[LocalGuy]

This Christmas we upgraded our TV to nice Samsung.

After tinkering to get everything working I was very pleased, then I noticed some BluRay movies have sound issues. The issue is "clipping" or distortion when there is a lot of action and volume in the video. When I setup my laptop to run the exact same video using Kodi there are no sound issues.  So it appears the Pi3 is a bit under powered. One video this happens to is Star Wars the force Awakens.  The video is a MKv, ripped using MakeMKV.

I am using LibreELEC version 7.0.3 and Kodi 16.1 Git:c327c53 (complied Dec 29 2016).  I like interface more on version 16 than 17, so I never upgraded (if it is not broken why fix it).

The my video library is connected to the Pi via a externally powered USB drive. The Pi is connected to my surround sound receiver that then feeds the TV. 

Is there a setting I can change? Should I upgrade to a later version of Kodi?  Or is the Pi3 just not up to the task?

Thanks

[Klojum]

The RPi runs the latest LibreELEC 8.2.2 with Kodi 17 just fine. If you don't like the default Estuary skin, you can still install the older Confluence skin.

Any 1080p 8bit h264 video should be fine on a Raspberry Pi device. Perhaps the MKV ripping was done with some 'unusual' parameters?

Provide a debug log (wiki) for more internal information.

[speedwell68]

The first thing I'd do is to upgrade to the latest LibreELEC and swap to the Confluence skin as suggested.  If that doesn't fix it, then try encoding the video again using Handbrake.