[HomerJau]

In Kodi 18.3 there are currently two issues (getting .mka files into the music library and playing bitstreamed codecs) that can be solved now for MKA files with these two hacks:

1. Getting Kodi to Playback bitstreamed Atmos, TrueHD, DTS:X and DTS-HDMA audio only:

Add a new text file to Kodi's userdata folder:

File named: playercorefactory.xml

File contents:

<playercorefactory>
<players>
<player name="VideoPlayer" audio="true" video="false">
<hidexbmc>false</hidexbmc>
</player>
</players>
<rules action="prepend">
<rule filetypes="mka" player="VideoPlayer"/>
</rules>
</playercorefactory>

This file tells kodi to use its video player to play mka files, meaning the audio track is bitstreamed to the AVR. Its video player can handle bitstreaming everything. Restart Kodi after adding the file.

Thanks to @jjd-uk for this workaround

Note: This won’t be required with 18.4 release as a fix is coming.


2. Getting Kodi to Import MKA Files into its Music Library:

Create an CUE file containing the album files: Example:

REM GENRE "Rock"
REM DATE 1987
PERFORMER "INXS"
TITLE "Kick 30"
FILE "01. Guns In The Sky.mka" WAVE
TRACK 01 AUDIO
TITLE "Guns In The Sky"
PERFORMER "INXS"
INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "02. New Sensation.mka" WAVE
TRACK 02 AUDIO
TITLE "New Sensation"
PERFORMER "INXS"
INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "03. Devil Inside.mka" WAVE
TRACK 03 AUDIO
TITLE "Devil Inside"
PERFORMER "INXS"
INDEX 01 00:00:00
etc

I've added a new tool to Music Media Helper (MMH) (see stickies thread here in Music sub forum) to Split MKV files containing chapters and convert to individual .mka files.

I've modified MMH's Tag and Rename tool to support MKA files and auto-creation of CUE files based on the MKA file names and its tags.

NOTE: MMH wont tag MKA (yet), use free MP3TAG to do that.

[jjd-uk]

Nice to see that workaround is working, hadn't tried it and never even used a playercorefactory.xml myself so gave the example code blindly.

Description is not quite right, the music PAPlayer already supports DTS-HD and DTS:X from v18.3 so the workaround is only needed for TrueHD and Atmos. However as there's no way to filter on audio codec so all mka have to be sent to video player.if you have Dolby or a mixture of Dolby & DTS stuff.

[jjd-uk]

The TrueHD/Atmos fixed has now been added for v19 and once backport for v18 has been added by @DaveBlake it will be available in v18.4 nightly builds.

[HomerJau]

Just a quick update on playing back Atmos/TrueHD lossless music in Kodi.

TrueHD/Atmos streams can now be copied into an MPEG audio M4A file. M4A is a standard supported audio file in Kodi. Kodi can read any tags embedded into its music library with a library scan (just like FLAC, mp3 etc). So there’s no longer a need to create CUE files or use MKA audio files to play back Atmos. Kodi will Passthrough the audio to your AVR to decode to your multichannel speaker layout.

I updated Music Media Helper (Sticky post here) yesterday to create M4A file’s from MKV rips. MMH can tag the M4A file’s or you can use just about any tagging program to tag M4As (TagScanner, MP3Tag etc).

There’s no need to set up a Playercorefactory as Kodi handles M4A without any configuration required.

I’ve only tested M4As with an Atmos stream in Kodi 19 at this stage.

[HomerJau]

I can confirm that m4a files do not play in Kodi 18.8 (latest official release). They do play in Kodi 19 alpha 1 (Kodi 19 will be officially released in coming months). 

BTW: I’m running Kodi 19 alpha 1 on my Intel NUC8 running Win10 wth no issues. This also plays 4K videos with HDR which is the reason I moved to Kodi 19 Win10 (Kodi 19 LibreElec is not yet in alpha release)