[XboneMC]

This may be a pretty unique situation, as I've scoured this forum and others for an example like mine with no luck:

Living Room Setup:

Sony XBR 70X850B
Onkyo TX-NR636 (2 HDMI outs: one to Sony, one to Samsung below)

Bedroom Setup:

Samsung PN50A450
Vizio S3851w-D4 Soundbar (connected to Digital Audio Out on the Samsung TV)

I have a number of devices connected to the Onkyo's HDMI IN ports, including two that I'll use for this question, a Playstation 4 and a Zbox running Kodi (most recent version of OpenELEC). Perfect setup in the living room, has been for awhile; no problems there.

I decided to try dual-screening living room content into my bedroom, so I could just turn off the living room TV and mute the living room receiver to continue viewing/playing content seamlessly - video works fine, as does audio, on apparently everything but my Kodi box (and even there, it works somewhat!)

Kodi menu "beeps" (moving up or down on a list) play through the Samsung TV speakers perfectly. Same with MP3/FLAC audio. When I load up anything DD or DTS, though (haven't tried with other audio formats yet, but will tonight), nothing but silence. Playstation 4 content, including 5.1 DTS BluRay discs, downscale to the 2-speaker Samsung and play just fine without any modification on the PS4 or Onkyo's end.

Since I'd been considering a soundbar for the bedroom anyways, I grabbed the Vizio S3851, though I've since learned I can only get 2.0 through this system the way I have my HDMI wired. No biggie, but before I return it, I figure I may as well test until I can get at least this one working (seeing as it has built in DD and DTS decoding unlike other Vizio models, in case that's part of my weird audio problem).

Thing is, I get ZERO audio through the soundbar from Kodi. I think to myself, "Maybe the TV needs to be specifically digital out?" - but after reviewing the manual thoroughly, it seems like the digital optical out "turns itself on" as soon as the TV detects an appropriate signal.

So this is weird, unless I'm missing something fundamental here: could a setting in Kodi be causing the problem? I've tried running a single HTPC between rooms with a switcher box before, and remembered needing to change my audio settings on an XBMC menu when I went from one device (with the receiver providing audio) to the other (the Samsung in my bedroom), but with the Onkyo receiver being active in both TV scenarios this time around, can anyone think of any additional Kodi-level tweaking I should try this evening?

Thank you to everyone in advance for any help you can offer!

[XboneMC]

Update: running the HDMI cable from the Onkyo into the Soundbar into the TV seems to have almost completely done the trick. Dolby Digital appears to be totally fine, but DTS and DTS-HD are a little trickier: sound from all 4 speakers, but with that audio codec, the Soundbar seems to want to ignore the center channel. I'll hear SOME dialogue from the sides of the bar, but any time a character is speaking directly to the screen and it seems like it'd be coming out of the center channel, I hear nothing.

Does anyone have any clue why these codecs would both work, but DTS would perform so bizarrely - and if so, any ideas on ways to resolve the missing DTS speaker?

NOTE: Swapping my number of channels to 4.1 "fixes" the dialogue issue on DTS tracks, but there's a huge volume decrease which wreaks havoc when switching to a DD-encoded video without lowering volume substantially...

[Soli]

Samsung TV's doesn't support anything else than 2.0 pcm on their HDMI inputs. As for your second post, I really don't understand what you're saying seeing your soundbar doesn't have any HDMI inputs.

[XboneMC]

Apologies on the Soundbar ID; I actually have the similar (but apparently newer) model, SB3851-C0, which has an HDMI in and an HDMI out (ARC) in its array of plugs.

I'm 80% satisfied with how I got things last night, so I went ahead and wall mounted it. As it stands, I can be watching content (so long as it's not DTS or DTS-HD) in the living room, press pause, mute the receiver, and turn off the TV - and when I turn on the bedroom TV and un-pause, everything picks up without a hitch (and it's jumping from a 1080p 4k to a 720p screen, to boot!)

If I'm swapping DTS content to the bedroom, I can't keep it paused, but a quick change to 4.1 in Kodi Settings at least keeps it playable if not optimal. It's almost like DTS is (unlike DD) seeing the Vizio Soundbar as two channels (left and right) instead of all three on the front stage.

If I could figure out a way to get my DTS content as idiot-proof as everything else, I might even teach a house companion how to do it while I'm away... Still, can't complain! This is worlds better than my old setup that required constantly changing the audio source anytime I switched from one room to the other.

[Soli]

You could always try troubleshooting the issue by connecting your pr directly to the soundbar, and also try to connect a regular blurayplayer to it.
Kodi always has the option of transcoding all audio to Dolby Digital, so that's a possibility. I don't think you'll hear any degrading of the sound with, espescially not with a soundbar.