Following several reviews, including this one by Kotaku that sparked the NeoGAF thread in question, it has been revealed that te Xbox One’s digital optical output only supports stereo headsets at launch. This has caused quite the uproar but director of product planning for Xbox One, Xbox 360 and Kinect Abert Penello has revealed that Dolby Digital support will arrive for the Xbox One after launch.
“Dolby Digital is coming post launch. This was a SW scheduling issue pure and simple, and I know people are disappointed, but we will have it. Anyone with an HDMI receiver should be fine, as we pass the uncompressed 5.1 and 7.1 through HDMI as well as DTS. Even if you have a Dolby only HDMI receiver (which I’m not sure exists), you will still get 5.1 or 7.1 sound since those receivers should accept uncompressed surround.
“For the Dolby only headsets, my understanding is that these will work but you will only get stereo audio since we only pass Stereo and DTS through the optical port. I have not tested this myself, but I’m told it works. Regardless, I understand this is an inconvenience, but again we’re going to have Dolby coming.
“This is unrelated to the HDMI-IN ‘Surround Sound’ beta. To clarify, we default HDMI-IN audio to be converted to Stereo. However, we do have a feature you can access in TV settings/Troubleshooting that enables Surround Sound in “beta” form. If you check the box, and you get Surround, you’re golden. We found some inconsistencies in STB’s during testing and decided to disable it by default to insure a good initial setup experience for people.”
The Xbox One will be launching tomorrow in 13 territories worldwide. What are your thoughts on the above? Let us know below.