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Microsoft Edge To Support Dolby Audio
jones_supa writes: Microsoft has revealed that its new Edge web browser will come with support for Dolby Audio in order to offer high-class audio when visiting websites. "It allows websites to match the compelling visuals of H.264 video with equally compelling multi-channel audio. It works well with AVC/H.264 video and also with our previously announced HLS and MPEG DASH Type 1 streaming features, which both support integrated playback of an HLS or DASH manifest," Microsoft explains in a blog post. Windows 10 will also ship with a Dolby Digital Plus codec.
I'm not that big on streaming unless it's my girlfriend's Netflix which I don't even pay for, so I didn't even know sound quality was an issue that had to be addressed in browsers.
All glory to Arstotzka!
Regardless, this is a surprisingly good browser. I think Microsoft has finally taken the feedback to heart. Now they just need to drag IE out behind the woodshed and put it out of its misery.
I have been suffering browsing the web with only one audio channel per ear for literally decades.
What to them so long, this is embarrassing. When I go to the movies I get to smell expensive popcorn and experience 6 to 16 channels of high-def audio. Why not on my windows smart phone and my tablet?
The packaging of a phone would need to get larger to accommodate 14 additional ears with each phone. Not good for the environment. This won't happen until you can download the ears from the internet after receiving the phone.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Exactly what we don't need.
This is only Dolby Digital Plus, TrueHD support would have been much, much better and would have helped Dolby which has been losing the high end to DTS HD Master Audio.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
This has nothing to do with a web server at all, only the encoding of the content. And the entire point to supporting it within the browser is to make an extension unnecessary.
How much you want to bet they just embedded the old media player?
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Was that Dolby B or C? Or.... The dreaded professional A format? DBX was better if you ask me. Oh wait, Hang on, I need to go clean my 8 Track...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
You haven't really heard the Hamster Dance until you've heard it in Dolby
-Glires
IF you want the full integrated experience, you got to stay with one vendor.... You know how this game is played, at least until the EU forces you to unbundle...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Everything about the web is like that. We are in the process of doing "on the web" everything we have already been doing locally for decades,
This is potentially good for Netflix since Windows users have been limited to stereo from Netflix for some time now since Netflix uses Silverlight.
Microsoft will no doubt partner with Monster Cable to come up with a new IP Layer for transporting web pages with perfect fidelity, much the way that Monster Cable CAT-5 provides perfect Ethernet.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
These two posts are like reading a technical treatise written by Lewis Caroll.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Not too long after Windows 8 launched with the AC-3 and E-AC-3 codecs, Internet Explorer has had the capability to decode these audio formats. It recognizes the FourCC codes in the ISO Base Media File Format container as well as the MIME tags.
Part of the problem, however, is the perceived shift in both audio loudness and the perceived location of speech. All AC-3 and E-AC-3 content, when properly measured, should play dialog back at -31dB relative to full digital scale. Unfortunately, this makes the codec inherently quieter unless the decoder is set to something called RF mode, which boosts the loudness to -20dB and compresses the audio more heavily. Such control for loudness is not typically found in HTML5-based apps, though the W3C has a committee working on this issue. The loudness can be a particular problem on the Windows 8 tablet devices out there, as many programs in AAC format come pre-normalized to somewhere around -23dB to -24dB relative to full scale. Unless all content is pre-normalized to the same consistent playback level - which AAC ads will definitely not be, and probably not AAC stereo content - there will be an inconsistency of experience.
All of this also presupposes that you have either a proper surround virtualizer or a discrete 5.1 speaker system such as is found in a properly set up home theater. Considering that less than a third of homes have any kind of surround sound in them, and given the loudness issues, I'm not certain what the benefits will be here. But it gets even worse, as dialog in multichannel AC-3 and E-AC-3 is steered to the center channel in most programs, whereas in stereo content it is mixed into left and right without regard to position. This can result in disturbance to the listener. Furthermore, any channel configuration changes to an audio-video receiver will typically cause muting when switching modes between stereo output and multichannel output, potentially interrupting the experience for the listener.
Part of this is the add-on nature of AC-3 and E-AC-3 to Windows and an inherent failure to integrate stereo AAC and HE AAC playback behavior with that of stereo and multichannel AC-3 and E-AC-3. Until then, this will be more of a curiosity than anything substantially improving the consumer's experience, and developers should take note if they believe that HTML5/CSS/Javascript development of their apps can really unify their experience across devices yet.
No, only supporting codecs that have a known IP licensing path. That's worth paying some money, especially compared to the alternative of relying on the vague and either naïve or cynical IP promises (promises they've shown willingness to walk away from when pressed) from a company which makes no bones about wanting to destroy them.
Ogg is not in grey IP limbo, especially not Vorbis. I'll agree with you on Google's WebM, but only because it's comedy gold how they got everyone else to agree to use it, then decided to keep h263 support, effectively rendering WebM completely pointless, presumably because it would cost more to transcode all of YouTube than it would to just let all that effort on WebM be rendered completely pointless. And yet they still think people will adopt WebP like being burned once wasn't enough.
Does this mean that Netflix will (finally) be surround sound through the browser?
Each click in panoramic 3D HD Audio Surround Sound! I can hardly wait
Everything about the web is like that. We are in the process of doing "on the web" everything we have already been doing locally for decades,
And we're doing it in a way that brings us right back to the era of mainframes. Although far more advanced, the model is highly similar to that of the IBM mainframe systems whose semi-smart terminals understood form fields and submission.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Where is Opus support? It's a royalty-free, open standard, and one of the best performing codecs available, especially when it comes to low bitrate streaming. It's also already supported by two major browser vendors. Of course you can't lock people into your platform with it... but that shouldn't matter, right?
Dolby does a lot of good research. That you throw them aside as a relic of the past, while at the same time discrediting them for some of the formats you praise (AAC is a thing in part due in part to Dolby's participation in creating the standard) simply shows that you have a myopic and illogical view of the world.
Kid-proof tablet..
Opus has replaced for Vorbis for all use cases AFAIK, since it is better at low bit rates and equal at high bit rates.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
All of this also presupposes that you have either a proper surround virtualizer or a discrete 5.1 speaker system such as is found in a properly set up home theater. Considering that less than a third of homes have any kind of surround sound in them, and given the loudness issues, I'm not certain what the benefits will be here. But it gets even worse, as dialog in multichannel AC-3 and E-AC-3 is steered to the center channel in most programs, whereas in stereo content it is mixed into left and right without regard to position. This can result in disturbance to the listener.
I'm deaf in one ear, you insensitive clod!
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
I would pay actual money for a browser that had *no* sound capability.
Or even just one that I could reliably disable sound on.
Thank Dolby Labs for no-hiss DACs, noise-cancelling headphone cans, ADC floor filters, echo and feedback cancellation, cellular handsfree...
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Man, that Thomas Dolby guy is such a genius. Science!
They did a lot of good research, but you don't do heavy metal in Dobly.
It seems that young folk these days use YouTube, and other video sites, a lot to listen to music videos. So probably Microsoft just want another brand to use on its marketing war.
But I don't see how this will actually matter without support from other browsers. Who will waste CPU time and storage to create a stream that only one minor browser can take advantage of?
---- You know how some doctors have the Messiah complex - they need to save the world? You've got the "Rubik's" complex
I wish I had mod points today so I could give you +1 Informative.
I already have a media player, thanks, and the web browser is not it.
How many streaming music and video services does your preferred media player support? And how can a new streaming music or video service arrange to be supported in your preferred media player? Finally, how should a browser-based video game play its music and sound effects? Or is the concept of a "browser-based video game" itself abhorrent to you?
Dolby has moved far beyond the original analog companding system. Digital Dolby systems are used for the sound in the majority of movie theaters, most DVD and Blu-Ray discs, all digital television broadcasting in the US, and both Amazon and Netflix can send Dolby Digital sound with their streams so you can have surround sound. On a computer that generally means pass-through to a digital output that you can connect to your receiver: at first it was usually a separate stream via S/PDIF or Toslink, now it's usually part of the HDMI signal along with the video.