Nintendo Further Angers Technophiles: Dolby Digital Out

Pat there are several serious problems with your post:

1. You called me an idiot, before going on to neither correct me, nor contradict me, but instead to demonstrate how little you understand the issue.

2. You promise us fact and truth before giving us misinderstanding and opinion.

3. You seem to confuse the Wii (and GameCube's) inability to "support" discrete 5.1 channel surround sound and their ability to carry a Pro Logic signal, which they share with any stereo audio device.

4. You seem to believe that the Wii and GameCube can deliver five discrete channels of audio to the speakers over a pair stereo audio cables. This is incorrect, impossible even.

What Factor 5 did, while admirable because they were the first, is quite unremarkable. By using Pro Logic II technology, any company, working in any stereo audio medium can deliver 5.1 audio over any stereo capable device. FM Radio for instance.

But in order to decode and play that 5.1 signal, you need two things. A device with decoder circuitry and a device with five discrete speaker connections, and an optional subwoofer.

The GameCube (and to our current knowledge, the Wii) have neither of those things. So they cannot, according to Dolby Labs licencing conditions, claim to offer Dolby Digital OR Dolby Pro Logic surround sound.

Software that used Dolby Labs technology to encode a Pro Logic II signal into its stereo sound CAN claim to ofer PLII and can carry the logo.

A device that offers a PLII signal requires another device to turn that dignal into five discrete audio channels. A device that offers a Dolby Digital signal does not - the audio is already in five discrete channels.

So a 5.1 signal can be played over any set of 5.1 speakers. A Dolby Pro Logic signal requires a more expensive set of speakers equipped with Dol Pro Logic II decoding circuitry, such as the Logitech Z-5000 Digital series.

However, we never said ANYTHING about PLII, because we assumed (clearly wrongly) that readers knew that any console with stereo sound can support PLII. The story here is that Wii has decided not to offer discreet 5.1 ouput. Meaning that users will need a PLII decoder equipped amplifier or speakers and that the surround sound will never be as good as if Dolby Digital were offered.

You can call me an idiot all you like, but I am demonstrably not. You yourself will have to demonstrate a more sound understanding of the issues at hand before your perjoratives have any credibility.

I don't know if the 5.1 sound interfaces are tied to Dolby Digital, you can use these interfaces to get non Dolby 5.1, PCM, uncompressed surround sound, even with Dolby Digital, you can just pass the sound straight out to an sound systems decoder. There is no need to install a decoder with six analogue outputs in the Wii itself. But, if $30 DVD players can afford to decode Dolby 5.1 to six sound outputs then why can't Nintendo afford the same license?

I hope that it is not stereo, upto date digital surround equipment sounds much better. I hope they haven't misjudged it again, no CD for the Nintendo 64 (that would have changed a lot) no DVD for Gamecube, no HD or surround for Wii?

http://forums.spong.com/en/html/forum/viewThread.jsp?forum=9&thread=3391&startIdx=5

What's really funny but becoming less prevalent is the fact that cheap surround systems (i.e. read HTIB w/ DVD, that's Home Theatre in a Box with a Digital Video Disc player for you non techies) don't decode Pro-Logic I or II let alone IIx. So infact Nintendo trying to make the system's features (PLII and Progressive Scanning) more accessible should have actually had Dolby Digital or in a lesser supported fashion, Digital Theatre Sound.

Someone I think posted before about PLII doing sound out of all speakers, I don't think that's right. It only does left, right, and sub. PLIIx is supposed to simulate left, right, surround left, surround right, and sub. Unless there's something the receiver can do to parse the sound out, I think the spec is 2.1 for PLII and 4.1 for PLIIx.

It's fun to spell out acronyms.

Absolutely. I did not mean to imply that you cannot.



It's a fair point. But - in my experience, and I could be wrong here - $30 DVD players don't offer six discrete audio outputs. I accept I could be wrong - I've never actually owned, or looked hard at a $30 player. My $300 Pioneer DVD player doesn't. It offers Co-ax and Digital out and lets my home cinema amplifier handle the splitting into discrete channels.

The thing is, using Dolby Pro Logic II, the Wii will be able to offer a fairly compelling surround experience. But even if it doesn't, I'll be buying one - after playing a few minutes of Wii Tennis at E3, I'm totally hooked.

DR Dee,

I meant the 5.1 digital output might not require such an license, and has 5.1 PCM mode, which allows for the mostly unused standard mpeg related audio compression (not as good as Dolby) and uncompressed 5.1 PCM (too much data on disk compared to Dolby).

Actually, I'm using a $38US one that has six discrete outputs and DTS analogue as well, but regular price is closer to $76 fro this sort of thing. But digital from it sounds suspiciously not so good on my z5500's.

I think 5.1 option is a must. Speakers that decode from 5.1 digital are sufficiently cheap fro this to be an option, every body else can use speakers. But I still think that discrete 5.1 analogue outs are good to, if the license is on release by release it should not cost Nintendy very much. It was too much that Gamecube was not 5,1 enabled and no DVD, now they want to do another cheap, cutesy console without 5.1 and without what will rapidly become the new standard DVD standard, and the new resolution standard, HD, We have seen it all before, and we do not want to see it again.

Question: The first Nintendo HD game system?

Answer: The Nintendo 64 was pre marketed as such, with at least some 1024*768 mode, but as far as I know, this mode went unused, I don't even know if they sold the VGA adaptor. A long step back from that level of popularity are we now.

Bye.

Way.