I purchased the new JBL 1300X Dolby Atmos sound bar yesterday and was so disappointed to find out that PLEX won’t play Dolby Atmos surround (or any kind of surround really) through it. This is pretty wild to me since the Chromecast doesn’t have any trouble playing incredible ATMOS sound through the HBO app or the NETFLIX app.
I did some searching and read somewhere that the BETA Version of the PLEX app has better support so I joined it and after the new app reinstalled on my Chromecast the rear speakers finally started operating - however the sound bar says that the mode it’s using is PCM MULTICHANNEL - and not ATMOS, even though the files have the ATMOS codec.
DD+ is Dolby Digital Plus which is EAC3 most streaming services use that and lossy atmos is embedded in it…
TrueHD with Atmos will generally be on a Bluray
I think Atmos can also be in a LPCM stream as well.
If you look at the audio settings of the device itself you will see it’s supported formats and you will see it says “Atmos with Dolby Digital Plus” not a separate option for Atmos
Oh okay thank you for that explanation. Is there really such a noticable difference between 5.1 or 7.1 or Dolbi atmos on a system like the JBL Soundbar 1300?
I’ve never used a sound bar so I could not say. Even with my 7.1 system I have calibrating to the room itself is important. One of the reasons I have a Yamaha receiver is because it comes with a decent calibration mic (decent for my amateur self) that sets speaker distance and such which makes it sounds so much better IMO than default settings, and I don’t have to fiddle with settings til it sounds good.
This isn’t just any old soundbar. It’s a $1700 Atmos system with 2 detachable rear speakers. It also does the calibration thing with the weird sounds (almost all surround systems and receivers have this function).
Short Answer: Acquire a Nvidia Shield Pro or Xbox.
Note: Based on comments on the forum, the Shield Pro seems to be preferred over the Xbox for use as a Plex client. I’ve never used Plex on an Xbox. Others who have used both can hopefully fill in some details.
Long Answer:
As others have mentioned, there are two forms of Atmos for home theaters.
Dolby Digital Plus Atmos (DDP Atmos): Used by streaming services.
TrueHD Atmos: Found on blu-ray discs
Many devices, including the Google Chromecast with Android TV, support passthrough for DDP Atmos.
There are two off the shelf devices that support passthrough for TrueHD + Atmos:
Nvidia Shield Pro
Xbox.
If you play a TrueHD Atmos audio track on a device that does not support the format (such as the Chromecast), the audio will be transcoded by Plex Media Server to a supported format and Atmos information will be lost in the process.
It is not possible to convert TrueHD Atmos to DDP Atmos (at least in the home theater market).
If you want TrueHD + Atmos audio, you will need to acquire a Nvidia Shield Pro or Xbox.
Note: Do not use the non-pro “tube” Shield. It is limited compared to the Pro model. It is prone to audio dropouts & other problems when playing high bit-rate media such as 4K HDR rips.
Note: Some TVs block passthrough of TrueHD and/or DTS audio formats from connected devices. You may need to attach the Shield/Xbox to an HDMI input on the soundbar.
Yeah I saw that the Shield supports it and I was thinking it might be a good idea to buy one but they are SO old at this point. The one thing I hate is buying an old product and then a month later NVIDIA releases the SHIELD 2 and I feel like an idiot.
I think i’ll just focus my ATMOS efforts around Netflix and HBO Max and when the next NVIDIA Streamer comes out i’ll upgrade.
Low and behold, last night I watched a really great movie called SHARPER that like many other files I downloaded also said it was ATMOS (though none of the other ones were recognized as ATMOS through PLEX and by the Sound bar) but this one finally did!! when it started playing the Sound Bar claimed the content was ATMOS. So I guess Plex can do it through Chromecast after all! it just really depends on the file.
