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Hugh_Jass
12-30-2001, 08:32 AM
I know this has come up before but I was in error when I said that XBOX games are Dolby Digital. It turns out they CAN be DTS if the developer chooses.


The Xbox passes through DTS sound for both DVD Video and Xbox games. Because of the tremendous advantages of the real-time Dolby Digital encoding capabilities of the Xbox it’s unlikely that a game studio would choose to use DTS. Dolby Digital is the audio format of choice for Xbox.

http://www.microsoft.com/retail/xbox/QuickFAQ.asp

xBoXGaMeR2002
12-30-2001, 08:35 AM
And why wouldn't developers choose to make it DTS? I mean it would probably be more appealing to customers.

shushbush
12-30-2001, 09:53 AM
Who cares DTS or Dolby Digital. They both sound great. My receiver supports both and when I watch a DVD in either one the differences are almost unnoticeable. Either way we should be happy because I used to be a hard core PC gamer and there are very little games that take advantage of Sound Blaster's 5.1 digital output. Hell it is hard to find a game that even does 4 speaker

Frostberg
12-30-2001, 10:31 AM
DTS would be nice for games, but if it costs the developer more it wouldnt be worth it. Dolby Digital is more than enough for say Halo, but in 2 years or so when you get really awesome looking games (not to say they dont look good already) then we can work on DTS

Hugh_Jass
12-30-2001, 11:17 AM
The advantages of the DTS format are pretty obvious. With a higher bit rate and specifications for full-range discrete audio across all channels the difference can be impressive (depending on how it is utilized).

The XBOX isn't your average console. With the capability to produce games at HDTV resolutions the XBOX appeals to the high-end gear heads. These are the same people who appreciate DTS.

If a game developer can pull it off (and do it well) they will have the bragging rights of creating the first ever DTS game. This is something that cannot be accomplished by the competition.

I think if it can be done someone will have the balls to do it. If anyone can do it, ID can. Wouldn't it be cool if DOOM III can out as an XBOX exclusive with a DTS soundtrack? :D

DBXNY
12-30-2001, 12:30 PM
Originally posted by xBoXGaMeR2002
And why wouldn't developers choose to make it DTS? I mean it would probably be more appealing to customers.

I'm sure DTS would cost much more to provide. The XBox apparently has a new encoding chip from Dolby Labs that converts the audio on the discs to Dolby Digital 5.1 on-the-fly. This suggests to me that Dolby Digital is very easy and cheap to implement because of this. If a developer wanted to provide DTS, it would have to be a separate audio mix and recording on the disc (in addition to the regular stereo audio) already encoded in the DTS format the traditional way.

LynxFX
12-30-2001, 03:15 PM
I wouldn't mind having a game in full bitrate DTS. At least one out there, even if they had to put out two versions. If the PS2 can handle it with NHL 2002 featuring DTS 5.1 and SSX Tricky featuring DTS 4.0 sound.

It looks like EA is the company that is really trying to push DTS out in all of their in house games, at least for the PS2 so maybe they will do the same with the Xbox titles.

DBXNY
12-30-2001, 06:52 PM
Originally posted by Lynxfx
I wouldn't mind having a game in full bitrate DTS. At least one out there, even if they had to put out two versions. If the PS2 can handle it with NHL 2002 featuring DTS 5.1 and SSX Tricky featuring DTS 4.0 sound.

It looks like EA is the company that is really trying to push DTS out in all of their in house games, at least for the PS2 so maybe they will do the same with the Xbox titles.

I agree too man. But I think we also have to keep in mind the PS2 can only use the DTS during cut-in scene playback only, not during game play. I think this is much easier to do than emplementing DTS during gameplay like the XBox does with Dolby Digital.

Hugh_Jass
12-30-2001, 08:03 PM
Originally posted by DBXNY


I agree too man. But I think we also have to keep in mind the PS2 can only use the DTS during cut-in scene playback only, not during game play. I think this is much easier to do than emplementing DTS during gameplay like the XBox does with Dolby Digital.

Very true. You couldn't use a DTS soundtrack with DD sound effects. It wouldn't surprise me if a third party developer came up with a DTS engine. The biggest issue with this is that the DD encoder is on silicon and wouldn't take as much of the system resources as a software-based DTS encoder.

LynxFX
12-30-2001, 08:57 PM
I didn't know that it was just for cut scenes on the PS2. I was wondering how they were doing it during game play. Easy answer, they weren't. :)

I wonder if someone can create a DTS engine that would take up minimal resources. A PIII 733 isn't much to play with when you add DTS decoding to the picture. Maybe instead of the xbox doing the decoding, couldn't they create a way just to pass it through to your receiver and let it do the decoding. It would still be quite the task to program and inplement but it would use less resources. It could work like the spdif pass through on a pc. Perhaps?

Frostberg
12-30-2001, 09:07 PM
Well it did say "The Xbox passes through DTS sound for both DVD Video and Xbox games." So I imagine it passes it through to the receiver and lets it do the decoding

LynxFX
12-30-2001, 09:26 PM
That's what I thought. I knew it had to do that for movies, especially for DTS. I have no knowledge about coding for games but I wonder how hard it would be to create a DTS track. There has never been a system that could fully support this like the xbox so maybe developers haven't yet figured out how to exploit this.