Kodi Community Forum

As per the title. As far as I was aware, there was no way to bitstream outside of the BluRay Microsoft's app. Is this the case?

I cant get it working. Get no audio when I turn passthrough on. (Works fine with it off ).  I have the dolby atmos app installed - confirmed the xbox can send atmos to the reciever so I am assuming this is a bug

Looks to be a known issue

https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=326228

Hmmm that post now says this:

Quote: Can't be fixed

1. Passthrough audio not working
   

That would be a bummer.. I assume that's because Microsoft does not allow bitstream passthrough by third-party apps? Hopefully they will change their mind about this!

yes, you are right MS doesn't allow direct access to audio device in exclusive mode.

Thanks afedchin, I suspected as much.

Bit of a double standard toward their developers, seeing as their Bluray app is perfectly capable of doing it.

so what does this mean for Dolby Atmos audio ?

I don't have an Atmos setup yet but am in the process of upgrading to one and was hoping the Xbox could be my main media player.

It means no Dolby or DTS anything from Xbox One including Atmos, if you enable Dolby Digital in Xbox system settings then I believe you'll get the PCM output of Kodi encoded into DD 5.1 but that is not true passthrough because of the additional decoding/encoding stages.

If no bitstreaming is enabled, you'll get (through HDMI) uncompressed PCM output for DD, DTS, DD True HD and DTS-MA HD. You won't get Atmos as that's impossible to decode via software (at least that I know of). So no additional decoding/encoding stages.

You need to go to Settings/All Settings/Display & Sound\Audio Output, select HDMI audio and then choose either 5.1 uncompressed or 7.1 uncompressed (according to your speakers setup).

The bitstream out option is needed for optical SPDIF connection, and there you can choose between DD or, better, DTS. It's only in this case that audio will be decoded by Kodi and then recompressed by Xbox.

(2018-01-05, 17:57)ashlar Wrote: [ -> ]If no bitstreaming is enabled, you'll get (through HDMI) uncompressed PCM output for DD, DTS, DD True HD and DTS-MA HD. You won't get Atmos as that's impossible to decode via software (at least that I know of). So no additional decoding/encoding stages.

You need to go to Settings/All Settings/Display & Sound\Audio Output, select HDMI audio and then choose either 5.1 uncompressed or 7.1 uncompressed (according to your speakers setup).

The bitstream out option is needed for optical SPDIF connection, and there you can choose between DD or, better, DTS. It's only in this case that audio will be decoded by Kodi and then recompressed by Xbox.

Thanks for confirming, don't have an Xbox (well only the original that still has XBMC on it ) so just was going on what I can read up on.

Shameless double post from the discussion topic

Microsoft has a user voice forum where people can vote on features they want to have added. Seems like several topics already exist regarding this subject:

https://xbox.uservoice.com/forums/363186...assthrough
https://xbox.uservoice.com/forums/363186...rties-apps

Let's all vote on those!

Twitter might help too:

Mike Ybarra: https://twitter.com/XboxQwik
Larry Hryb: https://twitter.com/majornelson
Aaron Greenberg: https://twitter.com/aarongreenberg
Phil Spencer: https://twitter.com/XboxP3

But if Microsoft does not allow bitstream output for 3rd party apps, how is Netflix able to stream Dolby Atmos (confirmed by my AV Receiver)?

Netflix is a html app that runs in the Microsoft Edge browser, so although a 3rd part app it actually uses Edge browser as the player and thus can make use of the privileged access Microsoft give to their own apps.

(2018-01-15, 11:56)jjd-uk Wrote: [ -> ]Netflix is a html app that runs in the Microsoft Edge browser, so although a 3rd part app it actually uses Edge browser as the player and thus can make use of the privileged access Microsoft give to their own apps.

 Do you know this for a fact or is it something you suppose? Genuinely interested and not in the least negative in asking. Because if this is the case, that could explain why they can't support refresh rate switching, maybe (because it would need to be implemented by MS in Edge, instead of being available for them through the SDK).

jjd-uk Wrote:Netflix is a html app that runs in the Microsoft Edge browser, so although a 3rd part app it actually uses Edge browser as the player and thus can make use of the privileged access Microsoft give to their own apps.

That sounds reasonable, as unsatisfying as it is.
I would have voted on both linked issues on xbox.uservoice.com, but unfortunately the login there doesn't work.