Woo hoo… I figured out a way to get surround sound from Plex on a Sony Bravia Android TV and figured I’d share this in case you find out you only get PCM stereo instead of Surround Sound, despite all your other apps like Netflix and Amazon playing surround sound fine.
Problem: Only a few movies or shows play in surround or ATMOS from Plex on a Bravia TV hooked to a surround receiver via eARC or ARC.
Solution: Go to Plex settings, HDMI passthrough and select “optical”. This is the only way to get surround sound. You cannot get it by selecting “disabled” or “HDMI” because then you’ll only hear PCM stereo through your surround sound system. Choose “optical”, (even though you don’t have an optical cable and your TV is connected to your receiver via ARC).
For whatever reason it doesn’t work when set correctly to HDMI, maybe the HDMI passthrough options are backwards from their function and when you select optical it is really HDMI.
