Xbox One Update Adds Dolby Atmos Support

Microsoft has released an update for the Xbox One that supports Dolby Atmos. It concerns bitstream audio passthrough, which can be used via the blu-ray player of the console.

To take advantage of the new update, the system must be rebooted. Users can then choose to enable the new functionality via the blu-ray settings page. Larry Hryb, known by the alias Major Nelson and a top executive at Microsoft’s Xbox division, said: said on Twitter. The addition is available for the Xbox One and Xbox One S and includes support for games and videos. Audio formats such as Dolby Atmos and DTS-X are supported, among others.

The addition became announced last November by Microsoft. Late last year, Larry Hryb announced that Microsoft would roll out the blu-ray bitstream passthrough in a preview version of the Xbox One operating system.

With this technology, digital audio signals are passed to amplifiers unchanged. This addition is particularly aimed at Blu-ray videos. The technology is basically a pre-recorded data stream that is digitally forwarded 1-to-1 to another device. The console then no longer has to process the sound. Some games on PC already support Dolby Atmos, such as Battlefield 1 and Star Wars: Battlefront. The Playstation 3 and 4 also support bitstream passthrough, but only for movies.