Gaming Nintendo lack of 5.1 suround sound!!!

[tronic307]

Most logical explanation is to shave a few dollars off per unit on license fee. Someone on the internet estimated that by not using Dolby Digital or DTS, Wii U can be $5 cheaper per unit.

All too often, Nintendo crosses the fine line between shrewdness and small thinking.

 

[blaisedinsd]

Yeah, seems like my old wii is going to keep a place in the living room for awhile still.

Wii U surround sound implementation is a fail from my perspective. Crap, this will screw up surround sound on Netflix streaming too won't it....guess I will use the PS3 for Netflix instead.

 

[andy26129]

Pikmin 3 will be in surround LPCM5.1
See http://i.imgur.com/hd76QjW.jpg
in the top right corner of the blue spec info label.

Yeah, I saw that like 2 days ago. Glad Nintendo finally stepped into the sound buiseness, guess Pikmin took the meda for first nintendo game to support 5.1 audio

 

[PrimeX]

Guys you are talking nonsense for some time now.
First of all, LPCM is the purest form of sound you can get. It is THE lossless codec. I quote from wikipedia:
"There is one major uncompressed audio format, PCM, which is usually stored in a .wav file on Windows or in a .aiff file on Mac OS. The AIFF format is based on the Interchange File Format (IFF)."

So what Nintendo offered you is the possibility to hear the sound exactly like there were made, no DolbyDigital or DTS compressing bullshit. Those are losy codecs that loose sound fidelity on the way. The fact that some of us, including me, have a shitty decoder that only works with DolbyDigital (mine doesn't even have a DTS decoder) doesn't mean Nintendo tricked you in buying a Wii U. Get some money and use it wisely by buying a really good sound system...if you want quality audio. I intend to buy this one http://www.uk.onkyo.com/en/products/tx-sr313-75901.html which supports Multichannel PCM.

Other lossless codecs are Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD Master audio but they are both compressed formats. This means that the decoding unit would have to do more work when getting that kind of codec, and ofcourse cost more money.

 

[FireGrey]

yeah 7.2 is the way to go these days

eww no 7.1 is the king.

 

[Bladexdsl]

eww no 7.1 is the king.

7.2 IS 7.1 but with more BOOM

 

[tronic307]

Guys you are talking nonsense for some time now.
First of all, LPCM is the purest form of sound you can get. It is THE lossless codec. I quote from wikipedia:
"There is one major uncompressed audio format, PCM, which is usually stored in a .wav file on Windows or in a .aiff file on Mac OS. The AIFF format is based on the Interchange File Format (IFF)."

So what Nintendo offered you is the possibility to hear the sound exactly like there were made, no DolbyDigital or DTS compressing bullshit. Those are losy codecs that loose sound fidelity on the way. The fact that some of us, including me, have a shitty decoder that only works with DolbyDigital (mine doesn't even have a DTS decoder) doesn't mean Nintendo tricked you in buying a Wii U. Get some money and use it wisely by buying a really good sound system...if you want quality audio. I intend to buy this one http://www.uk.onkyo.com/en/products/tx-sr313-75901.html which supports Multichannel PCM.

Other lossless codecs are Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD Master audio but they are both compressed formats. This means that the decoding unit would have to do more work when getting that kind of codec, and ofcourse cost more money.

That's great, and LPCM would likely be the audiophile choice, that we're not debating. My Onkyo TX-NR3009 9.2 channel HDMI AV receiver is 100% compatible with 5.1 LPCM, but I still have specific complaints because:

1. Nintendo developed Wii U titles have been stereo-only, even the System Menu.
2. Multichannel stays engaged at all times in Surround mode, even for stereo-only content, so matrixed surround decoding is impossible unless you menu-dive and switch to Stereo on a per-game basis, as the Center, Surround, and Subwoofer channels are already present, just silent. Why doesn't the Wii U switch to Stereo mode automatically for 2 channel content?
3. Surround mode is gone for vWii, so is the Wii's ability to output some form of surround without frequent manual settings changes.
4. There is no excuse for the system to output 6 channels in vWii mode, period.

 

[PrimeX]

My opinion:
1. Games that have no surround built-in don't need it. Pikmin will have surround and that means they know what they're doing.
2. Matrix Dolby Pro Logic II is awful, I don't even know why people bother to turn that on. Tried it a few times since I have the hometheater and DPLII has lower volume than the original sound, it spreads the surround uneven on all the speakers (sometimes I think it is even random) and in the end I get a bad sound experience. But ofcourse some of us like it, Nintendo can't make everyone happy.
3 and 4...you mean they output surround all the time but it only has stereo content? Well that's really bad and I see your point.

 

[trumpet-205]

tl

First of, compression alone doesn't dictate audio quality. For example, FLAC is compressed lossless codec, LPCM is not. Both FLAC and LPCM offers the same quality of audio, only differ in size.

Now, I'm not saying that lossless sucks (hey no quality is lost), but audio files stored on game disc itself are often lossy (MP3, Dolby Digital, etc). So it is not like you are going to get the purest audio quality by going LPCM, since quality is already lost at game studio.

The biggest problem is Wii U is that it use 5.1 LPCM even when the audio is DDPL2 (vWii). No receiver in the world expects DDPL2 in 5.1 LPCM, so no receiver in the world can decode it properly.

As for DD TrueHD and DTS-HD MA, they are actually lossy with correction files. They use DD or DTS 5.1, then use corresponding correction file to "correct" audio back into "lossless" on the fly.

 

[blaisedinsd]

Any possibility some hombrew could fix this and allow pro logic 2 in wii games without the in game option?

 

[reprep]

just for the info, ps3 does the same 5.1 thing too for psone games. for example if your ps3 menu is set at surround sound and you play a psone game, ps3 sends left and right channel and the rest 4 channels as silent. so no decoder can apply dpl ii to it as 6 channels are already present. fortunately this is a problem for only psone games.

the solution is really simple in fact, automatically send 2.0 pcm in vwii mode and stereo wii-u games. noone wants 5.1 LPCM when the 4 channels are silent.