After seeing the arrival of Dolby Atmos in home theaters at the end of 2014, it comes as no surprise to see that DTS announced yesterday the release of their own object based audio format called DTS:X. The new format will be launch in March 2015 and already the vast majority of home theater receiver manufacturers has agreed to implement it.

The press release from DTS, coming at a strange time on December 30th, a couple of weeks away from CES, states that among others, Anthem, Denon, Integra, Krell, Marantz, McIntosh, Onkyo, Outlaw Audio, Pioneer, Steinway Lyngdorf, Theta Digital, Trinnov Audio and Yamaha will be supporting the format. It is yet unknown if this will be done through firmware updates on some of those or if new receivers will be needed.

DTS had been a favorite over the last couple of years on Blu-ray with a strong presence of DTS Master Audio tracks, but they will be coming late to the object based format this time. It will be interesting to see if their relationship with studios will be able to help them establish this leadership position over Dolby Atmos.

At the end, it’s the consumer that should be winning. With a new format hopefully using similar speaker layouts as the Atmos ones, this will mean more content accessible to use updated home theater rooms.

Now the big question is does it mean people need to wait to purchase a receiver that this new format is released and supporter. We shall hope for a firmware update approach at least for already Atmos compatible receivers, but only time will time. I’ll try to keep you updated if I hear more from the receiver producing companies.