Preferred Audio Format

[MRobi 160]

Apologies if this has been posted as a FR already, did a search and didn't really see it (may be buried, 5.1 returns tons of search results lol) but I have seen this come up countless times in various posts.

Currently Emby by default plays the audio track with the default tag, or if the tag doesn't exist it plays the first audio track in the list. This is certainly logical behavior. 

We have the option to prefer a language. So if the first and default audio track is in German and English is the 5th, by setting English as the preferred language it will play the English track. Perfect!

Many mkv files set stereo as the default track to maximize compatibility. Many users want 5.1, 7.1, atmos, etc when they play their media, especially when using a TV. The solution right now is to use an external tool to convert all your media files and change the default track or select the surround option every time you play a file. The former may be too advanced for the average user or out of their control if they're streaming from a friend's server. The later gets tedious and is often forgotten.

Could we not use the same logic that's used for a preferred language except also have a preferred audio format? This way a user can select English and 5.1 and if it exists it will choose that track, if there's only English it select the English track, otherwise if there's none it reverts back to the default method it is today. I think this would be relatively simple to implement since the logic is already there for language, it's just a matter of applying it to format as well. Even better would be the ability to rank multiple preferred audio formats but I can see that being much more difficult to implement.

[ebr 14947]

Hi.  Yes, this request is buried in a few different discussions.  Some improvements are possible in the future but it gets tricky because there is no way for us to know the actual content of the audio track (it could be commentary or audio descriptive, etc.). 

[MRobi 160]

On 10/04/2023 at 10:26, ebr said:

Hi.  Yes, this request is buried in a few different discussions.  Some improvements are possible in the future but it gets tricky because there is no way for us to know the actual content of the audio track (it could be commentary or audio descriptive, etc.). 

I can see that being a problem. 

Just thinking out loud here. Since commentary and descriptive audio tracks are nearly always 2ch, what about only applying it to surround? Maybe a "Prefer surround sound if track exists" checkbox to enable and that allows access to a dropdown to select between 7.1 and 5.1. Or even 2 checkboxes "Prefer 5.1" and "Prefer 7.1". Perhaps down the road the process could be automated to detect the capabilities of the sound device hooked in to automate the selection of 7.2, 5.1, etc.. but to start it could be user selected.

 

[Loco007 8]

I would be very keen on this option.

 

Currently when playing live tv there are 3 audio tracks with the default as 2 channel and I have to manually change to 5.1 surround everytime I play a channel.

 

Please implement the default selection of 5.1 surround sound for live tv?