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CiNcH · (This post was last modified: 2016-09-09, 13:51 by CiNcH.)

When I play EAC3 inside Kodi, I only get PCM on the S/PDIF or HDMI-ARC. DD+/EAC3 specs says the following:

Quote:Dolby Digital Plus bitstreams are not directly backward compatible with legacy Dolby Digital decoders. However, Dolby Digital Plus is a functional superset of Dolby Digital, and decoders include a mandatory component that directly converts (without decoding and re-encoding) the Dolby Digital Plus bitstream to a Dolby Digital bitstream (operating at 640kbit/s) for carriage via legacy S/PDIF connections (including S/PDIF over HDMI) to external decoders (e.g. AVRs, etc.).

Apps that properly seem to support this feature on my MediaTek based Sony TV are Netflix, Google Play Movies and the native "Video" player. All of them provide AC3 for EAC3 streams to my AVR connected via HDMI-ARC.

I assume that Kodi performs software decoding on EAC3 and does not use the hardware capabilities of the MediaTek chipset:

Code:
OMX.MTK.AUDIO.DECODER.DSPAC3    audio/ac3

                                audio/eac3

I am providing a short sample clip with EAC3 from the Austrian broadcast channel 'Servus TV HD' (video is H.264 1080i). [Download]

CiNcH · (This post was last modified: 2016-09-09, 17:44 by CiNcH.)

OK, I just had to enable "Dolby Digital Plus (E-AC3) capable receiver" in Kodi 17 and now I get Dolby Digital AC3 on my AVR. A bit misleading as the AVR is not EAC3 capable actually. But it receives the "down-converted" AC3.

Please consider that the above posted sample has multiple audio tracks.

**fritsch** · 2016-09-09, 17:43

Your AVR extracts the substream - isn't it nice?

CiNcH · (This post was last modified: 2016-09-09, 17:48 by CiNcH.)

I am not so sure about that. According to the EDID, the AVR supports only AC3, DTS and LPCM, no E-AC3. So somebody would block the stream. You can't even send E-AC3 over S/PDIF or HDMI-ARC.

I think what happens is that E-AC3 is sent to the RAW API and the hardware performs the "down-conversion" for transmission over S/PDIF.

**fritsch** · 2016-09-09, 17:50

Your adb log will tell.

CiNcH · (This post was last modified: 2016-09-09, 18:21 by CiNcH.)

Here we go... eac3.txt

Nothing too interesting from my point of view.

**fritsch** · 2016-09-09, 18:35

And the kodi.log also, please in debugging form, which is btw. _always_ a requirement if one talks about stuff and has questions why they happen like they do.

CiNcH · 2016-09-09, 18:43

kodi_eac3.log

Hope this is what you have been asking for as I don't know what the "debugging form" is...

**fritsch** · 2016-09-09, 18:47

Good - we don't do it - so it's someone else :-)

Debug Log <- is what is wanted most of the time. Your's was okay.

CiNcH · 2016-09-09, 18:52

For sure the MediaTek hw decoder. So enabling EAC3 passthrough in Kodi can for sure make sense even if the AVR does not support it...

**fritsch** · 2016-09-09, 18:57

If you think so ...

CiNcH · 2016-09-09, 18:59

There can't be E-AC3 over my S/PDIF connection. So it must be down-converted in the TV. And since Kodi doesn't do it... Wink

**fritsch** · 2016-09-09, 19:06

Here: http://fritsch.fruehberger.net/samples/S...it.18.m2ts <- track 3, what happens?

CiNcH · 2016-09-09, 19:18

No stream at the AVR. I have such a sample as well. It is from BD. I suppose it is down-converted to 640kbps which Sony/MediaTek does not like to S/PDIF...

kodi_eac3_bd.log

**fritsch** · 2016-09-09, 20:11

Not very smart sadly. Does our Dolby transcode work? with eac3 disable?