Please add support for DTS for the Sonos Playbar.
Userlevel 2
A hifi homecinema soundbar without dts support seems not up to date for me. Are there any plans to add dts support?
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- How common is DTS? Only found in Blu-Ray?
Fairly common, but the place you see it the most is in Blu-Ray and DVD playback. Sadly DTS isn't determined (solely) by the player, but by the actual disc itself and how the movie was encoded.
- If I have a Blu-Ray player, but play a regular DVD on it, will that play fine with the Sonos 5.1 (playbar, sub, two play 1s)?
Depends on the DVD, some will work, some won't. In theory it might not have audio at all (if DTS is the only audio encoding on the disc) but in practice that never actually happens, rather it will fallback on stereo or mono audio as most DVDs and Blu-Rays have a stereo (PCM) and 5.1 or 7.1 audio track.
- Without DTS, are people saying that the Sonos 5.1 "doesn't sound good"?
Basically yes, it will output stereo audio out of your "5.1" surround sound setup, so not really too much better than the speakers built into the TV. It will sound better than the average flat screen simply because the speakers in the average flat screen are terrible, but it falls well short of what a true 5.1 surround sound setup is capable of. Basically people are mad because their $1400 worth of audio equipment sounds like a $200 set of stereo speakers.
- How is the Sonos 5.1 if just watching Netflix through apple tv?
Probably fine. I'd need to confirm, but I don't think Netflix has DTS audio output. On the other hand, you're probably once again not getting the full 5.1 experience, so you could probably save a ton of money and buy something cheaper and get just as good of an audio experience.
Read through pages, but couldn't find a cliffs notes, so some noob questions:
- How common is DTS? Only found in Blu-Ray?
- If I have a Blu-Ray player, but play a regular DVD on it, will that play fine with the Sonos 5.1 (playbar, sub, two play 1s)?
- Without DTS, are people saying that the Sonos 5.1 "doesn't sound good"?
- How is the Sonos 5.1 if just watching Netflix through apple tv?
- How common is DTS? Only found in Blu-Ray?
- If I have a Blu-Ray player, but play a regular DVD on it, will that play fine with the Sonos 5.1 (playbar, sub, two play 1s)?
- Without DTS, are people saying that the Sonos 5.1 "doesn't sound good"?
- How is the Sonos 5.1 if just watching Netflix through apple tv?
We bought a 75" 4K tv and went with the Sonos soundbar because we have the Sonos system in our house. Imagine how fun it was last night, after instillation, to discover the the soundbar doesn't support DTS. The sounds bar goes back tomorrow.
FYI...outside of home theater I'm a huge sonos fan, but I feel like I've wasted a lot of hard earned money on my Playbar, Play1s and to a lesser extend the Sub.
Sonos gear seems to resell at stupidly high values so I am confident you'd get back far more than 50%.
I don't understand why they don't offer DTS either, especially when I can buy a cheap £30 audio converter that does so, but you should have known that before buying - it's mentioned in every review I have read.
Dear Sonos, i would happily return the Sonos components that I purchased to use in my home theater setup at even 50% of my cost. That dollar amount could translate into a decent 7.1 solution that supports DTS and a number of other surround formats.
FYI...outside of home theater I'm a huge sonos fan, but I feel like I've wasted a lot of hard earned money on my Playbar, Play1s and to a lesser extend the Sub.
FYI...outside of home theater I'm a huge sonos fan, but I feel like I've wasted a lot of hard earned money on my Playbar, Play1s and to a lesser extend the Sub.
Mine does...samsung...purchased 2 years ago.
Need DTS support! Just received my play 1's...so disappointed! I have a playbar, sub, play 1 surrounds, connect amp and and older non amped version. Lotsa $$$$....no surround sound when watching TV!
I would also like to add my frustration to the mix as a video projector user.
As much as I'd love to get rid of wires in my home theatre the current relic setup of being tied to a TV up front is infuriating as all of my equipment excluding the front speakers are situated by the projector at the back of the room and all sources are out of necessity connected via HDMI to my Denon AV amp for source switching as my projector has only two HDMI inputs and I have four sources (ATV, PS3, XBOX, MacMini).
What us projector users would need is a fictional product Sonos AV-CONNECT 4K HDMI switch/audio decoder/Sonos controller which could take the HDMI-inputs of various devices, switch the video (up to 4K) to external display devices like a projector and decode DD/DTS7.1 and relay that to the relevant mix of wireless Sonos speakers in the room that form the 5.1 or 7.1 home theater.
I would love to have playbar & sub upfront and four 1's as the satellites wirelessly, but with the current TV-centric product it's a total miss on Sonos side 😞
As much as I'd love to get rid of wires in my home theatre the current relic setup of being tied to a TV up front is infuriating as all of my equipment excluding the front speakers are situated by the projector at the back of the room and all sources are out of necessity connected via HDMI to my Denon AV amp for source switching as my projector has only two HDMI inputs and I have four sources (ATV, PS3, XBOX, MacMini).
What us projector users would need is a fictional product Sonos AV-CONNECT 4K HDMI switch/audio decoder/Sonos controller which could take the HDMI-inputs of various devices, switch the video (up to 4K) to external display devices like a projector and decode DD/DTS7.1 and relay that to the relevant mix of wireless Sonos speakers in the room that form the 5.1 or 7.1 home theater.
I would love to have playbar & sub upfront and four 1's as the satellites wirelessly, but with the current TV-centric product it's a total miss on Sonos side 😞
Just bought a brand new 60" 4k Samsung, Playbar, and Sub. Hey, Gravity will look and sound so awesome! Guess what, Gravity blu-ray is DTS only.
$1400 of audio gear. In stereo.
$1400 of audio gear. In stereo.
Another potential Sonos Soundbar and Sub sale LOST...
I've been happily using my Sonos system for it must be greater than 10 years without any issues at all (except the dreadful change in style and design of the iPad App).
So, when looking at a new TV I was happy to hear about Sonos having a soundbar and sub available...
However :
1. No DTS - possibly forgivable for a bargain bucket, bottom of the range piece of kit... but an utterly unfathomable decision for any quality home theatre product.
That alone is bad enough.. but reading about the optical output from TV issue, reveals further problems
2. (Very? ) many TV's do not pass through Surround sound info to their optical output - see here
http://www.cnet.com/news/20-tvs-tested-which-sets-can-pass-surround-sound-to-a-sound-bar/
so, no sale...
Instead I now have a Bowers & Wilkins Panorama 2.
Does it support DTS? - Of course it does.
Does it use the TV's optical out? - No, it does not.
Their original version back in 2010 (?), did use the TV optical out but they at least have learnt and "reviewed" the home theatre market.. now with version 2, it has 3 HDMI inputs and 1 HDMI output (with ARC, so audio can be passed back from the TV on the same cable) which goes to the TV. There is also an aux/optical input.
So - my cable connection is HDMI 1 input to the Panorama 2 sounder, HDMI 2 is my Minix Neo X8-h which takes care of my Plex client for streaming all my shows and movies from my Synology NAS, HDMI 3 is spare - and my Sonos Connect is plugged in via optical to the soundbar.
(there's a phono connection on the Panorama2 for any active Sub if you want to add one).
I've been happily using my Sonos system for it must be greater than 10 years without any issues at all (except the dreadful change in style and design of the iPad App).
So, when looking at a new TV I was happy to hear about Sonos having a soundbar and sub available...
However :
1. No DTS - possibly forgivable for a bargain bucket, bottom of the range piece of kit... but an utterly unfathomable decision for any quality home theatre product.
That alone is bad enough.. but reading about the optical output from TV issue, reveals further problems
2. (Very? ) many TV's do not pass through Surround sound info to their optical output - see here
http://www.cnet.com/news/20-tvs-tested-which-sets-can-pass-surround-sound-to-a-sound-bar/
so, no sale...
Instead I now have a Bowers & Wilkins Panorama 2.
Does it support DTS? - Of course it does.
Does it use the TV's optical out? - No, it does not.
Their original version back in 2010 (?), did use the TV optical out but they at least have learnt and "reviewed" the home theatre market.. now with version 2, it has 3 HDMI inputs and 1 HDMI output (with ARC, so audio can be passed back from the TV on the same cable) which goes to the TV. There is also an aux/optical input.
So - my cable connection is HDMI 1 input to the Panorama 2 sounder, HDMI 2 is my Minix Neo X8-h which takes care of my Plex client for streaming all my shows and movies from my Synology NAS, HDMI 3 is spare - and my Sonos Connect is plugged in via optical to the soundbar.
(there's a phono connection on the Panorama2 for any active Sub if you want to add one).
Lack of DTS support (and support for higher bitrate encodings) is currently the only thing holding me back from picking up some Sonos speakers. I'm rather surprised that DTS isn't supported considering the wide array of support for music encodings and streaming services that are supported. I hope you'll seriously reconsider support for DTS either in existing Playbar products via a update, or else in a new Playbar Pro product as mentioned by the previous poster. It would also be nice if you do go the route of a new product to add some HDMI inputs rather than just optical, but that would just be a nice bonus, support for DTS alone would be enough to make me purchase it.
Unfortunately your lack of support for DTS puts me between a rock and a hard place, on the one hand there's Playbar (and the other Sonos products) which seem to be hands down the best choice in terms of features, but which are lacking a single crucial feature, and on the other hand there's your competition which are woefully lacking in features, but DO support DTS. Please consider how many current and future customers you're potentially losing over this single missing feature.
Unfortunately your lack of support for DTS puts me between a rock and a hard place, on the one hand there's Playbar (and the other Sonos products) which seem to be hands down the best choice in terms of features, but which are lacking a single crucial feature, and on the other hand there's your competition which are woefully lacking in features, but DO support DTS. Please consider how many current and future customers you're potentially losing over this single missing feature.
I think what Sonos doesn't seem to understand, is that people that are willing to spending so much money on this (amazing!) setup, don't want compromises. If I tell my mates I've spent 2000 euros on my new home cinema setup (assuming sub and surround speakers), then I'd be seriously embarrassed to tell them it doesn't support DTS.
Aside from this, is the practical limitation of DTS-only movies that many people have already mentioned here.
Personally, DTS support on the play bar is the only thing holding me back from a *complete* Sonos setup throughout my entire home and, well, doing nothing and keeping an eye on the competitors. My feeling is that I am not alone and Sonos is missing out on a LOT of revenue.
Oh, and if you think the system gets more complex with DTS support, just introduce a "Playbar Pro" for 50 euros more, maybe even 100. People will buy it specifically if they need it and they won't mind the alleged complexity.
Just my 2 cents...
Aside from this, is the practical limitation of DTS-only movies that many people have already mentioned here.
Personally, DTS support on the play bar is the only thing holding me back from a *complete* Sonos setup throughout my entire home and, well, doing nothing and keeping an eye on the competitors. My feeling is that I am not alone and Sonos is missing out on a LOT of revenue.
Oh, and if you think the system gets more complex with DTS support, just introduce a "Playbar Pro" for 50 euros more, maybe even 100. People will buy it specifically if they need it and they won't mind the alleged complexity.
Just my 2 cents...
What about a simple InApp dts lizence purchase. I would pay about 10-20€.
Lack of of dts is just so irritating! Thumbs down by me, sorry Sonos.
Lack of of dts is just so irritating! Thumbs down by me, sorry Sonos.
Same here. Yesterday I was very disappointed to find out that dts is not supported!
Dear Sonos
This does simply not make sense. Imagine how many customers who would cheer and buy even more products if you added DTS?
Sure, it's gonna cost you, which must be the sole reason why you haven't already (otherwise this is, well, really really silly). Streaming services like Netflix does indeed use DD5.1, but what about dvds, blurays and private movie collections on harddrives? Imagine how super cool Sonos would be with DTS support?
Come on now, either come up with a story we'll believe, or add DTS. Intentionally pissing customers off is bad marketing.
Best regards
Kasper
This does simply not make sense. Imagine how many customers who would cheer and buy even more products if you added DTS?
Sure, it's gonna cost you, which must be the sole reason why you haven't already (otherwise this is, well, really really silly). Streaming services like Netflix does indeed use DD5.1, but what about dvds, blurays and private movie collections on harddrives? Imagine how super cool Sonos would be with DTS support?
Come on now, either come up with a story we'll believe, or add DTS. Intentionally pissing customers off is bad marketing.
Best regards
Kasper
Userlevel 1
Sonos, please reconsider and add DTS support to playbar!
PS4 (Bluray) and Plex -thanks but not interested in conversion or even worse live transcoding and losing even more quality
This is a Sonos fail -the only correct answer is to support DTS directly
This is a Sonos fail -the only correct answer is to support DTS directly
Userlevel 6
+16
Fla56... What devices are you using that use DTS? It's pretty likely that they can convert to Dolby.
biggest mistake buying the Sonos Soundbar to discover this flaw!
+18
Following a careful evaluation, we have decided not to implement support for the DTS audio format in PLAYBAR at this time.
PLAYBAR uses a single optical connection directly from your television and was designed this way to make it as easy as possible to set-up and enjoy great HiFi sound. Most PLAYBAR owners connect PLAYBAR to their TV in this simple way. This is the intended setup for playing the sound from your TV.
Today, very few TVs pass a DTS-encoded audio stream through their optical output. Instead, the TV or source device converts the audio signal automatically to PCM, which PLAYBAR supports. This is how PLAYBAR plays DTS-encoded Blu-rays.
We are committed to supporting the existing and future ecosystem of streaming video services. Currently, popular streaming services do not use DTS and most use Dolby Digital encoding, which PLAYBAR supports.
We are aware that PLAYBAR is being connected by customers to devices other than the television. In this configuration, when PLAYBAR receives a DTS signal, it will not process the signal. If you are not able to connect your PLAYBAR directly to your TV and would like to explore solutions, please click here.
If DTS support is crucial for your current set-up, PLAYBAR may not be the right solution for you and we apologize for this inconvenience. If you are currently a PLAYBAR owner and would like to discuss options, please contact Sonos Customer Care.
We’ll be actively monitoring TV and streaming services capabilities and trends. If our development stance around DTS decoding in PLAYBAR changes, this community will be among the first to know.
Edit: This thread is now closed to new comments.
PLAYBAR uses a single optical connection directly from your television and was designed this way to make it as easy as possible to set-up and enjoy great HiFi sound. Most PLAYBAR owners connect PLAYBAR to their TV in this simple way. This is the intended setup for playing the sound from your TV.
Today, very few TVs pass a DTS-encoded audio stream through their optical output. Instead, the TV or source device converts the audio signal automatically to PCM, which PLAYBAR supports. This is how PLAYBAR plays DTS-encoded Blu-rays.
We are committed to supporting the existing and future ecosystem of streaming video services. Currently, popular streaming services do not use DTS and most use Dolby Digital encoding, which PLAYBAR supports.
We are aware that PLAYBAR is being connected by customers to devices other than the television. In this configuration, when PLAYBAR receives a DTS signal, it will not process the signal. If you are not able to connect your PLAYBAR directly to your TV and would like to explore solutions, please click here.
If DTS support is crucial for your current set-up, PLAYBAR may not be the right solution for you and we apologize for this inconvenience. If you are currently a PLAYBAR owner and would like to discuss options, please contact Sonos Customer Care.
We’ll be actively monitoring TV and streaming services capabilities and trends. If our development stance around DTS decoding in PLAYBAR changes, this community will be among the first to know.
Edit: This thread is now closed to new comments.
We are actively moderating discussion in this thread and removing posts that contain inappropriate language. If your post contains language which is not suitable for a wide audience, it will be removed.
Thank you for your understanding.
The communication behavior of John M. respectively SONOS is really a shame. :-(
They don't answer many questions of disappointed customers. This is far away from a professional acting company, especially in this forum, which I thought is an important platform for SONOS to listen to the real pain ot their customers.
And probably they are not really used how to act in the "new world of social media marketing"... let's hope, that they know what a sh**storm is... that they are changing their way of communicating with their customers and that they start to take their concerns seriously!
Following a careful evaluation, we have decided not to implement support for the DTS audio format in PLAYBAR at this time.
PLAYBAR uses a single optical connection directly from your television and was designed this way to make it as easy as possible to set-up and enjoy great HiFi sound. Most PLAYBAR owners connect PLAYBAR to their TV in this simple way. This is the intended setup for playing the sound from your TV.
Today, very few TVs pass a DTS-encoded audio stream through their optical output. Instead, the TV or source device converts the audio signal automatically to PCM, which PLAYBAR supports. This is how PLAYBAR plays DTS-encoded Blu-rays.
We are committed to supporting the existing and future ecosystem of streaming video services. Currently, popular streaming services do not use DTS and most use Dolby Digital encoding, which PLAYBAR supports.
We are aware that PLAYBAR is being connected by customers to devices other than the television. In this configuration, when PLAYBAR receives a DTS signal, it will not process the signal. If you are not able to connect your PLAYBAR directly to your TV and would like to explore solutions, please click here.
If DTS support is crucial for your current set-up, PLAYBAR may not be the right solution for you and we apologize for this inconvenience. If you are currently a PLAYBAR owner and would like to discuss options, please contact Sonos Customer Care.
We’ll be actively monitoring TV and streaming services capabilities and trends. If our development stance around DTS decoding in PLAYBAR changes, this community will be among the first to know.
I am not paying any more for DTS. I have bought a Sonos Sub - 2 x Play 1's and a PlayBar to enhance my viewing experience only to find most of my viewing requires DTS. I didn't realise how much I would need DTS until now.
Can i return the full system? There's no point in just returning the playbar
I'll just have to find an alternative. Will be a real shame to move away from Sonos in the lounge as the rest of the house is all Sonos.
so does my panasonic gtw60
Following a careful evaluation, we have decided not to implement support for the DTS audio format in PLAYBAR at this time.
PLAYBAR uses a single optical connection directly from your television and was designed this way to make it as easy as possible to set-up and enjoy great HiFi sound. Most PLAYBAR owners connect PLAYBAR to their TV in this simple way. This is the intended setup for playing the sound from your TV.
Today, very few TVs pass a DTS-encoded audio stream through their optical output. Instead, the TV or source device converts the audio signal automatically to PCM, which PLAYBAR supports. This is how PLAYBAR plays DTS-encoded Blu-rays.
We are committed to supporting the existing and future ecosystem of streaming video services. Currently, popular streaming services do not use DTS and most use Dolby Digital encoding, which PLAYBAR supports.
We are aware that PLAYBAR is being connected by customers to devices other than the television. In this configuration, when PLAYBAR receives a DTS signal, it will not process the signal. If you are not able to connect your PLAYBAR directly to your TV and would like to explore solutions, please click here.
If DTS support is crucial for your current set-up, PLAYBAR may not be the right solution for you and we apologize for this inconvenience. If you are currently a PLAYBAR owner and would like to discuss options, please contact Sonos Customer Care.
We’ll be actively monitoring TV and streaming services capabilities and trends. If our development stance around DTS decoding in PLAYBAR changes, this community will be among the first to know.
ok YOU decide that I do not need that feature ?
It seems to me that ist not really a customer friendly behaviour.
Your system is awsome. We would like to listen to that awsome sound when viewing a blue-ray disc.
DTS will be just a codec you add to the firmware.
You will have to pay for the codec a licensing fee.
How much is that ? Tell me please. You find DTS feature in devices that cost a fraction of your system. The licensing for DTS is surely not a lot. Let the users that WANT this feature pay for it. I am sure that all users capable of using it WILL buy it. How much can it cost 5$, 10$, 25$ ?
Think about it. A customer being locked out of a feature than CAN EASILY be installed is no customer that will praise your product to his friends. It will always be the thing like: Playbar ... yes ist awsome BUT....This BUT will cost you new customers.
Userlevel 1
We are actively moderating discussion in this thread and removing posts that contain inappropriate language. If your post contains language which is not suitable for a wide audience, it will be removed.
Thank you for your understanding.
I sent the Playbar back. I will get my money back.
I am so sorry about it and it makes me sad somehow.
I like the Playbar a lot and the DD 5.1 sound was great and I was happy to use it with my Bluray player but I got silence so many times due to the lack of DTS support which was sooo frustrating and made many movies quite useless.
I hope you'll do better in the future SONOS.
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