Server Version#: 1.41.3.9314
Player Version#: 10.26.0.2578
This is more of a general question as I am no longer having any issues. I recently switched from an older LG WebOS based TV to a new TCL QM851G running Google TV. My TV is connected to a Pioneer receiver over optical as I never could get ARC working on my LG with that receiver. The issue I was having is that the Plex player does not support eac3 audio encoding over optical so it was triggering transcoding to ac3 at the server for all eac3 content.
I decided to try everything to get it working and eventually did after reading that the Pioneer receiver needs to be repowered (actually unplugged from the wall) whenever HDMI is reconfigured as it only scans the HDMI ports on initialization. The point of confusion now is that I still cannot get the ARC over HDMI working however now if I put the Plex player in HDMI passthrough mode and have the TV set in its settings to output audio over Optical, I am no longer transcoding eac3 and direct play is occurring. I have tried this with both my Firestick Max Plex player and the TCL Plex player and they both direct play eac3 now with them configured for HDMI out and the TV configured for Optical out.
Does it make any sense Plex audio is configured for HDMI yet the TV is configured for Optical?
It is an optical, not Plex, limitation. Optical does not support EAC3, only AC3 5.1, DTS 5.1, & PCM 2.0.
The TV and/or Fire Stick are probably converting EAC3 to AC3 (or maybe PCM). This happens at the device level and is not visible to Plex, which still direct plays.
In the Plex Android TV app, you can also configure passthrough = optical, then enable passthrough for AC3 and/or DTS. This tells Plex to behave as if it were connected via optical instead of HDMI.
If supported by the Pioneer, connect the FireStick to an HDMI input. You’ll then get EAC3 audio.
I get what you are saying about the device transcoding but what does setting the output in Plex actually do if it is configured for HDMI yet the TV itself is configured for Optical? It seems to only impact the reported capabilities of the player to the server as the server and the app decided that they could direct play eac3 in this config.
The TV must be transcoding the output since it is the only one that is aware it is connected via optical (I assume it is happening in the software that controls the optical link for the TV). The Firestick seems to have no idea the connection between the TV and the receiver is over an optical interface otherwise it should have negotiated a transcoded stream with the serever. I am happy to have it work this way and okay with it being transcoded at the TV if that is what is happening.
The playback behaviour is now consistent with how my old LG WebOS TV behaved even if the configuration is quite weird. I was really most interested in offloading the transcoding burden from the server.
