New Play-Fi Software Update to Bring Echo-Free TV Audio Streaming to Select Speakers

DTS said Tuesday that whole-home TV audio streaming is available for select sound bars and all-in-one speakers via a free software update. The update, just in time for the Super Bowl, allows users to send audio from any connected source -- such as a TV, DTS said -- to other DTS Play-Fi speakers in the home. The whole-home TV audio feature synchronizes speakers to each other and to the video source, creating “lip-synch accurate multi-room playback without an echo,” said the company. The audio technology firm made “substantial improvements to the DTS Play-Fi protocol that improve transmission quality and robustness,” said Dannie Lau, general manager, Xperi’s DTS Play-Fi. Sending audio through “non-deterministic networks such as Wi-Fi has inherent latency issues causing problems with audio/video synchronization,” Lau said, calling it a “common complaint with Bluetooth.” Other Wi-Fi technologies such as Cast and Airplay don't support this feature, he said, and others that do offer such a feature “compromise audio video synchronization to do so.” Not all Play-Fi products can handle TV audio streaming with the update because they don’t have the ability to rebroadcast from an external input, which Lau called a hardware limitation that will be addressed in future firmware updates from manufacturers. The update is currently available for the Klipsch Gate receiver, PowerGate amplifier, RSB-8 sound bar, RSB-14 sound bar, RW-1 speaker and Capitol Three speaker; McIntosh MB50 streaming audio player; the Onkyo Smart Speaker G3; Paradigm PW Link preamplifier; Phorus PS10 speaker; Pioneer Elite Smart Speaker F4; and Polk S6 speaker, said the company. Additional DTS Play-Fi partners will incorporate the technology into their products later this year, said Lau. The full Play-Fi ecosystem includes more than 200 speakers.