Mkv files as music in music library

Plex Labs
1

I would love to see the ability to add mkv files to music libraries for surround sound music listening.

Codecs like Dolby True-HD Atmos, DD+ Atmos, and DTS:X can only be stored within .mkv files and maintain the proper metadata. If converted to .flac the object information will be lost. It would be really awesome to see the ability to add this to “Music” library’s in plex. This way it can be played back via Plexamp. So it can be used in CarPlay/android auto and also on headless raspberry pi etc.

Thanks!

2

I was going to suggest putting them in .mka or .m4a containers, but while thinking about it I found a reasonably up to date thread on avsforum.

Not sure how @elan feels about Atmos.
There’s probably significant licensing fees, but you could add your vote to

3

MKV files without a video stream in them are MKA files.
You can add them to your Plex music library, but Plex server cannot read metadata from them. So you are fully dependent on file names, folder structure, and musicbrainz.org matching to get metadata.

Playing these files in plexamp will not give you Atmos sound. The best you can currently get is 5.1 surround, IF the sound interface on the playback device has that many channels.
The source codec of EAC3, or DTS will be transcoded to 5.1 OPUS before it’s transferred to plexamp.