DTS now free for PS2 developers (1 Viewer)

[Jean-Michel]

From Gamasutra (free registration required)

The gist of the story is that DTS will no longer be charging a licensing fee for developers who want to use DTS in their games. Given the performance hit that results from using multichannel sound on the PS2 I don't expect a whole lot of games will take advantage of this, but we should at least see more than the trickle we're getting now.

 

[Brandon_H]

I dunno, I doubt there will be too many more DTS titles. It seems that Dolby Pro Logic II implementations are becoming more and more popular with developers. Perhaps these are easier to implement/require less processing power/are nearly as effective?

Doesn't bother me, so long as I get good surround sound in some type.

 

[Shayne Lebrun]

I wonder if Sony is actually feeling the bite from the xbox, on the multichannel sound front?

 

[Allen_Appel]

I wonder if Sony is actually feeling the bite from the xbox, on the multichannel sound front?

I doubt that audio capability is a major selling point for games, for the majority of game buyers.

 

[JoshF]

I agree with Allen. Most people just have their game systems hooked up via the composite cables that came with them, including Xbox owners.

 

[Derrik Draven]

Yeah, at most Sony might be thinking "Damn, we should've went mulitchannel but, what the hell...our system is selling like hotcakes. We'll put it in next time".

For anyone that has a decent DTS/DD hometheater, the sound does make a pretty damn big difference.

 

[BrianB]

Yeah, at most Sony might be thinking "Damn, we should've went mulitchannel but, what the hell...our system is selling like hotcakes. We'll put it in next time".

To be fair, the PS2 came out 18 months before the Xbox came out. Was the technology available to do realtime DD encoding at that time? What was the cost, if it was?

 

[Shayne Lebrun]

If it can do realtime dts encoding, without modifying the hardware, then yes, I'd say that the technology was there.

 

[Brian-W]

Bottom line is DTS licensing fee was too expensive (I speak as a game developer).

Additionally, you have Dolby in one corner offering free licensing (they make money on the hardware), and in the other corner you have DTS charging both hardware and software makers.

DTS isn't charging any more likely because no one wanted to pay for it.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

The DTS thing took a while to develop and requires some pretty tricky programming, AFAIK, so they couldn't have it implemented like the X-Box does when the PS2 came out. Plus, it wasn't a selling point until the X-Box used it.

And it does make a difference. My bro got GTA:VC for Christmas and the DTS sounds excellent.

 

[AaronJB]

I think Dolby Digital 5.1 makes a remarkable difference in the experience for most games. "Halo" offers a stunning soundtrack. Those with EX capability can also turn it on for XBOX games - "Halo" turns into a nearly perfect 360-degree surround experience in DD 5.1-EX.