We’ve talked time about the importance of sound for gamers in a few of our gaming headset reviews here at Techaeris, and that sound is about to get a whole lot better on the Xbox One and Windows 10 PCs. Microsoft has announced that Dolby Atmos will be coming to Xbox One and Windows 10 PCs and tablets starting next year.
Just what is Dolby Atmos? The technology has been around since 2012 and is used in theatres to approximate 3D sound, building upon your traditional 7.1 surround sound systems. With Dolby Atmos, 7.1 becomes 7.1.4 surround sound with the addition of four overhead speakers. That’s an overly simplified explanation, you can always hit up Wikipedia for a more detailed explanation. While Dolby Atmos is relatively new to home theatres and requires a Dolby Atmos enabled speaker system or soundbar, Microsoft indicates that “it will be possible to enable virtually any pair of headphones with the Dolby Atmos experience.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SilQME2HgxI
Xbox’s Head of Platform Engineering, Mike Ybarra, is obviously excited about the partnership:
“At Team Xbox, we are all gamers first, and bringing Dolby Atmos support to Xbox One and Windows 10 gaming next year will bring you even further inside the action and sound of your favorite titles. A big thank you to the team at Dolby for their partnership; we’re excited to share more with the Xbox community next year.”
As with most new Xbox One features, Dolby Atmos support will be rolling out to Xbox Preview members through the new Blu-ray Bitstream pass-through feature.
This feature enables all Xbox consoles to pass Blu-ray audio data untouched to a user’s audio equipment, allowing your audio receiver or other audio device to produce a high quality, immersive sound experience.
Of course, you’ll have to have a compatible audio receiver which supports decoding of Blu-ray audio formats. Xbox has outlined a few helpful hints to get you started.
- Ensure your console is connected via HDMI to a device that supports decoding of Blu-ray audio formats.
- Make sure you have the latest Blu-ray player by checking the “Updates” tab under “My Games & Apps.”
- Enable “Let my receiver decode audio (beta)” under the “Disc & Blu-ray” settings page.
- Insert your favorite DVD or Blu-ray disc.
- Kick back and enjoy the highest quality audio from your movies and TV shows.
What do you think about Dolby Atmos surround sound coming to the Xbox One and Windows 10 PCs and tablets? Let us know in the comments below or on Google+, Twitter, or Facebook.
[button link=”http://news.xbox.com/2016/12/14/dolby-atmos-xbox-one-windows-10/” icon=”fa-external-link” side=”left” target=”blank” color=”285b5e” textcolor=”ffffff”]Source: Xbox Wire[/button]Last Updated on January 12, 2019.
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