes. The new Samsung is much quicker and boots up faster than the TV, a welcome relief. It's also a much smaller unit, not much wider than the disc tray, and therefore tidier on my TV cabinet. So, does it do what I needed it to? Well....yes...and no! I've configured it to output convert audio streams to Dolby Digital, for compatibility with PLAYBAR and it worked first time. The Superman blu-ray that has previously been silent was now playing in 5.1 surround for the first time. So far so good, so I tried another disc. Not the case with the second disc, it just didn't sound like it should. The Sonos controller confirmed it was receiving a "stereo" (PCM) input. Low quality, poor surround, no discrete centre channel. Nothing changed, the player just stopped emitting Dolby Digital. I pressed STOP, then the player crashed and I had to disconnect it from the power outlet to reboot. Annoyingly, Samsung have hard wired the power cable to the unit, so I couldn't pull the power at the player end. Not ideal when it is prone to crashing. After a reboot, DD5.1 returned and worked fine for a couple more discs, then reverted to stereo. When this happens, it seems I have to cycle power, eject and re-insert the disc and generally stop and start until it decides to work. It's truly random. Needless to say, it will be a great PLAYBAR demo when I have visitors as I spend 15 minutes trying to get the movie to work. So, the player kind of works but is pretty unreliable. It also needs the optical adapter, which requires another cable and another power connection. I didn't have a spare socket behind me TV for this, which was another pain. So SONOS, I've spent £75 to try and workaround your decision not to license DTS for considerably less. It works...ish...but still leaves PLAYBAR on the "not recommended" list as this workaround can only be described as problematic and not ideal. I shall use it, but only in desparation to try and enjoy surround sound alongside my HD video.

I'm very likely to return my brand new Sonos PLAYBAR in case Sonos is not absolutely clear on a written commitment to support DTS on the existing and currently delivered PALYBAR hardware with some kind of software upgrade.

I'm very likely to return my brand new Sonos PLAYBAR in case Sonos is not absolutely clear on a written commitment to support DTS on the existing and currently delivered PALYBAR hardware with some kind of software upgrade.
There was a live chat back in February where a sonos engineer said that DTS support could be added via software update You can find the transcript on this site.

@Sonos, please give us an update on this issue!

I'm very likely to return my brand new Sonos PLAYBAR in case Sonos is not absolutely clear on a written commitment to support DTS on the existing and currently delivered PALYBAR hardware with some kind of software upgrade.
To me it seems Sonos is trying to ignore the real 'home cinema' world. Until the homegrown 'missing DTS issue' is fixed I would appreciate to see some kind of WHITE list for TV sets supporting transcoding for ALL inputs to Optical Output into ‘Sonos compatible DD 5.1’. The WHITE list for TV sets should definitively only mention TV sets working fine for ALL inputs as ‘DD 5.1 transcoding audio hub’ to fulfill the exaggerated marketing announcement about the Sonos PLAYBAR on the Sonos website: “ Plays all sources plugged in to your HD TV: satellite boxes, Blu-Ray players, and video game consoles. If it’s connected to your HD TV, PLAYBAR will play it.“ Some kind of GREY list should also mention TV sets supporting only PCM 2.0 on the Optical Output. Anyway, even if the PLAYBAR is capable of up-mixing a PCM 2.0 to 5.1, it's not going to improve sound quality to down-mix to PCM 2.0 on the TV set and afterwards re-up-mix to 5.1 in the PLAYBAR. (This is as sad as an analog connection to your internal notebook display) @Alex: Many thanks for the very useful hint to the PLAYBAR chat. @Sonos: Go ahead and deliver the DTS software upgrade for the PLAYBAR instantly to proof you are serious about home cinema use of your products. Time is short.

Please see a copy of a mail thread with Sonos and take a short look by yourself to figure out if they are serious about home cinema use of the PLAYBAR or not. (Support answers are weak marketing chat, the CEO is not answering at all.) _________________ Thread Titel: Stop the PLAYBAR marketing lies ! _________________ Hello Keith, dear (unknown) CEO, seen your answer and for sure I’m going to return the unit instantly. No way to keep this scrap on weak promises and marketing lies. For sure you can send me updates about new features and functionality. But I’ve learned the information on your website is inaccurate. With all required respect, but Sonos is simply lying to customers. Sincerely Bernd _________________ Hello Bernd, We do not give out any information on any future updates or products. As soon as I know anything, I can send you that information. If you would like me to return the unit for you, please let me know. Sincerely, Keith M Sonos Support Manager. _________________ Hello Keith, dear CEO, thanks for fast fast answer, anyway it does not lead into a solution, especially it does not answer my question. Therefore I’m asking again for a clear statement, not for a weak ‘maybe sometime in future’ marketing answer. First please seriously review my statements below together with your engineering team about HD TV sets. Second please answer my clear and simple question at the end of this mail. 1. The Sonos view of PCM, DD and DTS handling on common HD TV sets is wrong, at a minimum bad market research. Most HD TV sets work in pass through or bit stream mode on their optical output. Therefore they commonly forward the given DD 5.1 or DTS 5.1 bit stream unchanged to their optical output to forward best quality. As a result of this common implementation they are forwarding DD 5.1 or DTS 5.1 to the PLAYBAR depending on the source signal. In example most audio content delivered on Blu-Ray is DTS 5.1, especially if you go for the international translations of the audio streams. For sure on some HD TV sets you can configure PCM 2 down-sampling for the optical output. As already stated this leads into down-sampling on the HD TV set and re-up-sampling on the PLAYBAR and therefore an unacceptable loss of audio quality. By design this multiple re-sampling dramatically reduces the 5.1 experience, ‘cause it’s not native 5.1 as given on the source, it’s just virtual surround quality. Anyway this is just a sad workaround to the missing DTS support on a 2k Sonos surround sound system (counting a PLAYBAR, a SUB and two PLAY:3). 2. The question asked multiple times is simple and the two possible answers are ‘YES’ or ‘NO’: Is Sonos going to offer full and hassle-free DTS 5.1 support on the currently purchased PLAYBAR hardware? Again: I’m asking some kind of a multiple choice question and the possible answers are: ‘YES, YOU CAN KEEP YOUR CURRENT PLAYBAR, WE ARE GOING TO SUPPORT FULL AND HASSLE-FREE DTS 5.1 ON THE CURRENT PLAYBAR HARDWARE.’ ‘NO, RETURN IT, WE ARE NOT ABLE, NOT WILLING, NOT SKILLED ENOUGH TO SUPPORT FULL AND HASSLE-FREE DTS 5.1 ON THE CURRENT PLAYBAR HARDWARE.’ Your options are ‘YES’ or ‘NO’ nothing in between, ‘cause I need to decide if I want to keep my current PLAYBAR or to return it on time and get my money back. Anyway I really like the Sonos PLAYBAR, the other Sonos audio stuff and the Sonos user experience, but I’m not likely to take the risk to stay with possibly clumsy hardware. Sincerely Bernd Krause ________________ Hello Bernd, I thank you for your feedback on the PLAYBAR. The design of the PLAYBAR is to work through the Optical Out of your TV. The majority of TVs do not pass DTS. They commonly will pass either Stereo or Dolby Digital, which the PLAYBAR can handle. If we receive a Stereo Signal, the PLAYBAR will upmix this signal to a virtual Surround Sound. For Dolby signals, we will play that format as a Native Dolby Digital signal. I will bring this DTS feature request up to the System Design Team. Hopefully this is something we can introduce to the PLAYBAR at some point in the future. Once again, thank you for your feedback. Sincerely, Keith M Sonos Support Manager. ________________ Dear CEO, dear Customer Service Manager, just a few days ago I bought a brand new PLAYBAR and I’m completely dissatisfied and quite upset about the big discrepancies between marketing descriptions and product features. Your website is saying : Plays all sources plugged in to your HD TV: satellite boxes, Blu-Ray players, and video game consoles. If it’s connected to your HD TV, PLAYBAR will play it. http://www.sonos.com/shop/products/playbar In simple words - and please accept my apologies about my pour English - this is a simple, but rough marketing lie. From a quick reviews it’s less than 20% of the common HD TV sets going to play properly from all inputs with the PLAYBAR. The main reason for this major lack of functionality is the missing DTS support of the PLAYBAR. As I learned from your support this is ‘failure by design’, therefore it’s seems to be an engineering problem. From my point of view you have just two options: Close the gap and correct the engineering problem by adding DTS support to the PLAYBAR. As a first result your current marketing information is (as everywhere just nearby) going to tell the truth. This way you are going to keep your customers satisfied and stop the upcoming ‘shit storm’ about the PLAYBAR. Or keep the gap, but stop the marketing lies on your website and tell the people the truth about the current PLAYBAR: It’s just a good music player looking similar to a soundbar and with some good luck it connects to your HD TV, too. It’s up to you to make the proper decisions. At this point in time I’m very likely to return my PLAYBAR in case I’m getting no valuable, reliable and convincing response telling me it’s going to have full and hassle-free DTS support on the currently purchased hardware. For sure it looks nice and quite similar to a real soundbar, but it only works fine as a music player and it’s definitively not matching the mainstream demand of the real ‘home cinema’ world and the common audio formats. Sincerely Bernd Krause

There are two paths to take here: 1) You are not happy with the PLAYBAR device in its current form. You return it for a refund. If, in future, they add the missing feature you require, there is nothing to stop you buying again. 2) You are happy with the PLAYBAR in its current form. You keep the device and Sonos recognises that you are happy with paying circa 1800 of your local currency for a 5.1 system that doesn't support DTS. You pay your money, you make your choice. Sending emails suggesting you "might" return it is an idle threat, only if people actually do return them within the approval period will the problem be recognised. There are dozens of comments here but I've only seen one owner claim to actually return the product so far. Sonos of released a product with limited features for a price. If people pay that price and keep the product, they have successfully reached the intended target market. If nobody buys it, or they return it, they have failed. The feedback I'm hearing so far is that there are many happy owners.

There are two paths to take here: 1) You are not happy with the PLAYBAR device in its current form. You return it for a refund. If, in future, they add the missing feature you require, there is nothing to stop you buying again. 2) You are happy with the PLAYBAR in its current form. You keep the device and Sonos recognises that you are happy with paying circa 1800 of your local currency for a 5.1 system that doesn't support DTS. You pay your money, you make your choice. Sending emails suggesting you "might" return it is an idle threat, only if people actually do return them within the approval period will the problem be recognised. There are dozens of comments here but I've only seen one owner claim to actually return the product so far. Sonos of released a product with limited features for a price. If people pay that price and keep the product, they have successfully reached the intended target market. If nobody buys it, or they return it, they have failed. The feedback I'm hearing so far is that there are many happy owners.
Please review the updated mail thread above: Decision made easy: I'm going to return the scrap instantly. Sonos is not able or not willing to give any serious commitment to current customers on their PLAYBAR plans and updates. Return the PLAYBAR and go for something real !