- Not sure if you need to waste your time testing, you can clearly see below that it’s played from a Roku 
Haha it’s no waste of time for me because I’ll permanently move it over to the receiver input anyway.
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Wait,. thanks to the winky face I can’t tell if you’re joking or serious: I can’t reproduce that playback on my Roku Ultra.
lol, was being serious. Depends on what you have as your setup?
My current setup is as follows:
- Roku Ultra via HDMI ARC cable into a 4k ready HDMI port on my Vizio 4k HDR TV
- Vizio 4k HDR TV via HDMI eARC out to my Vizio 5.1.2 Atmos Soundbar
- TV has Bitstream audio enabled
- Roku Audio settings has Dolby Digital Plus, DTS enabled under HDMI and Auto (Dolby Digital Plus) under Audio Mode
- Plex has Direct Play Enabled
For reference:
HDMI ARC cable
HDMI eARC cable
Hope that helps you on your quest to perfection 
edited to add links to all devices as needed.
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That is interesting! I have the Roku Ultra (4660X) connected directly to a compatible receiver via HDMI. In fact, it’s literally the same HDMI port where I had the Shield connected which handled lossless audio fine. I have essentially the same settings as you (except a direct connection instead of eARC) and it still forces a transcode. Puzzling.
I went searching a bit ago and found the recent Roku forum posts where they confirm that the 4660 was upgraded to bitstream TrueHD and DTA-HD MA.
I’m equal parts fascinated and frustrated that it’s not working for me. I’ll keep fooling with the setup. Thanks for the reply with the details.
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Link me that post
Here’s the one for DTS-MA from the Roku community manager. I swear I saw one that confirmed TrueHD too, but I haven’t found it yet.
https://forums.roku.com/viewtopic.php?t=103315&start=30#p629482
I just did some digging as well and can’t seem to find a difference between your 4660X and my 4660X2, it’s basically your model with JBL headphones, nothing has changed, so not sure what the problem could be???
Assuming it might be the HDMI cable, worth trying something a bit more powerful but don’t think it could be the HDMI, as generally most HDMI cables are pretty powerful and can handle passthrough without a hitch.
If you have the means, could be worth seeing if another Ultra will do the trick, could be yours has a bug. I guess if it doesn’t work, you can always return the new unit and get your monies back.
Just did another test just to triple check that it’s actually playing TrueHD and it is, see below:
Roku’s site also confirms that it has DTS and Atmos passthrough capabilities, thus the reason why I upgraded from a Roku 3 to the Roku Ultra:
What is the exact model number of your Roku Ultra? Is it the one you linked from Amazon?
Yes, it’s the model i linked on Amazon, which is 4660X2 aka 4661R
I did the same digging! You know what’s funny? The Amazon product page you sent me as a “You ordered this item!” banner at the top, so I’m pretty confident it’s the same product. It even has the JBL headphones. Gets listed as a 4660X in the “about” page for whatever reason anyway.
I had a bad HDMI cable recently so I tossed my old ones. I specifically used one of my shiny new ones to test.
I have another Roku I can try later just to see what happens.
I am out at an amusement park today but will stop at Costco on the way home and pick one up for testing.
Sounds good, hopefully you can replicate what I’m showing on my end.
@Cafe_Diem - What does yours transcode to when you play the file? Are you using Tautulli, if so, do you mind posting a pic, might be helpful for staff like Achilles to see if they can replicate.
Lastly, what model is your surround sound system? I’m assuming it can handle DTS without a hitch as 90% of surround sounds do but always worth doing some forum digging on the model and see if it needs specific steps you know.
I am not actually staff, just a peer AV enthusiast, HT buff and a forum mod. 
Close enough - Feel like the majority of us are always trying to help each other so essentially we’re all staff 
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Are you able to DP titles with VOBSUB/PGS subtitles?
@Achilles Nope, just tried to direct play with PGS sub’s and it transcodes to EAC3 7.1, but on top of that I get the infamous buffering, plays for 2 seconds then buffers again:
I do! Here’s a screenshot for DTS MA, and one for TrueHD.
I have a 2018 Yamaha Aventage so it handles basically everything without a hitch. No problems with direct-playing TrueHD and DTS MA.
Ahh you might have direct stream enabled. Can you confirm your Plex video settings on the Roku show the following?
I’ve been fooling around with those settings and have seen all kinds of quirkiness.
If I set it to force, Direct Stream doesn’t seem to matter. However, DTS-HA MA seems to be playing on the receiver as DTS core, which still leaves Tautulli showing “Direct Play” of the whole DCA 7.1 track.
For TrueHD, one movie showed a direct play, but audio wasn’t being received at all, and another one transcoded to EAC3, but that may have been because the video needed to be transcoded.
I’d fool with this more, but the family has informed me they’d actually like to, you know, watch something. I’ll try to revisit it later today.
