I’ve been following other threads about the Mi Box not working well with audio passthrough and on a future beta version with it fixed, but since my problem is related to a TV with Android TV installed I decided to open a new thread.
My TV is a Sony X850C with Android 5.1.1 and I have Audio 2 selected on the Android’s Digital out settings.
I’ve just installed 5.5.0.77-beta and I can state that the SPDIF audio passthrough is still not working. I don’t know about HDMI ARC because I only use optical SPDIF.
The built-in Video app works perfectly with AC3 and DTS passthrough via SPDIF.
I’ve tried with Direct Play ON/OFF and Forced and Direct Stream On/Off too and their possible combinations.
Currently I have DirectPlay Forced and Direct Stream ON because I believe this is the most accurate setting for the audio and video not to be transcoded and sent untouched to the SPDIF-out.
I have Audio Passthrough on Auto (but I’ve tried with it off too) but no AC3 is being sent out; it’s being decoded by Plex.
I’ve noticed that when I change Audio Passthrough to OFF, then play a video and then go back to Settings and change Audio Passthrough to Auto and go play a video again, I get AC3 passthrough for one second but then it changes to stereo. I notice because my external decoder Dolby Digital’s led turns on for one second (and the audio is louder and in surround during that second)
I’ve read on other threads that this could be because via the optical SPDIF the app doesn’t know which formats the external decoder can decode. I’ve also read that future beta versions would include an option for us to choose which formats would be passthrough, like DD or DTS. That would solve the problem. I guess 5.5.0.77-beta still doesn’t include those options.
I am available to provided logs and test other beta versions you may release to fix this.
I am attaching a log with various combinations of Direct Play, Direct Stream and Audio passthrough.
Starting at the 22:27:34 mark is when I managed to get the one second AC3 passthrough working
According to someone they plan to implement audio options with separate toggles for SPDIF / HDMI compatible settings. I’m not sure if there is any truth to that though as it was just a random member on here who did not state their source. It would help you and others though.
I just wanted to add that I have the same configuration as BatKnight (Sony Bravia XBR-850C), Optical Audio Out (though I am on Marshmallow now), and I am experiencing the same issues. Some DTS videos do not play video at all and some do, but when they do, my receiver sees it as a standard Stereo PCM stream. The same is true when I play Dolby 5.1 files. I have the same issue whether I have Digital audio out set as Auto 1 or Auto 2.
Instead of Passthrough settings being just “Off” or “Auto”, can’t there be an option to force it “On” as well?
@danjames92 said:
According to someone they plan to implement audio options with separate toggles for SPDIF / HDMI compatible settings. I’m not sure if there is any truth to that though as it was just a random member on here who did not state their source. It would help you and others though.
I did state my source but if you didn’t want to read it then I can’t help you.
@danjames92 said:
According to someone they plan to implement audio options with separate toggles for SPDIF / HDMI compatible settings. I’m not sure if there is any truth to that though as it was just a random member on here who did not state their source. It would help you and others though.
I did state my source but if you didn’t want to read it then I can’t help you.
I don’t remember seeing one. Can you provide it again for me please? Didn’t mean to question, just don’t remember seeing it in a response.
@xjerky said:
Click on his profile and look at his recent posts. I’m glad to see some clarification on the topic. Hopefully this shows up on the next release!
I’ve been using the built in video player and DLNA to get around this limitation, but that doesn’t help with remote servers.
I’ve doing the exact same thing, DLNA and the built in video player, but would love to use the Plex app too.
Same here.
Sony Bravia TV with SPDIF output to Denon AVR. Playing video using DLNA gives DD5.1, and also when using the AmazonVideo app, or Xbox HDMI.
Playing via Plex results in stereo sound and not DD5.1. Plex player reports that the files are playing directly and not being transcoded by the server.
@Siddler said:
Same here.
Sony Bravia TV with SPDIF output to Denon AVR. Playing video using DLNA gives DD5.1, and also when using the AmazonVideo app, or Xbox HDMI.
Playing via Plex results in stereo sound and not DD5.1. Plex player reports that the files are playing directly and not being transcoded by the server.
Same Problem. Amazon Video and Kodi even in DTS work. Plex no
