My current setup is very simple and is as follows
Kodi/PC > HDMI > TV (Sony KDL42W653) > S/PDIF > Home Theatre System (Sony BDV-E4100)
When I "enable passthrough" in the audio settings it appears to output the sound nicely to each individual speaker according to a surround sound test video. This seems to work nicely on videos with AC3 audio, but the majority of videos in my library seem to be "DC3" and produces no sound at all.
Un-ticking "enable passthrough" will allow these DC3 audio files to create sound, but when I do the surround sound test it does not correctly output the sound to each individual speaker even on the AC3 audio files. I have experimented with enabling and un-enabling the various receiver settings but with no luck.
Does anyone have any suggestions on what I could do or try?
(I'm currently at work and can provide my current settings if that is of any help although I have similar settings to what's shown on this page:
http://kodi.wiki/view/Audio_quickstart_guide)
I have my system setup as follows:
Kodi/PC > HDMI > TV (Panasonic)
Kodi/PC > S/PDIF > Home Theatre System (Onkyo)
I use Passthrough in KODI to pass the audio to the amp SEPARATELY. This now means that I tell KODI what features my amp can handle and KODI now handle everything.
When I was passing it through the TV like you did I found that sometimes the TV would mess with the audio feed.
Here is a post where I show a few more details of my setup.
http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=...pid2135858
(Note: I have simplified the connections above to only show the directly KODI relevant ones.)
Yeah, I thought there was a confusion of terms here. Your definition of "passthrough" I think is confused. Go read this page:
http://kodi.wiki/view/Settings/System#Audio_output
Especially the passthrough bits and the "IMPORTANT NOTE". What you are trying to do is not "passthrough". You are more hoping the TV will pass on the audio signal to the amp without interfering with it. As noted on that Audio page on the wiki, the TV screen *will* mess with it. This is likely to be why you loose the signal on some file types.
With the cables setup like my example you have audio "passed through untouched direct to the AV amp for decoding". That is how I understand "passthrough". "passthrough" audio in exactly the same format as is in the video file, KODI just passing it on to the AMP for decoding.
(2015-10-27, 15:16)jjd-uk Wrote: [ -> ]I know of no format called DC3, can you follow Section 4 from here http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=42708 to post the the MediaInfo output for one of these files.
Sorry, I meant DCA.
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BatterPudding I do have a usb sound card with spdif output. When I get a moment later I will try using this to connect directly to the amp bypassing the TV. That way I'm hoping (and will report back) that I have more luck with the passthrough device settings.
Thanks for your help.
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BatterPudding You were absolutely right. I wasn't doing anything wrong from the looks of it, but passing the sounds through the HDMI into the TV was messing with the sound and not producing correct 5.1 as desired. (Even though the amp and TV were both Sony) I even had a USB sound card which seemed to be doing the same thing.
I could have kicked myself when I looked at the back of the computer (which is behind my TV and I never look at) and noticed it had an on board S/PDIF out!! I've been using that USB sound card for almost a year and had no idea I had an onboard output.
The solution was to output the sound directly from the on-board SPDIF to the Amp/Home Theatre System. I know it works now because I imported
this video into Kodi for test purposes.
From there, my settings were easy to work out but are as follows:
Audio Output Device: SPDIF
Output Configuration: Best Match
Limit Sampling Rate: 48kHz
Stereo Upmix: Disabled
Resample Quality: High
Enable Passthrough: Enabled
Passthrough Output Device: SPDIF
Dolby Digital AC3 capable receiver: Enabled
Enable Dolby Digital |Encoding: Enabled
DTS capable receiver: Enabled
Excellent. Always nice when something gets solved.
I think you will find that your original KODI->TV->AMP setup meant the *stereo* TV was messing with the signal and not passing it through untouched. The TV was passing out a stereo signal instead. I have read of this happening often - no matter what the brand names are.
Letting KODI talk directly to your sound system bypasses all of that mess. Your settings are basically the same as mine now, and doesn't it all sound lovely?
Sorry to revive a very old thread, but I have the same problem. Thing is, I can't just connect all my devices to my amp because I also want smart features like Netflix to enjoy the amp sound. That's why I'm connecting everything to the TV (also the tv is a great hub and is easy to switch between sources) and connect the TV ARC HDMI port to the receiver HDMI output.
How can I set it up so that passthrough works (to enjoy DTS-HD/Dolby TrueHD) as well as the TV's smart features?
Doubt this will help you unless your hardware is exactly the same, but there might be a clue in this.
All of this gets complicated when spidf or a sound card is in place. My appreciation of audio is well down a dusty road, so everything works with my PC to Onkyo AVR through HDMI which is connected by HDMI to LG TV, which in turn the TV is re-connected to the AVR with digital audio output, along with a firestick plugged into the TV for smarts and device switching & OTA (not to mention numerous devices on the other HDMI ports.) All seems to work in harmony and appears better than just 'stereo' on my 'gasp' three speakers with wasapi & pass-though.
Thanks for your reply! Unfortunately my setup is very different. I have a PC and PlayStation 4 connected directly to my Samsung EU8000 TV, and it being connected to my Pioneer VSX524 receiver. All connections are HDMI.
Probably playing media from my PC via Kodi when connecting directly to the receiver will work 100%, but then I lose the sound for my Smart TV features as well as my PS4.
There has to be a way to make all devices play sound from the receiver but avoid the TV getting in the way and ruining DTS-HD and such, I'm just not sure how.
(2021-11-27, 01:03)Nom1fan Wrote: [ -> ]Thanks for your reply! Unfortunately my setup is very different. I have a PC and PlayStation 4 connected directly to my Samsung EU8000 TV, and it being connected to my Pioneer VSX524 receiver. All connections are HDMI.
Probably playing media from my PC via Kodi when connecting directly to the receiver will work 100%, but then I lose the sound for my Smart TV features as well as my PS4.
There has to be a way to make all devices play sound from the receiver but avoid the TV getting in the way and ruining DTS-HD and such, I'm just not sure how.
Can you explain again why ARC doesn't work for you in this case? I'm confused.
Why wouldn't you have everything going into the receiver (PC and PS4, set to PCM), with ARC being used for the Smart TV app audio? If ARC is already working for you, why would it be any different with everything else connected directly to the receiver? Or is the issue simply of remotes and input control?
(2021-11-27, 01:03)Nom1fan Wrote: [ -> ]There has to be a way to make all devices play sound from the receiver but avoid the TV getting in the way and ruining DTS-HD and such, I'm just not sure how.
If you you insist on having the TV in the audio chain from the PC then you are naturally restricted by the capabilities of the TV and the simply fact is that TV only supports ARC and probably only Dolby Digital over ARC (as the majority don't support DTS). If you want HD audio then the only way is to connect the PC direct to the AVR, and this will have no impact on the ability of the Tv to send audio to the AVR via ARC for the TV Apps.
Thanks guys, I remember trying what you're suggesting years ago and it didn't work for some reason, but I'll give it another shot!
There are for sure some caveats though like switching between sources when the devices are connected to the TV is super easy via the UI interface, while connecting all to the receiver will require switching using the remote control buttons. Not huge deal but it's something nevertheless.
Also, my TV automatically switches to gaming mode when I switch to my PS4, not sure if that will happen when the PS4 is directly connected to the receiver and the video signal passes from there to the TV. I'll check and update about that if anyone's interested.
Thanks again!
Hi! Ok so apparently this ARC feature is hella wacky! At first I thought it works perfectly (I was finally able to play DTS-HD and Dolby TrueHD from Kodi) and I'm able to control the amp volume using my TV remote which is hella cool, but unfortunately far from perfect. Sometimes my amp fails to auto-switch sources for some reason when I play audio content coming from my TV and then one coming from my HTPC for example. But that's the least of my problems right now.
My issue now is that even though I selected Dolby Digital+ on my TV, whenever I play a 5.1 channel content coming from my TV (like Netflix) it doesn't work well at all. Can't hear speech. When I switch to stereo audio on Netflix it plays out of the front speakers but not my center.
I'm currently using a 2.1 setup until my rear speakers are set up. Could that cause it to go so crazy on the Netlix case? Because content from my HTPC plays impeccably.
Your help would be very much appreciated !
(2021-12-05, 20:54)Nom1fan Wrote: [ -> ]When I switch to stereo audio on Netflix it plays out of the front speakers but not my center.
Well, that's correct. There is no centre channel in a stereo mix, just FL & FR. Of course, you can use the ProLogic or Neo settings on your AVR to tell it to generate a fake surround output from a stereo signal (or on my AVR, I can set it to 'All channel Stereo', which outputs on all speakers).
(2021-12-05, 20:54)Nom1fan Wrote: [ -> ]My issue now is that even though I selected Dolby Digital+ on my TV, whenever I play a 5.1 channel content coming from my TV (like Netflix) it doesn't work well at all. Can't hear speech.
Does your AVR show that it's getting a DD+ stream ?
Also, I'm a little confused. You say you have no sound from the centre speaker, yet later you say you have a 2.1 setup which is FL,FR & LFE so there is no centre speaker in that anyway
