X-box
When first I heard that this was a major update, I thought it would clear up compatibility for those few discs that didn’t work, and that would be that. I mean, I had read about the Children of Men troubles as well as problems with Video Essentials. Heck, I had my own problems with the Discovery Atlas Australia Revealed disc.
When I saw what all was changed afterwards, I was shocked.
Sure, all those discs play fine now (at least for me!) and that would be worth the update in and of itself. You get more, though.
Apparently the HD DVD drive was stuck in “Night Mode” where audio range was compressed. That’s now selectable. Again, if they just added the compatability and this, whew, job well done, right?
There is one more huge thing, though.
A primer, first, though: For digital audio, Dolby Digital has a lower bitrate than DTS, so much so that in the early days of DTS DVDs, the discs would end up dropping features to accomodate the beefier space requirements of the sound mix. This problem was alleviated somewhat when DTS introduced a lower-resolution codec. DTS still benefited from having that higher ceiling for their bitrates, though. Without getting too technical, this update allows you to set the HD DVD drive to pass all audio through as DTS, thereby giving you every bit of the audio you can have from the drive short of Microsoft enabling it to support the new lossless codecs.
The benefits are apparent with any of the spiffy titles such as Batman Begins or M:I:3.
Now, you have read about these changes. How do you access them, you might wonder. While watching a movie, access the display console. There is an Audio Options button. Tap it and voilà , your settings are revealed. All in all, this update is an A+. The bug fixes are awesome and are all I was expecting. The DTS audio options, though, are a work of art. I am very happy to see Microsoft invest the time and resources adding such a great feature!