Disney+ Hotstar Rolls Out 5.1 Surround Sound, Starting With The Mandalorian

Limited to select users of Apple TV and Amazon Fire TV for now.

By Akhil Arora | Updated: 3 April 2020 18:39 IST

Disney+ Hotstar Rolls Out 5.1 Surround Sound, Starting With The Mandalorian

Photo Credit: Disney/Lucasfilm

Baby Yoda in The Mandalorian

Highlights

Disney+ Hotstar was limited to stereo sound since its launch in 2015
Being rolled out slowly, Disney+ Hotstar said, so you might not see it
Disney+ Hotstar still doesn’t offer 4K HDR video, enough apps

Hotstar — now Disney+ Hotstar — has finally caught up with the times. Over five years after its launch, India's biggest streaming service, by some metrics, is finally offering Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound. Prior to this, Hotstar was limited to stereo sound. For now though, it's restricted to just the Star Wars series The Mandalorian, and available only on Disney+ Hotstar apps for Apple TV and Amazon Fire TV. And it's also being slowly rolled out, as was the case with the beta rollout of the Disney+ Hotstar app. We were unable to see Dolby 5.1 audio on The Mandalorian, but Disney+ Hotstar confirmed its existence to Gadgets 360.

In replies to user queries on Twitter on Friday, the Disney+ Hotstar customer service account said: “You can enjoy The Mandalorian with 5.1 sound on our latest apps on Fire TV, Android TV and Apple TV. We will be bringing 5.1 sound to more content soon. Appreciate your support.” It has since revised its boilerplate tweets to omit Android TV, and only mention Apple TV and Fire TV as where 5.1 sound is available.

It's unclear why surround sound is only available on a single property and doesn't include other Disney+ originals, let alone big Disney, Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars movies. Still, it's a welcome move no doubt. It only took the arrival of its parent company's new streaming service to get Hotstar to the 21st century.

It's unfortunate that 5.1 surround sound isn't available to everyone right now on Disney+ Hotstar. Gadgets 360 tested on a Vu Android TV, and we were unable to see the “Dolby 5.1” text next to The Mandalorian. (Netflix displayed “5.1” on the same TV, in case you're wondering.) Hopefully, Disney+ Hotstar will get it out to everyone soon and follow that up with more content in surround sound. And while we're asking for favours here, maybe we'll soon have 4K resolution and high-dynamic-range (HDR) video, and apps for consoles. Hey, a man can dream, though.

And on that note, maybe Disney+ Hotstar will also give us Futurama, though its absence — on Disney+ globally — is likely down to Disney's family-friendly image.

Disney+ Hotstar is the only one of the big three — alongside Netflix and Amazon Prime Video — which doesn't have those aforementioned features. Both Netflix and Amazon also offer Dolby Atmos on select titles, which feels like a far-fetched dream with Disney+ Hotstar at this point.

Editor's note: A few days after the initial tweet, Disney+ Hotstar began omitting Android TV from future tweets, hinting that 5.1 surround sound was not available on the Google-owned platform yet.

Can Netflix force Bollywood to reinvent itself? We discussed this on Orbital, our weekly technology podcast, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts or RSS. You can also download the episode or just hit the play button below.

Comments

For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube.