Server Version#: 1.40.0.7775 (macOS Sonoma 14.2.1)
Player Version#: 8.29 (7486) (tvOS 17.2)
I’m new to Plex and have been enjoying setting it up for surround music listening.
My audio system is 7.1.4 capable (a Sonos Arc-based system w/Era 300 surrounds), and I’m able to successfully play 7.1 FLAC files. Mentioning this to show that 7.1 works in my setup.
My issue is that EAC3 7.1 streams are getting converted to 5.1 by the time it reaches my audio system. But it’s not Plex Media Server that’s doing it, b/c the PMS dashboard shows the content going through as Direct Play (EAC3 8 Channels…). So the only thing I can think is that the Plex client may be transcoding/folding from 7.1 to 5.1? Does anyone know what might be going on (again, especially since 7.1 gets through if the source format is FLAC).
[Final bit of data: the EAC3 8 channel content does include Atmos content in case that makes a difference. Note that I’m not expecting Dolby Atmos support given that it’s a known current limitation. I’m just trying to understand why the rest of the content is getting demoted to 5.1 when it’s sourced and passed by PMS as 7.1.]
