DTS Inc., the creator of the DTS and DTS:X surround sound formats, is rapidly losing relevance in the 4K Blu-ray, 3D Blu-ray and video streaming segments, according to a new report by FlatpanelsHD.
The creator of multichannel audio technologies is struggling to match its rival Dolby, which has increasingly tightened its stranglehold on all three formats, aided by superior hardware support from TV manufacturers.
DTS is the company behind DTS:X, a multi-dimensional sound format that intends to immerse the viewer in a more realistic soundscape. It’s similar to Dolby Atmos, with the main difference being that it’s more flexible, supporting any kind of surround sound speaker setup, rather than just 5.1-channel and 7.1-channel configurations.
FlatpanelsHD points to an article from the German language website 4KFilme last week, which noted that there has not been a single release of a Blu-ray, 4K Blu-ray or 3D Blu-ray in the country that supports DTS:X audio since December of last year. It adds that it’s a similar story in other markets, with the last U.S. Blu-ray release that supported DTS:X being the Amazon-exclusive boxset of The Last Witch Hunter, which debuted in January. Since then, there have been no more DTS:X titles in the U.S., and there is only one in the pipeline – that being a limited-edition 4K Blu-ray of Serenity that’s slated to go on sale in July.
It paints a depressing picture for DTS, which used to dominate the old Blu-ray industry in the last decade, before 4K Blu-ray discs became a thing. Back then, which was also before object-based audio was around, virtually all of the major Hollywood studios, including Universal, Paramount, Lionsgate and 20th Century Fox, supported DTS-HD MA audio, which was DTS’s most advanced format at the time. In contrast, Dolby TrueHD was favored by Warner Bros. and sometimes Disney, but didn’t get much traction elsewhere.
But what a difference a decade makes. These days, Dolby has emerged as the favored surround sound format of almost every movie maker. In the FlatPanelsHD 4K Blu-ray database, there are currently 616 titles listed that support Dolby Atmos, while DTS:X is only offered by 113 titles. The vast majority of those discs were released prior to 2020, with a significant decline since then.
DTS is also struggling to make its presence felt on video streaming services, with only Sony Pictures Core and Disney+ supporting the DTS:X format via IMAX Enhanced, whereas Dolby Atmos is supported by every major streamer.
Part of the reason for DTS’s decline is that it has struggled to convince TV and media player manufacturers to embrace its technology. For instance, Samsung has ignored the DTS:X format for years, while LG Electronics has neglected to support it in this year’s TVs – the second time it has dropped the technology. It previously binned the format in 2020, only to embrace it once again for its 2023 and 2024 Smart TVs, but as HDTVTest’s Vincent Teoh discovered, it has quietly abandoned it for a second time.
Other major hardware makers to ignore DTS include Apple, which has excluded it from the Apple TV 4K, and Google, which neglected to add it to its Google TV Streamer device.
According to FlatpanelsHD, the only major TV maker that supports IMAX Enhanced DTS:X audio on Disney+ this year is Philips, though TCL is also planning to add it via a software update on some of its new Google TVs later this year.
With such limited hardware support, it seems unlikely that DTS will be able to turn things around. The company launched the lossless IMAX Enhanced DTS:X audio for video streamers as an alternative to Dolby Atmos, but while the technology works well enough, it seems that no one is really interested in it. Unless the company is able to secure a partnership with a major brand like Samsung or Google, it’s likely to continue to struggle, Flatpanels HD speculated.
But those companies are almost certainly not interested, for they recently launched their own rival surround sound format called Eclipsa Audio, which is notably open-source and therefore free to use.
While we don’t want to say DTS’s days are numbered just yet, it seems clear that its prospects are becoming increasingly bleak.
