Tuesday, May 26th 2015

Microsoft Selects Dolby Audio for Windows 10

Press Release by

May 26th, 2015 18:09 Discuss (34 Comments)

Dolby Laboratories, Inc. and Microsoft Corporation announced today that Dolby Audio is selected to be a part of the Microsoft Windows 10 operating system and will be natively supported by the new Microsoft Edge browser for the playback of web-based content as well as accessible by third-party Windows Store apps. Users of Microsoft Windows 10 PCs and tablets will enjoy Dolby quality audio experiences through Windows entertainment apps and through Microsoft Edge.

Dolby Audio (supporting Dolby Digital Plus) will be available in x86 Windows 10 PCs and tablets for playback of movies, TV shows, and videos with crisp, clear dialogue and greater detail of sounds. Windows 7 and 8 users may upgrade to Windows 10 for free and continue to experience Dolby quality audio consistently across headphones, built-in PC and tablet speakers, or connected home theater systems. Microsoft Edge will be the first browser to leverage the Dolby Digital Plus decoder on the Windows 10 operating system, enabling online content providers to enrich the entertainment experiences of millions of Internet users globally with Dolby Audio.

"We are excited about the collaboration and partnership with Microsoft and share in the commitment to providing the best entertainment experiences possible to consumers across a wide range of devices in the Windows 10 ecosystem," said John Couling, Senior Vice President, E-Media Business Group, Dolby Laboratories. "With the launch of Windows 10 and Microsoft Edge in nearly 200 countries, Dolby and Microsoft will enable better user experiences with high-quality audio that is robust, consistent, and at a scale necessary for the large Windows ecosystem."

"At Microsoft, we are committed to delivering the richest, most immersive, entertainment experiences with Windows 10," said David Treadwell, Corporate Vice President, Operating Systems Group, Microsoft. "With Dolby Audio incorporated into the Windows 10 platform and Microsoft Edge, content providers will be able to deliver their content with superior sound in Dolby Audio for a wide range of Windows 10 based PCs and tablets."

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34 Comments on Microsoft Selects Dolby Audio for Windows 10

RejZoR

I don't care about frigin Dolby. I want proper hardware accelerated audio with all the fancy proper effects back. Oh and so gaming operating system and we have worse game audio than freaking 15+ years ago...

FordGT90Concept

"I go fast!1!11!1!"

I'd rather have native USB Audio Class 2 support than Dolby Digital. If Microsoft threw money at Dolby to get this and not at their engineers to add support for standards everyone else already implemented, I'm going to be pissed.

R-T-B

I've always been a little confused about dolby, DTS, and that jazz to be honest. Is it even of use to a 2.1 speaker user like me? If so how is it better than the PCM HDMI bitstream to digital amp I am using now?

remixedcat

It's putting a name on it to sell :| -_-

R-T-B

remixedcatIt's putting a name on it to sell :| -_-

Kinda what I figured. Thanks.

remixedcat

and now a days dolby isn't meaning as much as it used to... yeah you have atmos but very little recievers that many people allready have don't have it. mabye only less than 2% of the population has atmos.

and LOL I came up with some of the dolby atmos ideas way before they even thought of it.

hell look what THX has become?! freakin creative owns them now and lucas hasn't had anything to do with it for years. now it's just silly cheap software DSP with a name on it.

AsRock

TPU addict

Never liked DD and never will, back when more shit was analog it always spoiled the sound.

remixedcat

I so came up with dolby atmos like tech back in 1997!!! just read up on it and matches my XDRXT docs to the freakin letter...

I'M GONNA PUNCH THE HELL OUT OF THEM RIGHT IN FRONT OF THIER TRUCK!

(just like the movie Twister)

FordGT90Concept

"I go fast!1!11!1!"

remixedcatand now a days dolby isn't meaning as much as it used to... yeah you have atmos but very little recievers that many people allready have don't have it. mabye only less than 2% of the population has atmos.

and LOL I came up with some of the dolby atmos ideas way before they even thought of it.

hell look what THX has become?! freakin creative owns them now and lucas hasn't had anything to do with it for years. now it's just silly cheap software DSP with a name on it.

The only time Dolby really had any use was on optical audio. The standard didn't support enough bandwidth for six channels, only two. Dolby stepped in offering a lossy compression solution that offered six channels of audio in the space that can only carry two. Now that optical is dead (or should be dead anyway) and better technologies are replacing it like HDMI (8 channels with no compression), I agree that Dolby should crawl into a corner and die. Because of that, I think Dolby had more to do with this news than Microsoft. What better way to stay relevant than get yourself included in Windows?

You're absolutely right about THX. It doesn't carry the weight it used to. It has effectively become a branding scheme for Creative's most expensive products.

#10

1c3d0g

Sigh...DTS is superior anyways. At least Windows 10 finally fixed the scaling issues with text, now I can use high resolution laptops without any problems.

#11

ZoneDymo

just add proper hardware accelerated audio back Microsoft, thats all we want.

#12

R-T-B

ZoneDymojust add proper hardware accelerated audio back Microsoft, thats all we want.

I know everyone thinks this is an excellent idea, but with quad core CPUs being standard now, and good performance all around, what does hardware accelerated audio do anymore that OpenAL can't on the CPU?

I mean... it was useful when we were cramming all effects into a single threaded pentium 4. Not sure about now.

#13

timta2

R-T-BI've always been a little confused about dolby, DTS, and that jazz to be honest. Is it even of use to a 2.1 speaker user like me? If so how is it better than the PCM HDMI bitstream to digital amp I am using now?

No, not really, unless your equipment offers some sort of Virtual Surround feature, which I've always found to be more of a gimmick than anything, otherwise there's not much advantage without the additional speakers.

#14

R-T-B

Yeah, PCM is uncompressed audio, minus channel improvements how can you really beat that? lol.

#15

erixx

Since Rolling Stones' LPs came labelled "Play loud" I considered I knew all about audio and stopped looking up fancy terms.

#16

Unregistered

it would've been great if microsoft added HEVC decoders, LAV filters along with other codecs with Windows 10, and developing WMP to be better than VLC, KMPlayer and such sorts of media players.

Nevertheless, this is good step for microsoft, by far.

#17

Gadgety

Dolby Digital Plus is lossy. It may be convenient and have the Dolby name, but lossy nevertheless. I won't be using it for music at least. So how does this influence the pristine recording feature of Lumia phones. Going to be going lossy now, are we? Downgrading. Like they did with the cameras.

#18

AsRock

TPU addict

remixedcatI so came up with dolby atmos like tech back in 1997!!! just read up on it and matches my XDRXT docs to the freakin letter...

I'M GONNA PUNCH THE HELL OUT OF THEM RIGHT IN FRONT OF THIER TRUCK!

(just like the movie Twister)

Made me think of this

#19

Easy Rhino

Linux Advocate

Do we need hardware accelerated audio these days? Even a dual core CPU can handle all the bells and whistles.

#20

Prima.Vera

Easy RhinoDo we need hardware accelerated audio these days? Even a dual core CPU can handle all the bells and whistles.

If you can give me the 3D effects of A3D/EAX 5.0 on software without to much CPU occupancy, then why not.
Personally I still have yet to play a game that sounds better than Unreal/Thief/FEAR (15 years old games) nowadays. No more spatial sound, no more up\down effects, no more nothing. Sound became so boring and flat on PC games....

#21

MaKCuMyC

So 64-bit version will be free of Dolby crap?

#22

ZoneDymo

Prima.VeraIf you can give me the 3D effects of A3D/EAX 5.0 on software without to much CPU occupancy, then why not.
Personally I still have yet to play a game that sounds better than Unreal/Thief/FEAR (15 years old games) nowadays. No more spatial sound, no more up\down effects, no more nothing. Sound became so boring and flat on PC games....

it is quite a weird turn for sure.
I mean its 50% of the experience and the other 50% (the visual) we are jumping through hoops to make better and gamers shovel tons of money into it.

#23

Freedom4556

This sounds to me like they're trying to create a standard way to stream surround in a browser. Netflix can do it in the browser because they worked it out themselves (in Silverlight), but Youtube for example still only supports stereo in their streams. By paying for the Dolby license themselves, Microsoft might be trying to get some kind of standardized browser surround support through an API. It's probably fair to say the FOSS guys at Mozilla and Google aren't going to go for this.

#24

THU31

Prima.VeraIf you can give me the 3D effects of A3D/EAX 5.0 on software without to much CPU occupancy, then why not.
Personally I still have yet to play a game that sounds better than Unreal/Thief/FEAR (15 years old games) nowadays. No more spatial sound, no more up\down effects, no more nothing. Sound became so boring and flat on PC games....

I do not agree. It all depens on the games. Just look at what Battlefield games are doing with audio.

A lot of modern games have great audio. What I like the most is the quality of all the recordings and sounds. Old games had a lot of fancy effects, but overall sound quality and number of sounds was terrible

#25

Easy Rhino

Linux Advocate

Harry LloydI do not agree. It all depens on the games. Just look at what Battlefield games are doing with audio.

A lot of modern games have great audio. What I like the most is the quality of all the recordings and sounds. Old games had a lot of fancy effects, but overall sound quality and number of sounds was terrible

I am confused. Admittedly I don't know much about audio hardware acceleration. But can't the OS handle audio hardware acceleration if you have any sort of audio chip (either embedded or discrete) ? I am pretty sure then that this press release is merely for marketing purposes and with Windows 10 you will still have other vendors supply drivers for audio hardware acceleration. No?

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Microsoft Selects Dolby Audio for Windows 10

34 Comments on Microsoft Selects Dolby Audio for Windows 10

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