Server Version#: 1.20.1.3252
Player Version#: 1.18.0.1392-cf94f6a1
My old receiver died recently so I bought a new one, namely the Pioneer VSX-934. One of its benefits was supposed to be support for all the “new” formats such as DTS-HD MA or TrueHD, but when I set Plex to pass-through those formats to the received, I get no sound. The receiver does light up the little DTS or Dolby indicators, but produces no sound.
I do get sound, if I select regular DTS, AC3 or any other fallback formats, but DTS-HD MA or TrueHD won’t work. I don’t know if there’s some problem in my setup or if it’s some limitation of the Windows Plex player or Windows 10 in general. If anyone has any idea, let me know.
BTW, I have my PC connected to the monitor via DisplayPort and also to the receiver via HDMI (just for the audio). In the Nvidia control panel, it’s set up as a “clone screen” so both ports send the same signal to both devices. Technically, this shouldn’t be a problem and isn’t for DTS or AC3, but maybe DTS-HD MA or TrueHD use some newer HDCP version and HDCP 2.2 has a problem with such setup, for some reason?
Unfortunately, I don’t have a stand-alone 4K Blu-ray player so I can’t test this with anything other than Plex.
I downloaded an “Atmos” App from the Microsoft Store which has some test-trailers using this format and they work, I can hear the sound and my PC passes Atmos through to my receiver. However, this only works through that app and if I have “Dolby Atmos for home theater” selected in my audio settings, then I can’t actually get any sound from the system or YouTube etc. only through this one Atmos app and those test trailers.
Can someone at least confirm that they can successfully get TrueHD and DTS-HD MA audio passthrough via Plex when using direct playback and the Plex for Windows app? This information would allow me to dig further into this, check if my settings are different than yours and know if this should be treated as a Plex, Windows or receiver issue.
FYI, I’m still not sure what exactly the cause of this issue was, but I found a “solution”.
Because my PC is connected to the monitor via DisplayPort and also HDMI (through the receiver), it sees them as two separate screens so I always had it set up so that the DisplayPort input is the primary one running at 1440p @ 120 Hz and that gets mirrored to the “secondary screen” (aka HDMI). This way I didn’t have some phantom second screen I can’t even see.
Under those circumstances I kept having the issue described above. Now I’ve changed this. Instead of mirroring the same content to both connectors, I’ve used the option to “extend” the screen (basically creating a second “phantom” screen) and then set the HDMI connection to 1080p at 60Hz. Now everything works and the receiver can play all audio formats incl. DTS-HD MA, TrueHD/Atmos.
Again, not sure what the real issue was. I’m using a HDMI 2.0 cable and according to the specs, HDMI 2.0 should be capable of pushing 1440p at 120 Hz so it shouldn’t be a bandwidth issue. Either way, I’m good
