FireTV Cube 3 now supports TrueHD + DTS!

[rbjtech 4265]

1 minute ago, raven-au said:

They don't stop and think that the bulk of the people that want to do this are the ones that buy lots of gear and videos.

Exactly - I won't be keeping it, as it only has a 100Mbit Ethernet Port - it may stall on some of my 4K Remux's but I'll test that.   

AV1 h/w decode is the only thing missing on the Shield Pro - if it had that's then I would not even contemplate replacing it.

[ebr 14913]

3 hours ago, rbjtech said:

I believe they already are and that's why it works (DTS-MA/X) on the Shield for example

The reason this works on the Shield is because the device supports it through the Android APIs.  I believe Kodi is going around the normal Android system to force a raw stream.  We do not attempt to do anything like that.

[rbjtech 4265]

2 hours ago, ebr said:

The reason this works on the Shield is because the device supports it through the Android APIs.  I believe Kodi is going around the normal Android system to force a raw stream.  We do not attempt to do anything like that.

ok thanks - so unless the FireTV/Android API supports it, then it's not likely going to work ?  We'll find out tomorrow ..  

[rbjtech 4265]

Just while I'm waiting for the Cube to turn up - thought I'd have a quick comparison with Kodi and VLC to see what they do on the Shield Pro.    Interestingly, I can't get either one of them to properly use DTS-HD MA or X with passthrough - VLC is just using DTS-HD HRA - ie lossy 7.1, Kodi doesn't seem to like it at all and is converting to PCM.

Only Emby (AndroidTV) seems to passthrough the full MA/X signal, as verified on the on-screen status overlay via my AVR ..  I'll check Android as well - but suspect that will work as well.

I don't use Kodi at all - and only installed for this test (on the Shield Pro) but my expectation was that it DID passthrough DTS-HD MA/X ok on the Shield ?

[rbjtech 4265]

So it's arrived - after some testing, it's gone back in the box and being returned to Amazon .. 

In summary -

• No DTS-HD HRA, DTS-HD MA or DTS-HD X support from the tested release Emby FireTV App
• Only DTS (5.1) passthrough was working (5.1 lossy Audio)
• THD Passthough is fine - 7.1 with Atmos
• No Way to sideload an APK (so I could not try the latest versions nor Android(non TV) version. 
• Could not get any form of DV to trigger either - DV5,7 or 8 - only HDR triggered.  (DV did trigger when powering on, but not in the App..)
• On the positive side - it is VERY quick navigating emby (Android/Fire TV) - noticeably faster than even the Shield Pro 2019.

Ethernet Interface is confirmed at 100Mbit - On Auto it actually forced a transcode with an 87Mbit 4K remux (1917) - forcing to 100Mbit in the Emby App resolved that - but clearly still borderline for high bitrate 4K Remux's.

So it's still not comparable to the 4 Year old Shield Pro as a high end player... such a shame as I would have loved to have replaced my Echo Dot and Shield with one device that I can control via Alexa.  

So other than no AV1 h/w decode - the Shield 2019 is STILL the best option out there for HD Audio and DV Playback. 

[GrimReaper 3294]

12 minutes ago, rbjtech said:

No Way to sideload an APK (so I could not try the latest versions nor Android(non TV) version. 

That's odd, was reading shortly after it came out that sideloading is possible albeit buried somewhere, lemme see if I can find that article.

Edit: Seems like one of you two is wrong.

Developer Options, Sideloading, Downloader, and Remote Button Remapping all work on the Fire TV Cube 3 | AFTVnews

Edited February 9, 2023 by GrimReaper
Link

[rbjtech 4265]

4 minutes ago, GrimReaper said:

That's odd, was reading shortly after it came out that sideloading is possible albeit burried somewhere, lemme see if I can find that article.

Ah yes - you're right - you need to press the ok button 7 times on 'About' to enable the option - lol.

Gonna do that now - it's being picked up on Monday so have a few days to play ..

 

[ebr 14913]

5 minutes ago, rbjtech said:

you need to press the ok button 7 times on 'About' to enable the option - lol.

That puts you in "developer" mode and uncovers a bunch of other options as well.

[rbjtech 4265]

ok - so sideloaded both the latest AndroidTV and Android on the FireTV (emby-android-google-armeabi-v7a-release.apk) - but still no joy with DTS-HD SRA, MA or X.

DV5 & DV8 are now working - that was me not setting the colour depth in the settings - thought that would be auto but apparently not.  DV7 does not work though.

So as suspected - it's catering for streaming DV5/8 profiles and EAC3 Atmos.   TrueHD/Atmos is ok, but of limited use without the DV7 Remux video stream.  HDR10 (and I suspect HDR10+) is ok.

Tried VLC as well - same story with DTS and no DV at all.

Any last requests or things to try before I put it back in the box for a 2nd time ?  haha

edit

AV1 plays direct perfectly in AndroidTV,  but while Android(nonTV) says Direct, there is something very wrong with the frames, it looks like slow motion.

Edited February 9, 2023 by rbjtech

[Dodgexander 8]

6 hours ago, rbjtech said:

ok - so sideloaded both the latest AndroidTV and Android on the FireTV (emby-android-google-armeabi-v7a-release.apk) - but still no joy with DTS-HD SRA, MA or X.

DV5 & DV8 are now working - that was me not setting the colour depth in the settings - thought that would be auto but apparently not.  DV7 does not work though.

So as suspected - it's catering for streaming DV5/8 profiles and EAC3 Atmos.   TrueHD/Atmos is ok, but of limited use without the DV7 Remux video stream.  HDR10 (and I suspect HDR10+) is ok.

Tried VLC as well - same story with DTS and no DV at all.

Any last requests or things to try before I put it back in the box for a 2nd time ?  haha

edit

AV1 plays direct perfectly in AndroidTV,  but while Android(nonTV) says Direct, there is something very wrong with the frames, it looks like slow motion.

Dare I say it, but try Plex. Seen other people on reddit getting DTS audio working that way.

With Emby also make sure you have the app set to passthrough DTS and DTS-HD audio, I think by default these options are off.

I assume you are testing with the cube plugged directly into your AVR also? Your TVs in your sig do not support DTS(HD), although they may pass it via eARC.

[rbjtech 4265]

9 hours ago, Dodgexander said:

Dare I say it, but try Plex. Seen other people on reddit getting DTS audio working that way.

With Emby also make sure you have the app set to passthrough DTS and DTS-HD audio, I think by default these options are off.

I assume you are testing with the cube plugged directly into your AVR also? Your TVs in your sig do not support DTS(HD), although they may pass it via eARC.

Thanks.

It's not a DTS issue - that works fine, it's a DTS-HD HRA (lossy), DTS-HD MA (lossless) and DTS-HD X (lossless/object) that is not being passed.  All Dolby codecs are fine (incl THD/Atmos) so I'm suspecting it's a license thing.

Many people are confused by DTS - and are not aware that DTS will 'downgrade' itself so you get sound - they think it's 'HD' because they do not have the equipment to tell them otherwise.

This is going straight to my Denon AVR.  All emby clients are set to passthrough.  The Shield 2019 Pro has no issues with any HD Audio Codec and Emby - so I know for sure it's the hardware.

By 'DTS-HD (Basic Profile)' in the Amazon hardware specs - they literally mean it will just extract the DTS 5.1 lossy (non-HD) 'Core' - better than nothing, but not good enough for AV Playback when many titles only have DTS:X as their object based HD Audio - Harry Potter series for example.

No DV7 and only 100Mbit Ethernet is also a huge cross on the hardware for 4K Remux Playback - the only thing it has going for it is the Alexa integration, AV1 hardware decode (works fine in emby) and it's cpu/emby responsiveness is extremely fast.

Edited February 10, 2023 by rbjtech

[Dodgexander 8]

4 hours ago, rbjtech said:

Thanks.

It's not a DTS issue - that works fine, it's a DTS-HD HRA (lossy), DTS-HD MA (lossless) and DTS-HD X (lossless/object) that is not being passed.  All Dolby codecs are fine (incl THD/Atmos) so I'm suspecting it's a license thing.

Many people are confused by DTS - and are not aware that DTS will 'downgrade' itself so you get sound - they think it's 'HD' because they do not have the equipment to tell them otherwise.

This is going straight to my Denon AVR.  All emby clients are set to passthrough.  The Shield 2019 Pro has no issues with any HD Audio Codec and Emby - so I know for sure it's the hardware.

By 'DTS-HD (Basic Profile)' in the Amazon hardware specs - they literally mean it will just extract the DTS 5.1 lossy (non-HD) 'Core' - better than nothing, but not good enough for AV Playback when many titles only have DTS:X as their object based HD Audio - Harry Potter series for example.

No DV7 and only 100Mbit Ethernet is also a huge cross on the hardware for 4K Remux Playback - the only thing it has going for it is the Alexa integration, AV1 hardware decode (works fine in emby) and it's cpu/emby responsiveness is extremely fast.

Yes people tend not to understand that DTS HD has a core DTS track but I'm not sure you're right when you state DTS HD (Basic) as referred to in Amazon's own specs is the DTS core support only for HD tracks. If that were the case then they would have listed only DTS super and not mentioned HD at all.

Your findings seem different to those who've used both Plex and Kodi who've gotten DTS HD passthrough working. Plex had to update their app for it to work.

Hopefully soon I can grab a fire cube to test myself. I'm not worried about the Ethernet since I'll be using wireless. The biggest blow for me is no dv7 but that's not even properly supported on the shield or even dedicated players like the dune either, albeit the dune can do non dual layer.

[ebr 14913]

1 hour ago, Dodgexander said:

If that were the case then they would have listed only DTS super and not mentioned HD at all.

You are obviously not in marketing .

To the marketing department "supported" means sound comes out.

[Dodgexander 8]

2 hours ago, ebr said:

You are obviously not in marketing .

To the marketing department "supported" means sound comes out.

Perhaps so, but since emby has trouble with DTS audio direct on my TV I'm not counting on emby not being at fault for DTSaudio not working on the fire cube either. Especially when others have reported it to work with Plex and Kodi.

[cncb 17]

@rbjtechWe reported all that before and is what we have been discussing. You didn’t believe? 

[rbjtech 4265]

8 hours ago, cncb said:

@rbjtechWe reported all that before and is what we have been discussing. You didn’t believe? 

I had my doubts - but I am now agreeing with you - 100% 

The Amazon wording on the DTS-HD option should just say 'DTS Core only' and all of this could have been avoided.    Saying 'Basic profile' is purposely trying to avoid stating it does not support real/lossless DTS-HD MA imho.

Even if it did support DTS-HD HRA (which I don't believe it does, not via emby anyway as I tried that) then it is pretty useless, as only a tiny fraction of titles have this as an available Audio track anyway.

Edited February 11, 2023 by rbjtech

[ebr 14913]

4 hours ago, rbjtech said:

Even if it did support DTS-HD HRA (which I don't believe it does, not via emby anyway as I tried that) then it is pretty useless, as only a tiny fraction of titles have this as an available Audio track anyway.

From Amazon's (and any of these streaming device's for that matter) perspective, DTS is useless.  What streaming service is providing audio tracks in DTS?

[raven-au 17]

10 hours ago, ebr said:

From Amazon's (and any of these streaming device's for that matter) perspective, DTS is useless.  What streaming service is providing audio tracks in DTS?

That's probably one of their reasons, short sighted at least, the only thing that will do is annoy people that spend money on Blu-rays.

It may be that's the intension but that's also counterproductive since streaming services so frequently have missing seasons from TV shows and you have to maintain multiple subscriptions to get access to the shows you what to watch.

 

This could cause a drop off of customers that have just given up in disappointment, I'm certainly thinking about just that.

 

Edited February 12, 2023 by raven-au

[ebr 14913]

13 hours ago, raven-au said:

That's probably one of their reasons, short sighted at least, the only thing that will do is annoy people that spend money on Blu-rays.

This version of the cube is the only device I'm aware of that has any interface (such as it is) to any type of hardware player and that's why it does support THD and DTS.  But, be clear, the makers of these boxes don't want you purchasing BluRays.  These devices are nothing more than an avenue to sell you streaming content.  The fact we are able to use them the way we do is just a happy by-product.  It will never be a main focus of the device developers because there is no revenue stream tied to it for them.  They are in business and most of them sold you that hardware at an extreme discount or even a loss. Nvidia being the exception and why their hardware is so much more expensive.

[cncb 17]

On 2/8/2023 at 10:33 AM, ebr said:

The reason this works on the Shield is because the device supports it through the Android APIs.  I believe Kodi is going around the normal Android system to force a raw stream.  We do not attempt to do anything like that.

Is it safe to assume you will never try something like that? 

Kodi on the Fire Cube can also play my VC-1 files directly (without transcoding) so I guess software decoding is good enough on the new Cube.  Is there a server setting that will disable VC-1 transcoding for this device?

[laola 12]

I am also one of the guys who are disappointed by the Cube DTS capabilities. Actually my cube behaves even worse - most of the files with DTC can't be watched because the audio/vido stops once in a while while playing...

As said before - everthing with Dolby audio and Dolby vision is fine with emby - everything with DTS sucks... My personal workaround (since I missed to send the cube back in a timly manner) - side loaded Kodi 20 to the cube and when a file need DTS (or DTS:X or DTX-HD) I am using Kodi (in this case without Dolby visioin but with HDR). Not a perfect solution but better than nothing...

[horstepipe 356]

sorry, for the slow ones please...

In Emby, can a DTS-HD MA 7.1 track being passthroughed to the AVR on the 3rd Cube?

Best regards

Edited March 1, 2023 by horstepipe

[Dodgexander 8]

1 hour ago, horstepipe said:

sorry, for the slow ones please...

In Emby, can a DTS-HD MA 7.1 track being passthroughed to the AVR on the 3rd Cube?

Best regards

No. Only with Kodi.

[horstepipe 356]

40 minutes ago, Dodgexander said:

No. Only with Kodi.

Thanks for clarification.

But I‘m wondering, if you google „fire tv 3rd dts hd“ there are lots of news saying that dts hd is being supported via Passthrough now. So what exactly is the problem here? Or do they all lie?

Edited March 1, 2023 by horstepipe

[horstepipe 356]

On 2/8/2023 at 4:33 PM, ebr said:

The reason this works on the Shield is because the device supports it through the Android APIs.  I believe Kodi is going around the normal Android system to force a raw stream.  We do not attempt to do anything like that.

Ok I see - but do not really understand it yet.

They support dts hd now but do not make it accessible to 3rd party apps, while „non 3rd party apps“ do not make use of that feature at all…?