I have a large library of multichannel music ripped to 5.1 surround multichannel flac files. When I play them back over hdmi, my receiver only receives a stereo signal, with only the front channels. Not sure why you’d program software to throw away more than half of the audio content ,but there you go. I know my equipment is properly configured. I had previously gotten Kodi to playback the same 5.1 surround content on the same setup, except that it being an unstable pile of garbage it would crash out after a few songs, hence my coming back to the nightmare that is trying to navigate a plex menu that changed itself overnight one day to completely ruin my navigation, but that’s another topic. Anyways, any plans to fix this?
Which Plex app are you talking about.
Sorry, thought I had mentioned that in the post but I seem to have forgotten. I’m using it on a fire stick. Installed everything today, so everything is up to date, latest version. My receiver indicates it’s only getting a stereo signal, so everything is good on that end. Fire stick is set to use “best audio”, didn’t set a specific 5.1 or anything like that…those audio settings in the past left well enough alone that Kodi would send the flac 5.1 to the receiver no problem, until it would freeze up.
Check the Plex app on the Firestick. Set passthrough = HDMI.
Also, check each audio codec - AC3, EAC3, AAC, dts, TrueHD etc.
AC3 & EAC3 should passthrough. The others are probably decoded to PCM on the FireStick or transcoded by Plex Media Server.
Passthrough is already set to HDMI. I’m not finding any codec settings in the Plex app. I’ve gone through all the settings, I see no reason that Plex should strip off 4 out of 6 channels when playing back. But it stubbornly insists on doing so, despite this same setup playing back 5.1 with Kodi.
What is the make/model of your receiver?
I meant you need to test with each audio codec. Play a video with AC3 5.1, dts 5.1, etc and see what happens.
It’s a Denon receiver. I honestly think the receiver has nothing to do with the issue here, if it was receiving a multi-channel signal, it would indicate so. It is indicating receiving a stereo signal when playing back multi-channel flac via plex, therefore it seems plex is sending a stereo signal, and stripping out the other 4 channels from my files.
I don’t have readily available files of other codecs that plex will play. If plex would recognize iso files, of which I have a library of, then that would be easy. But, it seems the developers of plex continue to remain rather clueless about the serious need for any digital player to have iso playback if it’s going to be useful…
Ok, few more pieces of useful information.
I did find some TV episodes in my library have ac3 5.1 only soundtrack on .mkv files. Those do pass along the 5.1, and the Denon receiver sees it as 5.1, so mkv ac3 does work.
Meanwhile, I also have in my library 5.1 surround DTS audio CDs that I ripped to flac. If you aren’t familiar with this format, read up on it, you’ll probably misunderstand what I’m trying to say in some way. So, a DTS CD contains a 5.1 digital signal on 2 channel redbook CD. If you play the CD in a standard stereo CD player, you will hear 2 channel noise. However, if you playback the CD in a CD player with optical or coaxial digital output to a receiver or decoder, the dts decoder will detect the signal and decode it out to 5.1 surround. What I have found in my experience is that I can rip a DTS CD to a 2 channel flac file, and many players will decode out the DTS 5.1 signal from the 2.0 channel flac file. If a player can’t handle it, you’ll get noise. When I playback these DTS encoded flac files from plex, I get the front 2 channels of the decoded signal. This says to me plex is recognizing and decoding the DTS from the flac file (if it wasn’t, I’d only get noise), but…then it decides to send a stereo signal, and strips out the other 4 channels, like it is doing for my multi-channel flac files.
Hopefully this provides enough information for testing to re-create and confirm what I’m seeing here (I’m rather confident if you test these same things, 5.1 multichannel flac or 5.1 DTS encoded signal on 2.0 flac, you will get the same results as me, front only output), and fix this to output the full 5.1 signal.
It seems you will push an encoded signal, but you won’t push 5.1 PCM via hdmi.
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Apologies. My initial reply was for multi-channel sound in movies, not music.
Unfortunately, I don’t have good news.
The Plex AndroidTV app does not handle multi-channel music. It plays the right and left channels only, discarding the other channels (no mix-down to 2.0, etc).
It is not specific to the Amazon FireStick. It will happen with any AndroidTV device. I have an Nvidia Shield and it does the same.
Also, all music is sent at 48 kHz, so any hi-res files are downsampled before playback.
There are several threads on the forum about this topic and currently no good resolution. Switching to a different Plex client may not solve the problem, as I found a thread with Apple TV users with the same complaint.
The only way I know of to play multi-channel music in Plex is via DLNA. You enable the DLNA server in Plex Media Center, then use a DLNA enabled client (not the Plex app) to stream the music.
I’m using VLC on my Nvidia Shield and it is passing 5.1 FLAC (48/16) to my Denon receiver as PCM. A 96/24 stereo file is downsampled to 48kHz according to the Denon app on my tablet. It does not provide the bit depth.
The DLNA client in the Denon was a mixed bag. It played 96/24 stereo at 96/24, but would not play my 5.1 FLAC file.
Again, wish I had better news. Unfortunately, Plex is still very much a work in progress when it comes to multi-channel music files.
My setup:
Nvidia Shield <-HDMI-> Denon AVR-X4300H <-HDMI-> LG B7 OLED
Plex Media Server on Synology DS918+
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Arrrggghh…why are people always trying to mess around with my content? I don’t want added processes. Leave my sample rates, bit depth, channels, and such alone!
I really just don’t get this mindset of developers thinking it’s cool to just go in and mess with my content. I set it a certain way for a reason…can anyone just develop something that just simply takes what I have, and plays it?
your content itself isn’t ‘messed’ with or modified, plex simply doesn’t decode or pass through directly as you desire.
as a work around, you might try creating an ‘other video’ library and putting your multi channel audio files there, the plex video player will pass through audio directly to your receiver (just like a video passing through ac3/etc).
(you might have to remux into an mkv file or similar for plex to recognize/play)
I’m referring to the playback process. I want something that just plays back what I have. I’ve spent many hours trying to archive my physical media in a digital library a very specific way, and I cannot put into words how frustrating it is that there does not exist one decent way to keep a lossless library ,and play it back easily. I have so many CDs, DVDs, DVD-A, Bluray, SACD, DTS-CDs in my collection…but I mostly listen to records, because it’s far simpler to just grab one off the shelf, put the needle down, and play. Rather than spend hours ripping, labeling, tagging, only to find no one has developed a player that will simply play the damn file.
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Oh believe me, I fully understand.
Unfortunately, plex music is not very flexible or forgiving for content and file system organization methods that fall outside the supported content/naming schemes.
I was curious about this, as I’ve never come across multi-channel audio outside of video flles.
So I hunted for some sample multi-channel FLAC files… Multichannel Test Files (FLAC) with various channels/sample rates | QuadraphonicQuad Home Audio Forum … and can confirm this works with PMP on my HTPC.
So if you were looking for another alternative, give Plex Media Player a try…
EDIT: Forgot to mention that I created a Music library to test with, as apposed to a Movies or Other library.
Cool, welcome to the world of multichannel music. That is a great forum.
I’m a bit confused, what is Plex Media Player vs. the Plex app? Is that strictly a desktop player and not something for a streaming stick type player? I’m trying to find a simple way to get my digital library to multiple receivers in the house without having to restore to some sort of full windows build PC on every receiver requiring mouse and keyboard.
PMP is the legacy windows desktop app (aka the HTPC version of plex).
PMP may perhaps be the only/best solution for you, for multi channel audio, IIRC you can configure the audio to pass through to the soundcard directly without plex trying to do any decoding.
Thanks for the suggestion, but I already have a half million other ways to playback multichannel audio with a desktop computer without plex. I don’t understand it…why is the plex app so useless? This complete lack of basic standard functionality is baffling to me.
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Not sure whether or not this is relevant…but the setup that was currently doing 5.1 with kodi, is currently not doing 5.1 with kodi. And I confirmed with a kodi developer that when he/she updated his/her firestick…it broke it. Apparently it wants to throw everything into a DD+ encoder now. It’s a feature! So…not sure whether or not plex will output 5.1 flac without the latest firestick OS updated mucking things up.
So, add another way and you will have half a million and 1…
I have to ask you a question… If you already have a desktop computer that appears to work via other means, and you DO appear to use Plex, why keep trying with the Firestick, when you know it is not going to work? Why not give PMP a try?
Or do you not actually use Plex?
I’m trying to find a way to playback my digital library in rooms of the house I don’t have a desktop. I don’t want to setup a desktop in the living room just to playback my music library. I thought it would be reasonable to expect a firestick to playback my music library via hdmi without messing with the process. Apparently I was wrong. It never ceases to amaze me how every piece of technology I’ve ever tried to use has such glaring flaws preventing them from being as useful as I’d like them to be. If only developers understood…
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