If I play TrueHD Atmos file on the LG C8 OLED Plex Player, can it convert it to Dolby Digital Plus and pass it to my soundbar through ARC?
I gave up this approach previously reading that few devices can convert TrueHD to DD+ because you need pay that license fee. But then, I read this article saying LG C8 can do this because it supports that, so I am wondering if that enables the Plex player on C8 can do this too? (https://www.trustedreviews.com/how-to/hdmi-earc-sonos-arc-4035031There is a workaround: if your TV supports Dolby Atmos decoding natively, such as LG’s 2018 OLED TVs, then the TV can decode the high-resolution Atmos input and re-encode it as Dolby Digital Plus to send to the Sonos Arc.)
if that tv, and your soundbar both have E-ARC, then it is possible that it may PASS THROUGH the truehd/atmos, but it is extremely unlikely that the tv will CONVERT truehd/atmos to dd+/atmos internally, even though that article says it does.
More likely what is happening, is a 4k bluray player is sending the DD+atmos directly (not truehd+atmos), which the reviewer thinks is truehd being converted.
If you already have the tv and soundbar, then you should simply try it yourself, and it works come back and confirm it so the rest of us can cheer.
Also, there are NO KNOWN tvs which will accept truehd over plex, even over E-ARC.
E-ARC appears to be only for HDMI connections (not apps).
The only plex player that supports truehd pass through is nvidia shield.
Unfortunately, the whole point of figuring out this is to decide whether it’s worth buying that soundbar.
However, I did a test with my current soundbar (Sonos Beam, which doesn’t support DD+, doesn’t support atmos either). I played a TrueHD file, the Beam received DD 5.1. Does this mean anything?
you would have to determine whether or not plex sent the dd or truehd… normally plex does the conversion/transcode at the server because the clients most often cannot do any conversions themselves.
you would probably need tautulli to get the extra details.
if the question is can the plex app on the tv accept truehd, then the answer is no.
Your answer is what I have been getting across the internet except that link I posted in OP. It has been driving me crazy for months. I finally decided to buy the Sonos ARC to confirm this myself. The short answer is actually, Yes, the C8 can convert TrueHD to DD+ and send it via ARC to Sonos ARC. However, the native LG Plex app can’t do this. The content needs to be external. See this post: Plex on LG C8 can't convert TrueHD to DD+ but if played through Shield TV Pro, it can