I have a Sony XBR AndroidTV that I have connect to a home theater thru HDMI ARC.
The Hometheater does not support DTS-HD Master Audio nor Dolby True HD codecs.
For some reason I don’t know, if the “Audio pass though” option is disabled, seems like I only get stereo, the surround speakers will reproduce the same audio as the front speaks. If I enable Audio pass though, I will get correct surround sound, however movies with DTS-HD Master Audio or Dolby True HD audio codecs will clip/chop alot, making it impossible to watch.
If I’m watching a movie with one of those codecs and I try to transcode the video down to any quality, it will transcode the audio to AC3, and the audio will be just great, perfectly playable by my hometheater, proper surround and no clips/chops.
My question is: Can I always transcode the audio only if it’s DTS-HD Master Audio or Dolby True HD?
Seems like this exact option is available in the Android mobile app, under Settings -> Advanced -> Player. Is it hidden in the AndroidTV app? That’s really odd since both apps are runing the exact same version of the app (7.28).
Is there any way to access this setting in the Android TV app?
Due to bandwidth limitations, HDMI-ARC cannot pass lossless codecs such as TrueHD and dts-HD MA. It will pass AC3/EAC3/dts at 5.1 channels or less.
The TV and home theater perform a handshake at startup, telling each other what audio formats are supported.
With passthrough enabled, Plex will (should) pass all supported audio streams to the hometheater. Unsupported audio streams will be transcoded by the Plex server to a supported format. The audio stream may sometimes be transcoded by the device (i.e. your TV) instead of the Plex server.
TrueHD audio will always be transcoded since it cannot be passed via HDMI-ARC. dts-HD MA may be transcoded or the TV may pass the core dts 5.1 audio stream (it varies by device and I do not have a Sony TV with which to test).
With passthrough disabled, Plex will transcode all audio, probably to AAC 2.0.
You can view what is happening during playback via the Plex Dashboard. It will tell you if the audio/video streams are transcoding and if so, to what format.
Two suggestions:
Avoid transcoding audio. Choose either an AC3 or dts audio stream.
Blu-ray movies with TrueHD audio also include an AC3 version of the audio track. The same for those with dts-HD MA audio - a dts 5.1 audio track is included.
An added benefit is this helps avoid video transcodes. On Android TV devices, if the audio is transcoding, enabling subtitles results in a video transcode.
Disable the new/enhanced player in the Plex client (in Advanced settings). The new player has caused issues for some people. Disabling it may help until Plex gets the kinks worked out of the new player.
FYI, if you’ve media that has only TrueHD or dts-HD audio, you can create an AC3/dts track using X Media Recode. You can passthrough/copy the existing audio/video streams while also transcoding audio to a desired format.
Example:
movie.mkv movie-1.mkv
Video ------> copy -----> Video
TrueHD -----> copy -----> TrueHD
|-----> transcode ---> AC3 5.1
Yeah, I have noticed that it never tried to direct play a TrueHD audio stream, it was transcoded to AC3 5.1 right away, even with audio passthrough enabled.
The main problem is with DTS-HD MA. It tries to direct play (if audio passthrough is enabled) and it’s just unwatchable.
I have hundreds of media with only Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD MA audio, so creating the tracks is a really tough thing to do…
Is there any way to make the DTS-HD MA audio track to be transcoded like the TrueHD?
The mobile app has an option to unsupport this codec, isn’t this option available somewhere in the TV layout of the app?
