Microsoft adds HBR bit streaming support to XBox One & XBox One S to Insider build

While it’s pretty shameful that the XBox One didn’t ship with HBR bit stream support, it wasn’t that big of an issue until the next-gen formats found on UltraHD Blu-ray came out, because to get all that spatial goodness they must be decoded in the AVR. Microsoft promised to deliver exactly that a while back, and it looks like the feature is rolling out to the Insider (read Beta) XBox group now. When this feature hits stable, it will solidify the XBox One S as the UltraHD Blu-ray player to get – and if I had a UHD display I would certainly be asking Santa for one.

Thanks to Curt Wilber for the heads up.

A build launched for Xbox Insiders this past weekend enabling “miscellaneous fixes.” Those updates were to activate bitstream pass-through for the Blu-ray app.

Bitstream pass-through allows audio to be processed by a device external to your Xbox One, enabling features such as Dolby Atmos.

Windows Central