Re: Audio Bandwidth
The limitation is only from the TV to the soundbar, not from devices (PCs, set top boxes, etc) to the soundbar.
Audio passing from the TV to the soundbar uses the Audio Return Channel (ARC) part of HDMI. ARC was added to the original HDMI specification so you don’t have to run an optical cable to get TV audio to your soundbar, receiver, etc. Unfortunately, it has the same bandwidth limits as optical, so no multi-channel lossless audio such as TrueHD & dts-HD MA.
Audio that travels with video, from blu-ray players, streaming boxes, etc, does not have this bandwidth limitation. That is why such devices can feed lossless audio to the soundbar.
Re: Plex Windows Store App
Dump it. It hasn’t been updated since May 2017.
Re: Plex Media Player on PC
Plex is really good at hiding the settings in this app. The ones to look at are when PMP is in the “TV Layout.”
Launch PMP. Look in upper right. You’ll see the letters “TV” in a rectangular box, next to the Full Screen arrows. Click on it. This puts the player into the TV Layout.
Note: I have to use the arrow keys on my keyboard to navigate some of the menus at this point.
To get into settings, select your User picture/letter, then choose Settings.
Choose Audio → Device Type. Change from Basic to HDMI. You should now see several settings to passthrough various audio codecs. TrueHD is at the bottom. Select it if unchecked.
This might let you pass TrueHD + Atmos from your PC to the soundbar.
See pics below
Re: 4K60p, 4:4:4, etc.
See Wikipedia entry for HDMI. Specifically, the “Refresh frequency limits for standard video” and “Refresh frequency limits for HDR10 video” tables.
Some things to note:
- 4Kp60 HDR is limited to 4:2:2 for HDMI 2.0.
- The LG C7 is a 10-bit panel (I’ve the B7 which is also 10-bit).
- HDR10 movies on Blu-ray have 4:2:0 chroma subsampling.
You might try setting the PC to 10-bit instead of 12. It will push less data down the HDMI cable which should improve stability (tearing, etc). The TV doesn’t use those extra 2 bits anyway.
Also try setting the chroma subsampling to 4:2:2 or 4:2:0. This brings things back within the limits of HDMI 2.0.
Plex Media Player Settings
Select TV to change to TV Layout
To get to settings in TV Layout
Change Audio Device Type to HDMI and Passthrough options become available
