Sideskroll, you've got it backwards. Dolby Pro Logic and Pro Logic II are legacy standards for matrix encoding surround sound into standard stereo (and presumably analog, when the standards were created) signal, and likewise extracting from the same. It can be used over a digital medium or encoded into a digital recording, but the surround signal is still matrix encoded into the stereo waveforms. It isn't in a bitstream or a separate hidden channel. It doesn't get stripped out of the signal coming from the Wii/vWii, because it's still encoded inside a normal stereo signal. In order for that data to disappear, the console would have to actively look for the encoded audio, decode it into the extra channels, and then drop them. I'm pretty sure it doesn't do any such thing. Likewise, when you set PCM, your equipment is not "downconverting" to stereo. What happens is you are instructing your equipment to play the audio as normal wave data without any special decoding. Hence it leaves the stereo waveform (with matrix encoded surround still hidden inside) as-is instead of converting the stereo encoded sound back into surround.
Believe me, I get it.
But maybe I'm not explaining myself correctly. Let me try again.
Dolby Surround is a way of encoding delays, phase switching and some other tricks into a 2 channel audio track for later decoding on a capable receiver (be it with the original Dolby Surround, PL, PLII, etc.) Right? So far we're on the same page.
That technology was later superseded by Dolby Digital, DTS etc which are not a part of this discussion so we'll leave them aside. But the point is that they're
NOT the same. At all. (DD, DTS etc all have discreet channels which work independently from one another while Surround has all the info embedded on only 2 channels and it is up to the decoder to reassign those matrixed sounds) So far we agree on everything, right?
OK, now back to PLII. The only way for the decoder to work properly is if it recognizes the surround matrix in the audio feed. Otherwise the decoder just "fakes" surround sound instead of actually assigning individual channels as cued in the matrix feed (and you can verify that by enabling the decoder with
ANY stereo source. It would assign sounds to all channels of your sound system but does that make it "true surround"? No. It is just the decoder trying its best to "emulate" surround.)
Now, I don't know what kind of receiver you have but most of them have an "auto surround" option. All that means is that the receiver will take whatever feed it gets, detect the matrix and decode accordingly all without user intervention. The way it
SHOULD be. So for example, if you play an audio CD it would not decode anything because there's no matrix in the feed. But if you play let's say an .AVI file with Stereo Sound encoded as PLII (Like Wii and NGC games are) the receiver detects the matrix automatically and decodes according to the cues on the feed.
from my personal AVR manual:
Code:
Stereo surround (matrix) formats are decoded automatically using [B]NEO: 6[/B] or [B]DOLBY PLII (x)[/B]
That's on "Auto-Surround" mode. And I can confirm that it works perfectly fine and seamlessly without ANY user intervention whatsoever.
For instance, if I'm listening to an audio CD and then change to a movie encoded in stereo surround (matrix) the receiver goes from plain vanilla stereo (no matrix on the feed) to DLPII or NEO: 6 without me touching anything.
That's how I know the feed is announcing itself as Surround and the decoder is doing its job properly.
Now, of course you can "force surround" basically ANYTHING. But if there's no matrix to decode then it is all up to the decoder to "fake" surround.
And that's where the WiiU enters. The WiiU is (obviously) announcing itself as LPCM. And the receiver lets me know that on its display. But if I change it to vWii mode the receiver still sees it as LPCM. So there's no flag to let the machine knows if there's a matrix or not in the feed. So it's basically like using PLII on an audio CD. Does it work? Yeah, well "maybe". I mean you can hear the sounds... But is it REALLY decoding the matrix as its supposed to? Beats me. Saying that it is definitely working would be like saying that EVERY audio CD on existence has a matrix in their stereo feed just because PLII decoders attempt to recreate non existent surround sounds from a plain vanilla dual channel audio track.
And TBH that's what I think the vWii is doing. Just "faking" it all the way....
Now, if Nintendo would just put a farking "BITSTREAM" mode, at least on the vWii part of the machine receivers would just adjust accordingly instead of having to "surround everything up or nothing at all"
It is a poor design. It's not that "i don't get it". It is just not working as it's supposed to.
I guess you'd say that I'm a bit bothered by not KNOWING if the decoder is doing it's work properly AND by the fact that I shouldn't have to be MANUALLY selecting PLII for
EVERYTHING or
NOTHING. Not every game in existence has a surround sound matrix inside of the feed. And the console should let the receiver decide which game (or app) requires which decoder (or none) by announcing itself properly (like ANY other piece of equipment outputting digital audio these days)
Manually selecting a Dolby decoder may have been great back in the day. But this is 2015. Decoders have evolved a long way from back when it was "cool" to have "surround this, surround that, surround in everything and everywhere".
Nowadays most people just want to get the purest form of the content they can get. That's why we have DTS HDMA and whatnot.
That means that if the creators intended the sound to be listened in a 2.0 system it should be played like that. If they embedded a surround matrix it should be then played like that etc...
It's like people playing 4:3 games on 16:9 displays all stretched out. IT WAS NOT MEANT TO BE PLAYED LIKE THAT. STOP DOING IT PEOPLE! I swear I cringe every time I see something like that.
And no, it's not a matter of personal preference like some people say it's a matter of doing justice to the source.
Sorry for the super duper long post but I just wanted to try and be as clear as possible.
Again, Nintendo should look into that. It
IS a problem and it
CAN be fixed. It's just that people don't seem to notice.
