Can't get DTS-HD sound to come through passthrough

[bjjones 20]

just got my Emby setup going over the weekend and the only issue I'm having is that I can't get DTS sound out of my Roku XD, The Netflix and Plex Roku apps both work fine and Plex passes through the DTS sound using the same MKV (Finding Dory).

 

The same file plays fine on the Android TV (Sony) which I would have thought would have been the problem child based on Sony so I'm guessing I've got the server side correct.

 

Roku settings are HDMI DD and DTS passthrough. I know I'm missing something somewhere but can't seem to find the setting I've got off.

 

TIA - Robert

 

Roku app log sent via Emby app @ 1759 Eastern, server log attached

server.txt

[ebr 14910]

The app is statically playing that mkv file...

 

Does it also contain a different audio track?

[bjjones 20]

only a single audio track.

 

I think I've isolated it a little more, it's a 7.1 DTS-HD audio track. Some of my other material that's just DTS 5.1 plays correctly.

 

Video: MPEG4 Video (H264) 1920x1080 23.976fps [V: h264 high L4.1, yuv420p, 1920x1080 [default]]
Audio: DTS 48000Hz 8ch 9216kbps [A: English [eng] (dts-hd ma, 48000 Hz, 7.1, s24) [default]]

[ebr 14910]

Does whatever you are sending the audio to support DTS-HD?

 

What does happen?

[bjjones 20]

yes, it's going to a Yamaha AVR that supports it.

 

The receiver is getting no audio signal at all. I pulled up what it's seeing and it shows no audio stream.

 

Digging a little deeper, I pulled up the stream info on the receiver when the mkv file does play on Plex and it's not really sending the DTS-HD track, Plex is transcoding it to AC3. 

[speechles 1917]

It is a known firmware issue that DTS-HD does not pass the dts core audio. Not sure why roku has dropped support, maybe it was the ball that was dropped. Sometimes their development seems clumsy, haphazard, and *insert concerned look here* scares me. Only DTS 5.1 passes through, DTS core for some reason doesn't.. \(O_o)/

 

In the blue neon app I have a work-around for this in the the "Convert DTS to AC3" option, you change it from "AUTO" to "YES" and problem solved. Alot of these issues are stemming directly from roku so extra options at some point should be looked at to give these edge cases a user-selectable solution that doesn't require an update to the app.

Edited May 22, 2018 by speechles

[bjjones 20]

Speechless, thanks for the explanation. I probably should have just saved the core DTS audio to begin with when I created the mkv but at least now I know how and why it doesn't work.

 

I'll look into the blue neon app, look interesting - thanks again

[Waldonnis 148]

Yeah, as speechles mentioned, Rokus no longer pass through the DTS core from a DTS-HD Master Audio track, which is disappointing (and never passed through the DTS-HD track itself).  If I had to guess, they probably killed that feature because of the meager processing power of some of the units and I could see the demuxing and bitstream core extraction causing some audio sync issues on lower-end models.

 

Out of curiosity, would it be possible for the server to extract the core from a DTS-HD stream if the client supports DTS, but not DTS-HD as would be the case with most AVR-connected Rokus/RokuTVs?  It's pretty easy to do with ffmpeg, but I'm not sure how much of an impact it would have computationally (likely less than transcoding, but I've never looked at the CPU use while doing it).

[Luke 37058]

Yes but it's a bit more of a challenge because HLS cannot carry DTS audio and therefore we'd have to use another transcoding format.

[ebr 14910]

So, the net of this is that the app needs to convert DTS-HD to DD correct?

[Luke 37058]

Sounds like it, yes.

[Waldonnis 148]

Yes but it's a bit more of a challenge because HLS cannot carry DTS audio and therefore we'd have to use another transcoding format.

 

Ah, yeah, forgot about that (doh!).  ac3 or eac3 would probably be the best options, then, depending on channel layout and bandwidth needs (ffmpeg's eac3 encoder is still limited to 5.1, so may as well use ac3 in almost every case).

[ebr 14910]

Please try this with the latest beta (.81).

 

Thanks.

[bjjones 20]

works like a champ - nice work

 

Yamaha now reports the audio as DD 5.1 (3/2/.01) 48kHz sampling 384kbps bitrate dialogue +4dB

 

server side shows it going out as direct stream, I don't see anywhere to check if hardware decoding is kicking in but CPU % is low (Synology 918+ w/intel) using VA-API.

 

is that the correct hardware decoding choice or should it be quicksync since it's a QS capable cpu ?

 

thanks for the quick fix !

Edited May 24, 2018 by bjjones

[ebr 14910]

The video isn't being touched.  It is only converting the audio.  

[Starlionblue 80]

Trying to play the following on the Roku but Emby transcodes the audio so I only get PCM 2.0 coming out. Is it the same issue?

 

Stats for nerds says "container not supported".

(Sorry for reviving an old thread.)

General
Unique ID                                : 181685433928807781587565857782300631532 (0x88AF577DFE29DBB8BCBBBE6872D761EC)
Complete name                            : S:\Movies\Films\John Wick Chapter 3 - Parabellum\John Wick Chapter 3 - Parabellum.mkv
Format                                   : Matroska
Format version                           : Version 4
File size                                : 5.51 GiB
Duration                                 : 2 h 11 min
Overall bit rate                         : 6 018 kb/s
Movie name                               : Manning
Encoded date                             : UTC 2019-08-16 12:33:04
Writing application                      : mkvmerge v8.0.0 ('Til The Day That I Die') 32bit
Writing library                          : libebml v1.3.1 + libmatroska v1.4.2

Video
ID                                       : 3
Format                                   : AVC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                           : High@L4.1
Format settings                          : CABAC / 8 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC                   : Yes
Format settings, Reference frames        : 8 frames
Codec ID                                 : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration                                 : 2 h 11 min
Bit rate                                 : 4 500 kb/s
Width                                    : 1 280 pixels
Height                                   : 534 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 2.40:1
Frame rate mode                          : Constant
Frame rate                               : 23.976 (24000/1001) FPS
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.275
Stream size                              : 4.12 GiB (75%)
Writing library                          : x264 core 155 r2901 7d0ff22
Encoding settings                        : cabac=1 / ref=8 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=umh / subme=9 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=2 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=6 / lookahead_threads=1 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=240 / keyint_min=24 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=60 / rc=2pass / mbtree=1 / bitrate=4500 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / vbv_maxrate=62500 / vbv_bufsize=78125 / nal_hrd=none / filler=0 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Default                                  : Yes
Forced                                   : No
Color range                              : Limited
Color primaries                          : BT.709
Transfer characteristics                 : BT.709
Matrix coefficients                      : BT.709

Audio
ID                                       : 1
Format                                   : DTS
Format/Info                              : Digital Theater Systems
Codec ID                                 : A_DTS
Duration                                 : 2 h 11 min
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 1 509 kb/s
Channel(s)                               : 6 channels
Channel layout                           : C L R Ls Rs LFE
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate                               : 93.750 FPS (512 SPF)
Bit depth                                : 24 bits
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Stream size                              : 1.38 GiB (25%)
Default                                  : Yes
Forced                                   : No

Text
ID                                       : 2
Format                                   : PGS
Muxing mode                              : zlib
Codec ID                                 : S_HDMV/PGS
Codec ID/Info                            : Picture based subtitle format used on BDs/HD-DVDs
Duration                                 : 2 h 0 min
Bit rate                                 : 8 693 b/s
Count of elements                        : 1452
Stream size                              : 7.47 MiB (0%)
Default                                  : Yes
Forced                                   : No

Menu
00:00:00.000                             : :Chapter 1
00:05:32.374                             : :Chapter 2
00:20:17.591                             : :Chapter 3
00:31:45.570                             : :Chapter 4
00:41:08.257                             : :Chapter 5
00:50:46.669                             : :Chapter 6
01:03:15.667                             : :Chapter 7
01:14:46.857                             : :Chapter 8
01:23:05.105                             : :Chapter 9
01:28:51.243                             : :Chapter 10
01:49:32.316                             : :Chapter 11
02:02:16.996                             : :Chapter 12

Edited August 23, 2019 by Starlionblue

[Luke 37058]

Ffmpeg log?

[Starlionblue 80]

Ffmpeg log?

 

Here you go. Tried two different movies. One is DTS and the other is Dolby Digital. Same result. Output from the Roku is PCM 2.0.

 

Logs are "ffmpeg log 1" and "ffmpeg log 2".

Edited August 23, 2019 by Starlionblue

[speechles 1917]

Make sure you do not have volume mode active. It must be OFF or everything becomes 2 channel stereo PCM. The Roku will change its reported audio capabilities the app reads and this will effectively disable everything except stereo. The same thing will occur when using "private listening" and that is because private listening is also stereo only. We purposely do this to avoid crashing the Roku. We must adapt our capabilities on-the-fly to match these audio changes users make on their Roku. We do not rely on any XML to tell what the Roku can play. All capabilities are read from your Roku device right before playback begins and given to the server at that moment. No exceptions. This provides you with the best playback possible on your Roku at any time. This is how we are different.

 

To find volume mode simply play an item to the video player. Press the * star button. On that left menu find volume mode. Make sure it is set to OFF.

 

Does this solve your problem?

Edited August 23, 2019 by speechles

[Starlionblue 80]

Make sure you do not have volume mode active. It must be OFF or everything becomes 2 channel stereo PCM. The Roku will change its reported audio capabilities the app reads and this will effectively disable everything except stereo. The same thing will occur when using "private listening" and that is because private listening is also stereo only. We purposely do this to avoid crashing the Roku. We must adapt our capabilities on-the-fly to match these audio changes users make on their Roku. We do not rely on any XML to tell what the Roku can play. All capabilities are read from your Roku device right before playback begins and given to the server at that moment. No exceptions. This provides you with the best playback possible on your Roku at any time. This is how we are different.

 

To find volume mode simply play an item to the video player. Press the * star button. On that left menu find volume mode. Make sure it is set to OFF.

 

Does this solve your problem?

 

That did indeed fix it. Thanks very much!

[speechles 1917]

That did indeed fix it. Thanks very much!

 

Sorry we don't make this known in the app. We need to do better at making this fact known to users that volume mode is not OFF. I will put that on the tracker to remind us to do better in the future.

 

Reference: Issue #572: [Capabilities] Detect VOLUME MODE is not set to OFF and DISPLAY somewhere