Dolby atmos support

Plex Players Smart TVs
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Hello there
I direct play my movies from my pc striaght to my samsung plex app. Would the dolby atmos be supported in this case or i should consider the nvidia sheild instead

Thanks alot

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Short Answer: You need a Shield and an Atmos compatible receiver or soundbar.

Long Answer:

There are two types of Dolby Atmos:

  1. Dolby Digital Plus + Atmos, aka “EAC3 + Atmos” aka “Lossy Atmos” aka “Streaming Atmos.”

This is the Atmos used by streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon, Apple, etc.

  1. TrueHD + Atmos, aka “Lossless Atmos.”

This is the Atmos used on Blu-ray discs.

Some TVs support DDP + Atmos. You’ll need to check your TV specs. I have not seen any movies with DDP + Atmos audio on the disc or via download. However, if your TV supports the audio format, PMS should direct play the media (there are DDP+Atmos demo videos that direct play on my LG OLED using the LG Plex app).

No TV supports TrueHD audio, or by extension, TrueHD + Atmos. If you play a TrueHD + Atmos audio track using the Plex app on your TV, PMS will transcode it to a supported format.

Furthermore, you cannot pass TrueHD audio to a receiver/soundbar via HDMI-ARC. This is due to bandwidth limitations of HDMI-ARC.

The only way to get TrueHD + Atmos playback with Plex is to use an Nvidia Shield and a receiver/soundbar that supports TrueHD + Atmos. The Shield is the only streaming box that will passthrough TrueHD + Atmos.

The connection between devices is: Shield <–HDMI–> Receiver/Soundbar <–HDMI–> TV

If you have a recent (2018/2019) TV that supports eARC, you might be able to connect the Shield to the TV: Shield <–HDMI–> TV <–HDMI eARC–> Receiver/Soundbar

Note that both the TV and receiver/soundbar must both support HDMI eARC. Also, eARC has only recently become available, so no guarantees on reliability (I’ve seen very few posts on the forum of people using eARC, so cannot speak to how well it actually works).

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Thanks alot for the useful explanation.
What if i use xbox one x ? There is already dolby atmos audio output.
Or what if i put my movie in a harddisk and play on xbox instead of plex … whould it be better ?
And to be honest i already tried that but the xbox shows dolby atmos on all media files u play through it since i select dolby atmos as the main xbox sound output. And i really dont know if im getting the true hd atmos

What do u think ?

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I do not own an Xbox, so cannot speak to its capabilities or configuration options.

My setup:
Nvidia Shield Pro (2015) <–HDMI–> Denon 4300H <–HDMI–> LG B7 OLED

The Shield passes TrueHD + Atmos to the Denon without issue, along with dts-HD and dts:X.

The 2019 Shield will do the same. It also supports Dolby Vision video. The older Shield models only support HDR10.

I thought the Nvidia Shield was the only set top box that will passthrough TrueHD + Atmos audio for Plex. If the Xbox One X, or any other box, can do so, I have not seen any forum posts about it (but it would be nice to have options).

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Is this the one to buy ?

Thanks alot

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Yes. Or the 2019 non-Pro version (looks like a tube).

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Just got the nvidia shield and it worked. I must say u r a life saver. Thanks alot and i really appreciate ur help and support.
By the way i tried the same solution with my laptop as a hdmi output and it also worked

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