I don't know much about Sound support, anyone to explain to me how good of a news this is ? :S

Bring back Hardware Audio!

Correct me if I'm wrong but how is this any different to what third party sound cards do already?

Yawn... Doesn't LAV and other codecs decode DD+? That blurb about the Edge browser tells me that Netflix will soon allowing DD+ and probably 1080p within that web-browser soon instead of just the Win8 Netflix app. ...not that Netflix uses anything other than the minimum bitrate DD+ supports... but it does sound better than the horrid stereo audio Netflix uses. ... I'm just trying to think of why they would do this just for web browser based Netflix watching - and for app store apps that could just build it in? You don't need Dolby to stream a DD, DD+, etc. signal to a receiver. They could also be tossing in Dolby DSP effects (Dolby Headphone might be asking too much) like sound equalizer, and MEEGAA BASSS, etc. as a standard effects package like Vista tried to introduce.

Correct me if I'm wrong but how is this any different to what third party sound cards do already?

Sound cards can translate any sound source to dolby, Windows will not. My only worry about the Edge is - will it support a visible bookmarks bar ? I cant live without them. Secondly, will it save my passwords and stuff in the cloud ?

Sound cards can translate any sound source to dolby, Windows will not. My only worry about the Edge is - will it support a visible bookmarks bar ? I cant live without them. Secondly, will it save my passwords and stuff in the cloud ?

Well, just now there's no bookmarks/favorites bar by default, but you can enable them: Open Edge Click 3 dots icon in top-right corner Toggle "Show favorites bar" to On It supports regular links, folders, but I can't see separators and bookmarklets support. Reordering is broken in the current build. Regarding passwords, it looks like just now there's greyed-out option enabling/disabling of filling password and a disabled button to manage that. So I expect some customizability. On top of that, Edge should offer support for extensions - native, from Chrome and from Firefox. Effectively you might opt for 3rd party password manager, like KeePass, LastPass (stores passwords in cloud, but with local encryption), or another. ---- Back to topic - Dolby support should be great. I hope they'll include Dolby features like 5.1-> headphones, virtual speakers etc.

Not really sure about the impact of all this as we can install software like LAV or MPC-HC. I guess mobile users will benefit the most.

Not really sure about the impact of all this as we can install software like LAV or MPC-HC. I guess mobile users will benefit the most.

This will apply mostly for not-movies. MPC-HC does the job really well, but these Dolby features will be system-wide and available for all the developers to use in any app they want, which is great.

Will i need a dedicated sound card to enjoy this new feature? My motherboard spec. states: "7.1 CH HD Audio with Content Protection (Realtek ALC1150 Audio Codec)"

but then I mine only has 5.1 analog, but then 7.1 virtual...... dont know if mine can do 7.1 over digital or hdmi though..I need to test this someday