I’ve been having this issue for a while and I can’t seem to figure it out. I have some movies that are encoded in 5.1. On all other devices, if 5.1 isn’t supported, Plex will transcode/downmix to ACC 2 channel. This doesn’t happen on my Fire TV Stick. This results in super quiet or no voices. My copy of The Empire Strikes Back is unwatchable and it’s very sad
I have searched and found some old topics about this and no actual solutions.
I saw that some people are reencoding all of their media, but that would take quite some time as I have a decent size library. It also seems silly because PMS is perfectly capable of doing such.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
JSMcBacon
Server Version#: 1.15.6.1079
Player Version#: 7.15.0.10215
To what is the FireStick attached - TV, receiver, etc?
What do you have for the audio settings on the FireStick itself?
What do you have for the audio settings in the Plex app (HDMI passthrough)?
What is the audio track in The Empire Strikes Back - AC3, dts, etc?
The default settings on a Fire Stick will send AC3 5.1 to the attached TV/receiver/etc, if the device support it.
AC3 5.1 is used for broadcast TV audio in the US, it is rare to find a TV that does not support it. The TV can downmix from 5.1 to 2.0 when using the internal speakers.
dts support varies by FireStick model. dts may be transcoded on PMS to a supported format. It may also be decoded on the FireStick and sent to the attached device as PCM (PMS shows Direct Play if this is happening).
My FireTV Cube is set with Dolby Digital and Passthrough = HDMI. I played several movies with dts and AC3 audio and the audio sounds fine whether coming from the TV speakers or via my receiver (Cube <–HDMI–> TV <–HDMI–> Receiver).
I set the FireTV to Stereo and Plex to Passthrough = Off, and things still sounded fine.
Which model FireStick do you have - Gen 1/2/3/4K? Maybe there is something specific to the model you own.
Do other apps on the stick work OK - Netflix/Amazon/etc? If so, that suggests the Fire Stick is working fine.
Wish I had some better ideas. I quite stumped at the moment.
And yes other apps work just fine, I think that PMS isnt seeing the need to transcode for some reason. I would go in and modify the Android.xml, but I have a Fire TV Cube that is hooked up to a Receiver that has a 5.1 system so I want passthrough then… IDK.
Center channel problems on the Firestick have been ongoing since 2015, we need this fixed. The problem is frustrating hundreds if not thousands of users.
I am a lifetime subscriber and am really getting tired of this.
I exclusively use my fire stick on the road, so i don’t have much input as to what kind of (crappy) tv it’ll get plugged into in the hotel… but it’s about 50/50 on the center channel audio not coming through properly.
I am also experiencing this on the firestick. Plex only, latest build.
I have tried multiple combinations of the plex and firestick settings with the firestick set to stereo only and no HDMI Passthrough of 5.1, surely I should get downmixed stereo out put but there is no central speaker. Really frustrating.
I am also having this problem still with a 3rd gen Fire TV 4k, the problem first started back in February 2015 I believe (as mentioned before) with my older 2nd gen Fire TV (the last one that came as a “box” with LAN and USB ports). I only bought a new Fire TV because some people reported that newer 4k version didn’t have this problem, but it does.
It would be REALLY REALLY NICE if this got fixed, either by making sure the Plex app on the Fire TV correctly reports what audio it is capable of playing, or by giving us the option to force 2.0 in settings on the app.
