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rogbott · 2016-10-18, 00:55

Hello all. I am running Kodi v16.1 on an Amazon Fire TV. Everything is great. I just bought a Sonos 5.1 surround sound system which is capable of decoding dolby digital but not DTS. My TV is capable of outputting 5.1 DD as well. In order to make content output from Kodi correctly to for 5.1, what are the settings I should have? I figure I make 5.1 my speaker configuration and enable passthrough on AC3. If I don't enable this on DTS, will it transcode to Dolby Digital and output in 5.1 correctly?

Thanks!

Soli · 2016-10-18, 01:18

Set your speakers to 2.0, enable passthrough, and ac3 transcoding.
Very few TV's will passthrough AC3 through HDMI to their optical output. Generally only Sony TV's that.

So you will in most cases need an external HDMi switcher with optical output, and set the Switchers EDID mode right (with these switchers you usually can select between stereo/surround mode).

Then you will need to set the Playbar audio delay so that the audio is in sync with the picture (and you might need to fine tune this a little in Kodi since the Sonos delays settings are a bit coarse)

Still, this might conflict with your TV's built in apps. I don't think you'll find a separate toslink input in these swtichers, but you kan use HDMI ARC. And enable this on the switch/tv/both whenever you use the built in apps. Then again switching on/off HDMI ARC which includes HDMI CEC might make everything go havoc since every manufacturer has/might have their own implementation of it.

Lastly, you will need a Harmony remote to automate al of this.

The easy thing is to use a Sony TV.
Still, I've set this very thing up at a friends house and it works perfectly sans the HDMI ARC thing.

rogbott · 2016-10-18, 01:33

Thanks Soli for the quick reply. My Vizio TV is one of those rare birds that will pass AC3 through HDMI to the optical output. So can I assume that it should be fine or do I need to still do the fine-tuning bit you mentioned? Also, how are DTS soundtracks handled? Does it get converted to DD 5.1? If I don't need the external HDMI switcher do I still set my speakers to 2.0?

Thanks for the detailed explanation.

Soli · 2016-10-18, 05:04

Great then. As I said speaker to 2.0, passthrough on AC3, and transcode to AC3 enabled. That will transcode all non-ac3 tracks to AC3 including DTS., TrueHD, DTSMA etc.

As for latency you should in this case set this in your TV if you feel that the playbar is a little out of sync. If I remember correctly, the Playbar adds very little latency so most people would never notice it. (as long as the picture and toslink ouput from the is correctly in sync)

rogbott · 2016-10-18, 18:35

Thanks Soli. For those who may be interested, I found (I think this is covered in another thread) that passthrough on Kodi v16 doesn't work and I just get white noise. I upgraded to the v17 beta 3 and everything is good to go.

cowfodder · 2016-10-19, 05:34

(2016-10-18, 01:18)Soli Wrote: Set your speakers to 2.0, enable passthrough, and ac3 transcoding.
Very few TV's will passthrough AC3 through HDMI to their optical output. Generally only Sony TV's that.

So you will in most cases need an external HDMi switcher with optical output, and set the Switchers EDID mode right (with these switchers you usually can select between stereo/surround mode).

Then you will need to set the Playbar audio delay so that the audio is in sync with the picture (and you might need to fine tune this a little in Kodi since the Sonos delays settings are a bit coarse)

Still, this might conflict with your TV's built in apps. I don't think you'll find a separate toslink input in these swtichers, but you kan use HDMI ARC. And enable this on the switch/tv/both whenever you use the built in apps. Then again switching on/off HDMI ARC which includes HDMI CEC might make everything go havoc since every manufacturer has/might have their own implementation of it.

Lastly, you will need a Harmony remote to automate al of this.

The easy thing is to use a Sony TV.
Still, I've set this very thing up at a friends house and it works perfectly sans the HDMI ARC thing.

Actually, most TVs will do this, but most equipment will not output DD to a TV due to EDID information listing it as a 2.0 device. Sony TVs specifically have DD and DTS capability listed in their EDID file.

Koying · 2016-10-19, 08:30

I would not say most, but about half the brands,so rather hit-and-miss unless you do some research.
Actually, afaik, "passing thru the passthrough" from external devices is a breach of the standard...