Can Games Having Full HD Audio?

[adamclark83]

I have been wondering if it's possible for PS3 and 360 games to have full HD soundtracks? I've never seen any covers stating any.

[boredandlazy]

I know the Uncharted series has LPCM audio, I think Lair supported 7.1 LPCM as well. I'm not sure how many PS3 games do but there are quite a few.
I'm assuming Xbox 360 games could support LPCM(HDMI 1.2 supports it right???) but there's not enough space on DVD media to warrant using it for games.

[AikonEnt]

Quite a few PS3 games have full 7.1 HD audio.

[MOONPHASE]

I have many PS3 games that use Linear PCM 2.0, Linear PCM 5.1, and a couple with Linear PCM 7.1.

[Mavrick]

Pretty sure Gran Turismo has a 7.1 HD track,

xbox games will never have an uncompressed track as long as they keep using DVD, theres just not enough room on the disc.

[Icemage]

Originally Posted by adamclark83

I have been wondering if it's possible for PS3 and 360 games to have full HD soundtracks? I've never seen any covers stating any.

Lots of PS3 games have LPCM multi-channel audio. The Xbox 360 is limited to only 2 channel LPCM, lossy DD 5.1, or lossy DTS bitstream. Just look on the back of your box. If it says PCM 5.1 or higher, it's lossless multi-channel audio.

If you're asking if any games use DTS-HD MA or Dolby TrueHD, the answer is "no", because there's no reason to encode an LPCM audio signal over HDMI on a PS3, and you can't transmit lossless multi-channel audio over anything except HDMI.

[MoulinBlu]

Originally Posted by Icemage

Lots of PS3 games have LPCM multi-channel audio. The Xbox 360 is limited to only 2 channel LPCM, lossy DD 5.1, or lossy DTS bitstream. Just look on the back of your box. If it says PCM 5.1 or higher, it's lossless multi-channel audio.

If you're asking if any games use DTS-HD MA or Dolby TrueHD, the answer is "no", because there's no reason to encode an LPCM audio signal over HDMI on a PS3, and you can't transmit lossless multi-channel audio over anything except HDMI.

I don't follow your reasoning as to why compressed lossless isn't warranted, but uncompressed lossless is. Since no PS3 features multichannel analog audio outputs, both uncompressed PCM and compressed multichannel lossless have to be transmitted via HDMI. The whole reason for compressed lossless is to save disc space - that and the fact that DTS and DD, in any form, is more marketable. Many people, still associate PCM with CD and wrongfully assume it's inferior just because it's older tech. Probably similar to how many people assume digital copies are HD, just because they're newer and so often included with HD discs. Many "professional" reviewers made the same mistake when DVD was released, even citing in their reviews how much better DD sounded than PCM for 2-channel mixes, and were still making the same mistake with multichannel PCM almost a decade later when BD emerged.

The only thing that would keep a developer from using DTS HD MA or True HD, that I know of, is if, for whatever reason, those formats aren't supported for this generation of gaming. I can't think of a single reason why they wouldn't be for a BD based platform like the PS3. But I've never read any white papers on PS3 gaming spec to know if the newer formats are actually omitted; and I don't recall if I've played any games that supported them or not. Most developers seem to feel the majority market is content with lossy DD.