EAC3 not working...can we please have a response from Plex on this

General Discussions
1

HI All,

After searching the forums I am aware this has been raised before but it appears no answers.
I dont have a plex pass account, so am guessing that they wont directly respond to me, but can anyone shed any light on this issue, it must have been raised with plex support directly as some stage

Andrew

2

You will need to be more specific…

E-AC3 works just fine for me and many others. What is your specific problem, and what’s your server version, what OS is it running on, etc.

EAC3 not working is simply too broad…

3

HI Jason,

Plex Server running on Mac OS High Sierra via ethernet to Nvidia Shield plex player.
The server advises me it is direct playing the audio an video and all other files I have seem fine, although I not checked to see if other files are using EAC3. I was able to play the same file though via VLC on the Shield device

Thanks
Andrew

4

Ok, so it’s playing, but you get no sound? Is that what’s happening?

Edit: Also, can you tell me how you have your equipment wired?

Is it: Shield>TV>Receiver via ARC
or: Shield>Receiver>TV

Or, do you not have a receiver? Or what? Can you explain a bit more about what you have and how it’s connected?

5

Getting the same thing here, I’m running from seedbox so I can only really change the folders to 777, but I can’t access root access to the docker.
I’ve tried wiping out the EAC folder and letting it redownload, didn’t work.
I completely reinstalled Plex from scratch, didn’t work.
I notice EAC encodes for about 10 minutes before it breaks after you restart Plex.

transcoder error
transcoder error2001Ă—152 322 KB

6

Hi Jason,

Yes the video plays fine, but with no sound. The Shield device is connected to the TV via HDMI and the sound is sent from the TV to the soundbar via optical cable. ARC is not enabled and no receiver is involved

Thanks
Andrew

7

Make & model of TV?

Make & model of soundbar?

What are your audio settings on the Shield itself (not in the Plex app)?

Settings -> Device Preferences -> Display & Sound -> Advanced sound settings
  Available formats = Auto
  Stereo upmix = off

What are your settings in the Plex app on the Shield?

Video Quality
  Adjust automatically = Off
  Home Streaming = Maximum
  Play smaller videos = On
Advanced
  Passthrough = HDMI
1 Like
8

My guess is going to be, VLC is decoding the stream on the spot and sending it as PCM to your tv and it’s getting sent via optical to the soundbar, while Plex is handing over the E-AC3 to the TV without decoding which is then piping it to the SoundBar. I am not positive, but I don’t think that an Optical Cable can carry an E-AC3 stream, though I could be mistaken. Does the TV have an Atmos/DD+ Decoder/E-AC3 decoder? If it does, try using an HDMI with ARC instead and see if you get different results… Unless you have eARC, this will still fail for TrueHD and DTSHD-MA though.

1 Like
9

Eac3 is not supported over optical as mentioned above so something needs to convert it. If the sound bar is the only audio device used you can turn off passthrough in the app or changing the Shields Available formats setting to turn off eac3 should do it. Just enable the things your sound bar supports. Your tv might have settings for it as well

10

E-AC3 is not supported on a lot of older TV models, keep that in mind. If you have a receiver that is newer that 2013 and a midrange one E-AC3 should be handled correcly.

Setup should be Shield connecter to the receiver and HDMI passthroud enabled and then the reveiver connected to the TV. If you have no audio it means taht the received can’t handle the e-ac3 tracks. Unfortunettly e-ac3 is not backwards compatbile as there is no core ac3 track inside like other standard do (dts-ma for example).

11

Hi All,

Thanks for the responses. I turned off passthrough and I can now get sound. So my final question is should I leave passthrough off, or just turn it off when i need to play an EAC3 audio stream. ?

Many Thanks for all you guys help

Andrew

12

That’s the least ideal way to handle it in my opinion, but if it works, it works. Personally, I would follow the advice already given.

Either go Shield>Soundbar>TV as mentioned by aegrimisu

Or

Go Shield>TV>Soundbar via ARC (HDMI)

In these scenarios, it will send the E-AC3 signal to the soundbar, which should be able to decode it (Provided your soundbar has DD+ Decoder). The issue was/is that you’re trying to do E-AC3 over optical cable, and that’s not possible.

13

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