Here is the problem: I have most of my movies encoded with a DTS 5.1 (DCA Audio Codec) and am looking at purchasing a home theater to hook on to my Apple TV. The HT only supports Dolby Digital 5.1.
Now it has come to my understanding that Apple TV is only able to output Dolby Digital 5.1 for true 5.1 output and that to allow it, you need to configure on the PMS side the transcode to Dolby Digital in the settings->Advanced settings, then on the ATV, Settings->Audio & Video->Enable Dolby Digital->ON.
For now my ATV is hooked up to my TV which does not support DD5.1 as input.
I tried to play a few trailer from the movie apps (not the trailer apps, but watch a movie and select preview), it work just fine. When I try to play my movies in PlexConnect on the ATV, no sounds comes out. To get some sound I need to disable the DD5.1 on the ATV settings.
Any idea why? Does the PlexConnect acts as a pass thru for DTS 5.1 only or does it really transcode to DD5.1?
Like you said in pms there is a option under advanced/transcode to enable digital audio passthru to the atv. Also on the atv you should set the dolby digital to on within the settings. I have tested my atv with my denon amp and I can play dd or dts depending on the video using a hdmi imput on the denon amp. I did not test the optical port but I would imagine it would work the same for digital audio. Plexconnect should tell you on each video either acc for dolby digital or dts for digital theater surround sound. Your tv obviously will only support a simulated surround sound at best, most will only output on the tv speakers as a standard downcoverted analog audio. Anytime I setup a theater I set my amp to 5 channel stereo on every source, when the dd or dts kicks it automatically changes to the proper digital audio format. I dont know why you are having a issue but if your amp is only dd you will not get dts obviously. Try a different video with digital audio and see what happens. Im running the latest pms and plexconnect with no issues on my atv2’s untethered ios 5.2.
That's the key question. Will it work? I actually am looking at the alternatives for buying amps. To be honest I am quite seduced by the Sonos play bar, but it only supports Dolby Digital 5.1, hence my question of does it transcode or not? I guess your denon amp has both licensing for DTS and DD and therefore pass thru or not you're on the safe side and have it playing. I tried with a AC3 5.1 Dolby digital encoded file and same result, but I guess this is due to my TV speakers, so I am not going any further.
You said PlexConnect should tell me if it is DD or DTS. Where? Is that in the film details? I yes I know what you mean, but what I'd like to do is to get a log file that tells me if the audio segments are transcoded and what is outputted from the atv. Any idea on how to do that?
It should work, yes. That sonos play bar is only going to create a virtual 5.1 surround sound at best, but if its your only option I understand, you can also go with a wireless option from amp to rear speakers that would give you a true surround sound. For 5.1, 6.1, 7.1, 7.2, I personally like denon and marantz mainly as amps with in wall/in ceiling niles speakers with a velodyne sub. That im not sure of if its transcoding or not. My background is mainly in installing home theaters. When you look at the title prior to playing it in plexconnect it should say acc or dd.
Yes it really works. My AV decoder supports DD 5.1, but not DTS. Movies with DTS soundtrack are transcoded by PMS to DD 5.1 and play perfectly via PlexConnect and ATV.
Sorry, got that slightly wrong. But don't worry, it still really does work.
My AV decoder is a Cyrus AV8, which does support DTS. However the issue is that the Apple TV (which feeds digital audio to the AV8) does not support DTS passthrough, only DD5.1. PMS knows this and therefore transcodes DTS tracks to DD5.1.
To verify what's going on - the AV8 decoder shows on the front panel what sort of audio signal it is receiving. And I have another media player (eGreat M34) which can output a DTS signal. It's also connected to the AV8 decoder. So, if I play a file with a DTS soundtrack through Plex (i.e. using the Apple TV), the AV8 shows it is receiving a DD signal (because of the transcoding done by PMS). If I play the same file using the M34 player, the AV8 shows it is receiving a DTS signal (no transcoding).
I have a denon receiver that is DTS capable, but like others here, Plex on ATV will take the DTS audio stream and convert it to DD 5.1. How can I prevent this from happening? I want the original DTS audio to be passed thru to my receiver and not have it convert DTS to DD5.1. Why does it do this and is there any way I can prevent this from happening? I want the audio to remain the same, whatever the source audio is. It the movie has DTS audio, I want it to play as DTS and not have it convert.
Run plex home theater or plex client on a mac or pc. Atv does not support dts yet using plexconnect that I know of. It must down convert to dd at this time it still needs to be implemented if possible into plexconnect and or pms. I have a denon amp with dts as well, it would be nice to have the atv push dts :)
What f00b4r is saying is that by iOS limitations at this time since it uses mp4 as a native video format you cannot play dts on the ATV. On the other hand pms has dts builtin and can play on multiple devices such as mac or windows using pht or pmc. If apple fixes it I’m sure these guys will implement it on plexconnect.
I’m trying to think of anything that might motivate apple to support DTS. Maybe if the supported video apps, like Netflix or HBOGo started offering DTS? I dunno. And even then, could it occur with just a fw update by ATV? Are there licensing or other costs?
Just to put my 2 cents comments on itzme post: how much more space does a DTS soundtrack takes in the global video file? Yes it is much better quality but if the average joe can't stream it through his internet pipe, then the use of a streaming box like ATV is limited. Plus, depending on how they build their body of material, they might encode in the same container (MP4 with AC3/AAC and H264) for all iDevices, to skip some admin trouble streaming their own catalogue. If that is the case they are very likely to try to enforce their rules to the content providers, it is Apple after all :)
The AppleTV will pass DTS, I don't think it's an iOS limitation. I recently switched to Plex from Firecore's Infuse on a jailbroken ATV2, and I had been streaming DTS MKVs to my Denon receiver for over a year.
I'm loving Plex so far. Hopefully this is a feature that can be worked out for a future release.
The AppleTV will pass DTS, I don't think it's an iOS limitation. I recently switched to Plex from Firecore's Infuse on a jailbroken ATV2, and I had been streaming DTS MKVs to my Denon receiver for over a year.
I'm loving Plex so far. Hopefully this is a feature that can be worked out for a future release.
You are wrong, it is a firmware limitation.
Apple do not support DTS in the ATV media player.
You cannot compare the two.
