FireTV Cube 3 now supports TrueHD + DTS!

[rbjtech 4265]

12 minutes ago, horstepipe said:

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 per Passthrough now. So what exactly is the problem here? Or do they all lie?

DTS Core (lossy) from the DTS-HD MA IS passed though - so you'll get DTS 5.1.  But you won't get DTS-HD MA or DTS-HD X.  I tested DTS-HD HRA (also lossy, but higher bitrate than DTS) - that didn't work either for me - but some are saying it does.  But there is a lot of scope for mis information here - just because you hear sound, doesn't mean it's what you sent.   You need an AVR that is capable of telling you what it is processing, how many channels blah blah - a sound bar is less likely to tell you this - and I think this is where confusion has come from. 

Edited March 1, 2023 by rbjtech

[horstepipe 356]

6 minutes ago, rbjtech said:

DTS Core (lossy) from the DTS-HD MA IS passed though - so you'll get DTS 5.1.  But you won't get DTS-HD MA or DTS-HD X.  I tested DTS-HD HRA (also lossy, but higher bitrate than DTS) - that didn't work either for me - but some are saying it does.  But there is a lot of scope for mis impormation here - just because you hear sound, doesn't mean it's what you sent.   You need an AVR that is capable of telling you what it is processing, how many channels blah blah - a sound bar is less likely to tell you this - and I think this is where confusion has come from. 

So isn’t this basically the same behavior as on the Fire TV 4k - except that core dts is being bitstreamed and not sent as PCM?

As far as I am informed, differentiating between Passthrough and PCM is just voodoo…

[rbjtech 4265]

7 minutes ago, horstepipe said:

So isn’t this basically the same behavior as on the Fire TV 4k - except that core dts is being bitstreamed and not sent as PCM?

As far as I am informed, differentiating between Passthrough and PCM is just voodoo…

• Bitstream - aka Passthough means the data is untouched - and processing is done by the end device - ie the AVR does the decoding.
• PCM - is done by the client - ie the FireTV does the decoding - sending the uncompressed/processed stream to the AVR/TV which then plays it raw - ie it does not process it further.

If you have a capable AVR, then Bitstream/Passthrough is always best.   If you don't, then PCM may be an option, but it's usually very limited in channels as high bandwidth is used per channel to keep the quality good because it's uncompressed data at this point.  With PCM, object based data is also lost. (ie Atmos or DTS:X)

Edited March 1, 2023 by rbjtech

[horstepipe 356]

You seem to misunderstand me:

Core of my question is

„what is the real benefit“ of a Cube 3rd generation vs a Fire TV 4k related to audio?“

Sure, PCM only works for up to 7.1 channels - but in contradiction to your statement I never saw some trustful source where a difference between pcm and bitstream was confirmed.

DTS X seems to be quiet dead, isn’t it?

So there is:

- Atmos which also works on the 4K stick

- basic dts which also works on the 4K stick (via PCM)

- dts hd ma: the dts core is being provided per pcm on the stick; on the cube the core is being Passthroughed

So I do not see any benefit here…?

EXCEPT, for sure, that you see DTS on your AVR which seems very important to some people

 

edit:

Some years ago I really wanted to know whether there is a difference because Apple removed Passthrough support completely on TVOS. 

Edited March 1, 2023 by horstepipe

[rbjtech 4265]

DTS:X is far from dead, yes it's not pushed as hard as Dolby THD Atmos - but a lot of UHD disks only have an object based DTS:X Track.  It basically boils down to licensing - as you never see a Dolby THD Atmos AND a DTS:X Track.

If you don't have an AVR, then the Cube might be an option, because you don't need bitstream/passthough.

Without meaning to offend anyone , an AV Enthusiast with a higher end 'Cinema' type home system will always be using an AVR and subsequently, they NEED passthrough for ALL formats especially object based.

[ebr 14913]

1 hour ago, horstepipe said:

there are lots of news saying that dts hd is being supported via Passthrough now

Hi.  I think they mean passing through from a hardware (BD) player connected to their input port on the device.

[Dodgexander 8]

There's no difference in quality if you are comparing the raw stream to a PCM decode but there are differences in how signal is interpreted by the device at the end of the chain. An AVR that receives PCM may not be able to apply the same sound effects or processing it can with a non-PCM signal.

This is even more important now with DTS-X and Atmos (Dolby MAT 2.0) as they carry object audio information, although with Dolby MAT 2.0 any device should be able to transport Atmos contained in a LPCM anyway. But that's a different matter entirely.

Legacy DTS-HD and TrueHD are fine decoded into PCM, as are the even older Dolby and DTS tracks.

[rbjtech 4265]

5 hours ago, Dodgexander said:

There's no difference in quality if you are comparing the raw stream to a PCM decode but there are differences in how signal is interpreted by the device at the end of the chain. An AVR that receives PCM may not be able to apply the same sound effects or processing it can with a non-PCM signal.

This is even more important now with DTS-X and Atmos (Dolby MAT 2.0) as they carry object audio information, although with Dolby MAT 2.0 any device should be able to transport Atmos contained in a LPCM anyway. But that's a different matter entirely.

Legacy DTS-HD and TrueHD are fine decoded into PCM, as are the even older Dolby and DTS tracks.

Exactly - as explained above.

Thus back to the original point - having no DTS MA or DTS X passthrough/bitstream on the Fire Cube 3 is an issue for AV Enthusiasts with the AV equipment to fully utilise the object based DTS codecs.

[raven-au 17]

On 2/8/2023 at 11:33 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.

I did read a description of what Kodi is doing.

Apparently, this IEC device provides an interface for the audio.

The usual device, if the vendor doesn't compile the extended API features, is the Android RAW IEC device.

But if the vendor chooses to build in the interface's applications can, more or less, implement the IEC device packing, which Kodi takes advantage of if available.

So that's apparently why Kodi can do audio passthrough others can't and also why it can be done of the Shield and Fire TV but can't be done by Kodi on most TVs (since they don't build in that function, they only show the Android RAW IEC device) even though they can passthrough audio from their HDMI ports (if they support eARC) to audio hardware.

[Tony B. 38]

Just plugged my Fire Cube in to my Pioneer receiver and tried to view Inception with a DTS-MA track. No go. Just Dolby Digital Plus.

Are there secret settings to get this to pass through?

 

The Audio settings menu of the cube has Best Available.

Is there a firmware version I need to be looking for?

Edit:

Looks like there is a few issues here. Amazon never said they are going to support DTS-HD MA/X. The dev of a special branch of Kodi says there is a firmware glitch. Exoplayer might not support some formats.

The spec is for DTS-HD Main Profile.

From the looks of it, Shield users also use Kodi for lossless passthrough. It looks as if getting rid of the Cube 3rd gen would be useless. Amazon will fix the firmware bug and Kodi will function the same it does on the Shield..

Please correct anything that is wrong in that statement.

If I have time, I'll try the side loaded Android version.

Edited March 19, 2023 by Tony B.

[Tony B. 38]

Here is the link for the Kodi branch that mitigates the Firmware bug.

https://mega.nz/folder/5moTTTib#I7VM0tLtJgHeJD4Ai2Zd8g

 

Edited March 19, 2023 by Tony B.

[rbjtech 4265]

13 hours ago, Tony B. said:

Just plugged my Fire Cube in to my Pioneer receiver and tried to view Inception with a DTS-MA track. No go. Just Dolby Digital Plus.

Are there secret settings to get this to pass through?

 

The Audio settings menu of the cube has Best Available.

Is there a firmware version I need to be looking for?

Edit:

Looks like there is a few issues here. Amazon never said they are going to support DTS-HD MA/X. The dev of a special branch of Kodi says there is a firmware glitch. Exoplayer might not support some formats.

The spec is for DTS-HD Main Profile.

From the looks of it, Shield users also use Kodi for lossless passthrough. It looks as if getting rid of the Cube 3rd gen would be useless. Amazon will fix the firmware bug and Kodi will function the same it does on the Shield..

Please correct anything that is wrong in that statement.

If I have time, I'll try the side loaded Android version.

This has all been said above ?

[Tony B. 38]

6 hours ago, rbjtech said:

This has all been said above ?

Your point?

[raven-au 17]

On 3/20/2023 at 1:47 AM, Tony B. said:

Your point?

I think the point is that the in general what you have said has been said a number of times in this thread.

You have also confused the firmware bug described in the kodi thread about those kodi builds with the lack of DTS-HD MA/X support in the Cude which is misleading.

The fact that kodi uses a different software mechanism in order to passthrough these lossless audio codecs and the fact that Emby won't do this has also already been discussed.

 

[Tony B. 38]

The software 'mechanism' is Exoplayer. They are going to be hurdled by Exoplayer's lack of development.

There is a rule in business, never rely on anyone else to help you achieve your goal.

The goal of Emby is to have DTS-HD/X etc. and Exoplayer is slowing them down.

Let me know where I'm wrong, and I'll leave you be but you obviously didn't understand the point of my post where it was mostly meant to be informative and not start a flame war

 

[rbjtech 4265]

7 hours ago, Tony B. said:

The software 'mechanism' is Exoplayer. They are going to be hurdled by Exoplayer's lack of development.

There is a rule in business, never rely on anyone else to help you achieve your goal.

The goal of Emby is to have DTS-HD/X etc. and Exoplayer is slowing them down.

Let me know where I'm wrong, and I'll leave you be but you obviously didn't understand the point of my post where it was mostly meant to be informative and not start a flame war

 

Emby, as does Plex etc have to use 3rd party libraries - ffmpeg, exo etc - they would not exist without them.   They customise them to some extent - but re-writing them just to passthough DTS-HD/X on one device is a waste of effort imo - as that device has other failings anyway such as no DV7/8 and only a 100Mbit Ethernet Port.

We are not saying you are wrong - but the comments about Kodi have been said earlier - so while your comments are perfectly valid - they are not offering anything above what has already been said.

But anyway - as per your comments, no 'issues' with anything you have said - and we should probably agree to just move on lol. 

[horstepipe 356]

Does that mean all Amazon devices do not support dv profile 7 and 8?

I guess the shield does?

[rbjtech 4265]

4 hours ago, horstepipe said:

Does that mean all Amazon devices do not support dv profile 7 and 8?

I guess the shield does?

Shield 2019 Pro does - 100%, I've been using it for years.

[raven-au 17]

On 3/26/2023 at 8:06 PM, horstepipe said:

Does that mean all Amazon devices do not support dv profile 7 and 8?

They play back profile 8 just fine and converting profile 7 to profile 8 is not too hard.

Oh wait, I was thinking profile 5 to profile 8, not sure about profile 7 to 8 and I don't have any profile 7 shows to test either, they are all profile 8.

 

Edited April 3, 2023 by raven-au

[ASimkins 0]

Anyone have any luck playing DTS-HD tracks in Emby on the 3rd Gen cube? I get awful buffering. If I disable DTS-HD pass through playback is fine - however with multichannel audio. I assume this is a limitation of the current Emby app for Fire TV however thought I would ask. 

[Tony B. 38]

Try this latest version of Kodi out with RAW selected and all the advanced lossless formats enabled.

 

https://mega.nz/folder/5moTTTib#I7VM0tLtJgHeJD4Ai2Zd8g

[Jam_Lai 1]

DTS-HD passthrough is not supported in this android tv verison now..wait and see, android app version is already support DTS-HD

[Madiator2011 2]

On 4/16/2023 at 3:11 AM, ASimkins said:

Anyone have any luck playing DTS-HD tracks in Emby on the 3rd Gen cube? I get awful buffering. If I disable DTS-HD pass through playback is fine - however with multichannel audio. I assume this is a limitation of the current Emby app for Fire TV however thought I would ask. 

I did got Fire Cube 3 gen yesterday and DTS-HD 7.1 did not work in emby app but worked without issues on Kodi with new Next Gen Kodi addon.

[Tony B. 38]

2 hours ago, Madiator2011 said:

I did got Fire Cube 3 gen yesterday and DTS-HD 7.1 did not work in emby app but worked without issues on Kodi with new Next Gen Kodi addon.

What Kodi addon? It is supposed to support it OOTB (Out of the box).

[Madiator2011 2]

2 minutes ago, Tony B. said:

What Kodi addon? It is supposed to support it OOTB (Out of the box).

Emby For Kodi Next Gen
Using it to connect to my emby server. The Emby for Fire TV causes DTS-HD to be transcoded to stereo AAC