[mountainhill2]

Uplug it and let us know :-)

Ok, I plugged AFTV4K directly to my AVR (Pioneer SC-LX77).
Even when I wasn't in Kodi yet (still in AFTV4K Home screen), my AVR would already show multi-channel PCM, although AFTV4K is set to "Stereo".
After firing up Kodi Leia 18.9, I tested various audio source files.
In short, AC3, DTS, AAC, DTS-MA, TrueHD, all decoded and passed as multi-channel PCM.
So audio-wise, it behaves the same as when it was passed through my HDMI Audio Extractor on this mode (Audio=Stereo in AFTV4K Settings).
Remember my AVR is only capable of HDMI 1.4b.

OK, one more info (not sure if it's important or not), I put the audio setting in Kodi as 5.1 "Best Match".

[fritsch]

Please post your Debug Log when you play Stereo Sound or AC3 or whatever. We can see what kodi does and if we can trust your AVR display.

On Android kodi's responsability ends when setting up Audiotrack and pushing data into Audiotrack, what happens behind ... we have zero influence.

[mountainhill2]

Please post your Debug Log when you play Stereo Sound or AC3 or whatever. We can see what kodi does and if we can trust your AVR display.

On Android kodi's responsability ends when setting up Audiotrack and pushing data into Audiotrack, what happens behind ... we have zero influence.

Hi fritsch,
I've reconnected my AFTV4K back to the HDMI Audio Extractor, but I guess it doesn't matter from Kodi debug log pov.
Here it is. 
https://paste.kodi.tv/okogupajoj.kodi

[fritsch]

Okay. Kodi is doing multi channel for the dvd you play. As well as the other AC3 5.1 Stream this is expected on kodi side. Kodi reopens the device more than three times (switching from menu to dvd and back, etc.) Nothing on your AVR display changes? It should.

For menu sounds, e.g.kodi is in the menus, kodi only outputs fl,fr. Do you also see multi channel when kodi is in the menus?

[lexluthor]

v18 is EOD and won't receive anything.
fritschfiretv is EOD. Will stay as is for ever.
v19 is the future, I'd just go with nightlies.

Ok, so I went with v19 b2 for now so I don't need to deal with nightlies.  I think that's got me working all correctly now.

Fire TV Stick set to best available
Kodi v19b2 set to RAW/2.0/Optimized/AC3 on/Transcoding on/E-AC3 on
Yamaha RX-V6A/TSR-700 receiver, 5.1 speaker setup
AAC 2.0 shows DD+/DSur - plays and uses surround decoder correctly to all speakers
AAC 5.1 shows DD+ - plays correctly
AC3 shows DD+ - plays correctly
E-AC3 shows DD+ - plays correctly 
DTS shows DD+ - plays correctly
TrueHD w/Atmos shows DD+ - plays correctly
DTS-HD MA shows DD+ - plays correctly

AC3 and E-AC3 are definitely direct play I presume.  Are AAC 2.0 and AAC5.1 being transcoded? Everything from DTS down is transcoded?  I can play DTS direct using the Roku media player on my TV, so I suppose that might sound a bit better as native DTS?

Also, curious what the login is to setting the speakers as 2.0 in Kodi?

[fritsch]

The logic is the following: If you tell kodi that you only have 2 real PCM channels (see that this speaker layout is in the PCM settings, not passthrough), kodi learns from this, that it has to take action to "output more than 2 channels" on your hardware. So what does it do:

DTS, AC3 and EAC3 are "encoded formats" in comparison to raw PCM, they "hide" up to 7.1 channels (E-AC3) in themselves. Normally kodi would just "decode" them and output them as LPCM (5.1. or 7.1 or whatever), but as you only have 2 pcm channels, kodi will decode these and "transcode" them to AC3, which again is transmitted via 2 PCM channels, but internall "hiding" up to 6 channels, which the AVR then will decode out of these streams.

[mountainhill2]

Okay. Kodi is doing multi channel for the dvd you play. As well as the other AC3 5.1 Stream this is expected on kodi side. Kodi reopens the device more than three times (switching from menu to dvd and back, etc.) Nothing on your AVR display changes? It should.

For menu sounds, e.g.kodi is in the menus, kodi only outputs fl,fr. Do you also see multi channel when kodi is in the menus?

Yes, it's multi-channel PCM all the time shown in my AVR.

The DVD I was playing have 3 soundtracks, AC3 Stereo, AC3 5.1, DTS 5.1. 
I cycled through all of them when creating the debug log.
When it was playing AC3 Stereo, it output through all speakers (well, the sound was rather faint for the center channel, but it definitely output to the other 4.1).

Do you think it is really AVR-specific?
That I was "lucky" having this AVR?
I mean, LPCM is to me better than DD+ re-encode.

Question: does Resampling Quality have impact on these types of audio (which is already 44.1 or 48 KHz)?

[fritsch]

Really wondering what your AVR does. From what you describe it seems, that you have stereo upmix turned on in the AVR.
Resample Quality: You won't hear anything. It's not like 1990 games on 8 bit output.

[himey]

Whatever you get out of kodi after that is NOT the unalterend CD, as this would be just Stereo. Kodi will use FL and FR to create SL and SR as well as FC.

Not on my firestick 4k with the settings I mentioned. I have mentioned this before the new update. All the other settings mess with the output. Upmix turned on and speakers set to 5.0 gets unaltered CD @ 16/44. Any other settings screws up bit perfect. Yes I realize the settings are quirky but whatever works.

Post your debug log. You will clearly see that kodi is generating 5 channels. That your firmware down mixes it again still does not make it bit perfect. Though: as said before: if you are happy, stay happy.

Before the new firestick update, I could bitstream a DTS CD rip to my processor using the settings, upmix ON and speakers set to 5.0. It was the only combination of settings that would send bit perfect audio to my processor untouched. There is NO upmixing going on even with the new firmware although passthrough is broken and I can no longer send DTS to my processor with DTS CD rips which are held within a standard 16/44.1 PCM container.

This may be too confusing to you. Most people don't even know what a DTS CD is and don't care about multichannel audio other than for movies/tv.

The new firmware will still send CD rips bit perfect to my processor at 16/44.1 PCM if you turn on upmix and set speakers to 5.0. My processor shows 2.0 and 16 bit, 44.1 khz. The other speakers are silent and not getting upmixed audio whether you believe it or not!

If there was upmixing and downmixing involved like you believe, the channels on DTS CDs would sound screwed up which they didn't.

[sirmedia]

Life is much easier once you stop worrying about which logos light up on the AVR and accept crappy Spotify streaming

[himey]

...just to add one more point, the upmix feature doesn't work correctly, with speakers set to 5.0, otherwise I would have sound in my other speakers rather than just my front left and right speakers, when playing 2.0 CDs ripped to FLAC.

[fritsch]

I won't ask again for your Debug Log, therefore congratulations to your setup. Enjoy it as is!

[himey]

Uplug it and let us know :-)

Ok, I plugged AFTV4K directly to my AVR (Pioneer SC-LX77).
Even when I wasn't in Kodi yet (still in AFTV4K Home screen), my AVR would already show multi-channel PCM, although AFTV4K is set to "Stereo".
After firing up Kodi Leia 18.9, I tested various audio source files.
In short, AC3, DTS, AAC, DTS-MA, TrueHD, all decoded and passed as multi-channel PCM.
So audio-wise, it behaves the same as when it was passed through my HDMI Audio Extractor on this mode (Audio=Stereo in AFTV4K Settings).
Remember my AVR is only capable of HDMI 1.4b.

OK, one more info (not sure if it's important or not), I put the audio setting in Kodi as 5.1 "Best Match".

This is also what I am getting with my Oppo 103D HDMI input. Seems to be processor dependent.

[himey]

I won't ask again for your Debug Log, therefore congratulations to your setup. Enjoy it as is!

I copied my log from the Android folder to a download folder but it won't let me copy to my flash and it doesn't matter anyways because it is working great whether you believe it or not. I have played test track identification channels and they are fine. Upmix is obviously not working as intended in Leia.

[fritsch]

Okay - as upmixing works fine for me, it's a Himey Problem and not a Leia one for now.