Sonos...again...this time it's an Sonos Arc.

[fizzyade 124]

Our rear speakers in the bedroom had been unplugged for quite a long time and I plugged them back in but couldn't get them to work.  I figured they may have been paired with the old app, so I opened up the S1 app to be greeted with "40% off a speaker" and "terms apply"....  So obviously the first thing I did was go to their site, add an Arc in the basket and go to the checkout and enter the code and wait for the "the product is not in the offer".

To my surprise, it was so it seemed too good an offer not to take the 40% off and upgrade the playbar in the lounge, I then promptly forgot about the rears in the background since I was in shock at getting 40% off the Arc.

So it arrived earlier and I removed the playbar (much swearing because I couldn't remember how the Vogels system worked, then more swearing trying to get the new bracket screwed onto the Vogels, but I eventually got the Arc mounted.

When I first bought emby, I had issues with the Playbar, I had issues with Plex which I was using at the time and it took them several years to resolve the issue and that only happened because I managed to catch the CTO during "roku gate" who was unaware that it didn't play nicely with Sonos.  I tried emby again and realised it was superior, but low and behold I had issues with Sonos.  I posted here and within 24 hours you'd given me a modified version that allowed me to (I believe, I can't exactly remember) tell the Emby client on the shield what the playbar supported.

Now, I'm having issues again.  The Arc is connected to our Sony KDL-55W905A and I'm finding that some files play fine.  I have an EAC6 video that I'm trying and all I can get out of the Sonos is stereo, I'm seeing "Software Decode" on the info when playing, but rather than transcoding it to DD5.1 (and there's a DD5.1 source playing correctly right now) it seems to convert any multi channel sound that isn't DD5.1 to stereo.

The shield is set to auto formats, but it doesn't make any difference if I go to manual and tell it only to play DD5.1, it always transcodes anything else to 2.0.

Any ideas?  

[rbjtech 4303]

Did you mean a video with EAC3 audio (Dolby Digital Plus) - there is no such thing as EAC6 ... ?

 

 

 

Edited September 22, 2023 by rbjtech

[fizzyade 124]

yes, sorry, EAC3 6CH is what is displayed in emby.

[rbjtech 4303]

9 minutes ago, fizzyade said:

yes, sorry, EAC3 6CH is what is displayed in emby.

Hmm - well the Sonos Arc supports EAC3 directly - so there is no need to audio transcode anything - it should direct play.

Is the Sonos ARC in the 'ARC' HDMI port on the TV - some TV's have a specific port you need to use. 

Have you set the Emby AndroidTV App to use passthrough ?

The Shield is best set to Auto on the Audio settings.

Make sure you reboot all the devices, so the HDMI handshakes are all correct.

Edited September 22, 2023 by rbjtech

[fizzyade 124]

1 hour ago, rbjtech said:

Hmm - well the Sonos Arc supports EAC3 directly - so there is no need to audio transcode anything - it should direct play.

Is the Sonos ARC in the 'ARC' HDMI port on the TV - some TV's have a specific port you need to use. 

Have you set the Emby AndroidTV App to use passthrough ?

The Shield is best set to Auto on the Audio settings.

Make sure you reboot all the devices, so the HDMI handshakes are all correct.

I have it plugged into HDMI 1 which is the ARC port, it's recognised it and sound is come out of it.

I've power cycled everything many times, all at once.

I see no audio settings relating to this in emby and unless I'm being totally blind, I can't see anything relating to passthrough either.

[fizzyade 124]

I suspect this is the TV being to root cause rather than emby now.  I'll go an investigate a bit more....

[rbjtech 4303]

So on the Shield Pro - this is what I have configured -

On the Emby Android TV App -

If your device is capable of Direct Playback - then it will show the following -

Dolby Digital 5.1 (lossy)

 

DTS 5.1 (lossy)

Dolby Digital Plus (EAC3) with or without Atmos (JOC) - lossy

Dolby TRUE-HD (incl proper Atmos) - lossless

Note - will not be available over ARC - Needs EARC plus App on Shield, Not a TV OR Shield direct to AVR - Video is passed to TV.

DTS-HD (incl DTS-HRA/DTS-X) - lossless

Note - will not be available over ARC - Needs EARC plus App on Shield, Not a TV OR Shield direct to AVR - Video is passed to TV.

Edited September 22, 2023 by rbjtech

[fizzyade 124]

Thanks for the comprehensive reply!

That showed up a problem....my version was 1.8 something on the shield, at some point I must have changed my google password and apps then stopped getting updates, since the shield spends 100% of it's time in Emby I never saw this.

Upgrading didn't resolve it initially, I think my TV is basically stopping anything other that DD5.1 going through ARC, but, I was able to toggle the convert unsupported media to DD 5.1 now at least the EAC3 transcodes to DD5.1, on the old version this option was separate but didn't help.

So I'm stuck on the lowest common denominator here with DD5.1 until I change the TV, despite the ARC supporting other formats.

Many thanks for your help.

 

[drjak 1]

See if there are any settings in the sound menu of your tv that allow passthrough etc, or auto.  Also set sound out to auto or ARC so that sound is definitely passed to your SONOS Arc.