[DarrenHill]

@ashlar From the discussion I saw it's a known fact.

[jjd-uk]

We know for a fact that Netflix it is a html5 app running in Edge browser app upon investigation (I personally don't but the Team member who does the UWP dev work who looked into this seems pretty certain), this was done as follow up to the reports that Netflix did passthrough so we also wondered how this was being done. Our first thought was Netflix had some partnership agreement in place to give privileged access to certain things on the Xbox, but as we've now established it runs in the Edge browser we now suspect it's just a consequence of Edge acting as the player, although we don't know with absolute certainty how the audio passthrough is done.

[needtotest]

I am guessing that it will come at some point ... just keep the uwp sdk up to date. 
(keep in mind every xbox is always up to date so it makes sense to develop for it using the latest sdk)

For now I am just happy to see kodi on the xbox. Us outside US seems to have fewer options - like no entertainment tab in my region.

Is the atmos app also using edge?

[ashlar]

Is the atmos app also using edge?

 Atmos is available for the Bluray player app as well.

Thanks jjd-uk and DarrenHill for your answers.

[janherko]

There are several ongoing discussions about this, it´d be very nice to finally see some 3rd party app to be able to bitstream audio on XB1S/X...

https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=138722
http://www.avsforum.com/forum/141-xbox-a...x-one.html

I´m totally curious as to why Microsoft won´t let their proprietary Xbox apps like Movies/TV or Media Player do bitstream, as long as they have decided to ban this for 3rd party apps...

[MrMagic]

There's an interesting quote from Jeremy Anderson in that AVS forum post:

They can't do "system-wide bitstream". That's not how any of this works. They have to mix the audio across the hypervisor that joins the GameOS side and AppOS side of the system. But Microsoft has added a software hook to put an app into Exclusive mode, meaning it kills the mix across the three operating systems on the system and enables bitstream. This is how the Blu-ray app achieves this. App developers absolutely CAN code their app so it goes into Exclusive mode. It's in the SDK. They just haven't yet. But the point remains that there's nothing there for Microsoft to fix. That flag to put apps into exclusive mode has been in the SDK for a while now, and is the only solution you're going to see.

Source: http://www.avsforum.com/forum/141-xbox-a...st55088582

I'm wondering if this is true though. Can't imagine that neither the VLC nor Kodi developers know about this

[h.udo]

You would be surprised of how much we don't know... just sayin'...

[afedchin]

You would be surprised of how much we don't know... just sayin'...

You would be surprised of how many people trust a forum's post with no proofs 

[MrMagic]

@afedchin I didn't say I trusted that forum post, I said I was wondering if it's true. The guy that posted it is a long-standing member on the AVS Forum since 2003 so I don't think he has a reason to lie. He can still be wrong of course, but his post sounded quite knowledgeable, which is why I quoted it.

[Martijn]

Then he should point out exactly where to find what he claims to be true. Either the documentation or example code

[afedchin]

I didn't say that he is liar, but he is wrong. Netflix which has Atmos support just run in a Edge process, Edge is system app which has full trust capability.

[thesuffering]

According to an Xbox exec, passthrough is coming...eventually...  This tweet was a year ago, so who knows how long before its a reality at all.

[janherko]

Then he should point out exactly where to find what he claims to be true. Either the documentation or example code

 exactly, I communicated directly with the VLC devs, they were too a bit hesitant about a value of that statement since they said they tried to get into "Exclusive mode" in SDK but sadly, to no avail...
I even sent that very guy at the AVS a PM to elaborate more on this so I could forward the info to the VLC team, he never responded...

And that tweet of Ybarra just seems cool, but I have yet to see any update on Xbox allowing a genuine complex bitstream option...I´m an Alpha Insider, receiving every update at the earliest...also, I´m guessing he had in mind the Dolby Atmos access exclusively (based on Dolby/MS agreement), so any 3rd party app would be allowed to bitstream audio in case the source is encoded in Atmos...I just can´t believe they will ever do a proper passthru setting for any lossy/lossless audio format out there. It´s more than a year since that tweet, there´s a new console on the market (X) and still nothing...ridiculous

[jjd-uk]

I would guess restricting the use of bitstream is a deliberate decision by Microsoft, as if they force all apps to use PCM audio then they can mix in system sounds such as notifications or whatever, perhaps they maybe nervous of giving app the exclusive access for bitstreaming since only the in use app can provide sounds thus they maybe wary of whether this could result in a support burden of explaining to users why they are not getting sounds from other apps or the OS.

[janherko]

I would guess restricting the use of bitstream is a deliberate decision by Microsoft, as if they force all apps to use PCM audio then they can mix in system sounds such as notifications or whatever, perhaps they maybe nervous of giving app the exclusive access for bitstreaming since only the in use app can provide sounds thus they maybe wary of whether this could result in a support burden of explaining to users why they are not getting sounds from other apps or the OS.

definitely makes sense, but why not then make an option in settings to switch off all system sounds, notifications etc. if one chose "system-wide" bitstream in audio settings...or better yet, user would be automatically notified of "system sounds off", when choosing the bitstream option. Inept Microsoft.