[kuro_svk]

Hello all,

I did a lot of searching around and could not find a solution to make the audio pass-through on my sony 55xf9005 android tv 9.0 functional. In the internal sony media player the passthrough does work and the receiver picks up a 5 channel audio source however kodi 18.9 outputs only 2 channels. It does not matter if I am disabling the pass-through or not in the kodi's settings. I am using the  HDMI ARC connection from the TV. Attached is the log. Hope someone can point me to the right direction. 

https://paste.kodi.tv/omovoqubuy.kodi

All help is greatly appreciated.
Thank you.
Kuro

[fritsch]

From kodi pov:

2021-01-05 20:10:31.593 T:18813  NOTICE: CAESinkAUDIOTRACK::Initializing with: m_sampleRate: 48000 format: AE_FMT_S16LE (AE) method: PCM stream-type: PCM-STREAM min_buffer_size: 82080 m_frames: 4104 m_frameSize: 10 channels: 5
2021-01-05 20:10:31.593 T:18813   DEBUG: CActiveAESink::OpenSink - AUDIOTRACK Initialized:
2021-01-05 20:10:31.593 T:18813   DEBUG:   Output Device : android
2021-01-05 20:10:31.593 T:18813   DEBUG:   Sample Rate   : 48000
2021-01-05 20:10:31.593 T:18813   DEBUG:   Sample Format : AE_FMT_S16NE
2021-01-05 20:10:31.593 T:18813   DEBUG:   Channel Count : 5
2021-01-05 20:10:31.593 T:18813   DEBUG:   Channel Layout: FL, FR, FC, SL, SR
2021-01-05 20:10:31.594 T:18813   DEBUG:   Frames        : 4104
2021-01-05 20:10:31.594 T:18813   DEBUG:   Frame Size    : 10

Kodi properly outputs 5 channels. All fine here. As you use ARC, it's clear what happens. Android itself is mixing it down to 2 channels as ARC can't do more than 2 PCM channels.

If you want > 2 channels _through_ ARC only AC3 encoding will help, given that the device behind your ARC can decode AC3.

Set speakers to 2.0
Enable passthrough
Enable AC3
Enable Dolby Transcoding

[Posty]

2 channels _through_ ARC

I have the exact same problem passing audio to my Marantz NR 1609 using HDMI on the Media Player port.
I have tried just about every single option in the output and multiple versions of Kodi without anything other than the Marantz receiving in "PCM Stereo" I even tried Optical only output from Android 9 to the Marantz and get no sound at all as it seems to default back to HDMI even with OPT selected as the Digital stream. Passthru often results in no sound from Kodi ??
This is the 2nd Android box I have tried the previous X96 was Android 10 and same issue....

[kuro_svk]

From kodi pov:

2021-01-05 20:10:31.593 T:18813  NOTICE: CAESinkAUDIOTRACK::Initializing with: m_sampleRate: 48000 format: AE_FMT_S16LE (AE) method: PCM stream-type: PCM-STREAM min_buffer_size: 82080 m_frames: 4104 m_frameSize: 10 channels: 5
2021-01-05 20:10:31.593 T:18813   DEBUG: CActiveAESink::OpenSink - AUDIOTRACK Initialized:
2021-01-05 20:10:31.593 T:18813   DEBUG:   Output Device : android
2021-01-05 20:10:31.593 T:18813   DEBUG:   Sample Rate   : 48000
2021-01-05 20:10:31.593 T:18813   DEBUG:   Sample Format : AE_FMT_S16NE
2021-01-05 20:10:31.593 T:18813   DEBUG:   Channel Count : 5
2021-01-05 20:10:31.593 T:18813   DEBUG:   Channel Layout: FL, FR, FC, SL, SR
2021-01-05 20:10:31.594 T:18813   DEBUG:   Frames        : 4104
2021-01-05 20:10:31.594 T:18813   DEBUG:   Frame Size    : 10

Kodi properly outputs 5 channels. All fine here. As you use ARC, it's clear what happens. Android itself is mixing it down to 2 channels as ARC can't do more than 2 PCM channels.

If you want > 2 channels _through_ ARC only AC3 encoding will help, given that the device behind your ARC can decode AC3.

Set speakers to 2.0
Enable passthrough
Enable AC3
Enable Dolby Transcoding

Thank you fritsch, your advice worked for me perfectly. I can't thank you enough. I thought hdmi-arc was just like a regular hdmi audio. But I found out that the developers played a joke on us when the downgraded the arc to a simple spdif. What a disappointment. Thanks again fritsch.

[fritsch]

You are welcome! Have fun.