Nvidia Shield Pro 2019 - Dolby Audio Processing

[CrossCech 8]

I want to share what I think has solved playback issues I've been having.

I'd been having weird audio issues since getting my Nvidia Shield Pro 2019. When starting a movie or tv show file, the audio would take a second to kick in after the video has already started. It'd be in sync, but odd nonetheless. I also noticed that LIVE TV would fall out of sync over time. I'd have to stop and restart the show.

However, the real annoying problem I was having was while watching football games that I edit and encode from recordings - I like to re-watch NFL games.  All the files would start out as direct play, but when I'd start to use FF to skip between plays or rewind to watch a play again, playback eventually would move over to direct stream then full on transcoding and throw a DirectPlay error. Logs would show that it was all audio related.

I never had issues with direct play of my football games with my previous HTPC, so I thought maybe it had something to do with Emby Android TV, but then I realized that I also use Emby Android TV on my FireTV and do not have these issues on it.

So I was back to wondering what is with this Nvidia Shield that could be causing these problems? I searched the forums here and didn't find anything related to my issue and after looking in the Nvidia Shield's settings and finding what I think has solved everything, I looked again on the forums to see if anyone else pointed it out. No one has or I can't find it ... so here's what solved it for me:

Under Nvidia Shield Settings > Device Preferences > Display & Sound > Advanced sound setttings > Dolby audio processing was toggled ON. I toggled it OFF and have not had any of the above issues since.

I have the latest Nvidia Shield update 8.2.0(32.6.435.1) which may have somehow toggled that ON by default or it's always been on since I've had it. I surmise that this Dolby audio processing was forcing the Shield to always process regardless if it's connected to a receiver that can do the work, therefore causing delays and sync issues. Just a single click and all is well.

Anyway, just wanted to post this in case others were noticing these issues with their Shield.

Edited September 15, 2020 by CrossCech

[FrostByte 5044]

Strange.  According to nVidia staff member that setting shouldn't affect Emby at all

"The main purpose of this feature is to convert Dolby Digital Plus (EAC3) to Dolby Digital (AC3) on streaming apps for people who use older receivers that don't support EAC3. It does not do any simulated surround processing, but there is an upmix to 5.1 feature in the audio settings that is seperate from this that does upmixing to surround."

"The streaming apps I was referring to are Netflix/Amazon/HBO/Disney+/etc. The EAC3 to AC3 conversion applies to those apps, it does not apply to Emby or Channels DVR."

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/forums/shield-tv/9/389092/dolby-audio-processing-howwhen-does-it-work/

[CrossCech 8]

1 minute ago, FrostByte said:

Strange.  According to nVidia staff member that setting shouldn't affect Emby at all

"The main purpose of this feature is to convert Dolby Digital Plus (EAC3) to Dolby Digital (AC3) on streaming apps for people who use older receivers that don't support EAC3. It does not do any simulated surround processing, but there is an upmix to 5.1 feature in the audio settings that is seperate from this that does upmixing to surround."

"The streaming apps I was referring to are Netflix/Amazon/HBO/Disney+/etc. The EAC3 to AC3 conversion applies to those apps, it does not apply to Emby or Channels DVR."

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/forums/shield-tv/9/389092/dolby-audio-processing-howwhen-does-it-work/

There is another toggle below the Dolby Audio Processing toggle for upmixing stereo to 5.1 PCM and it is/was/still toggled OFF by default.

The football files' audio that these issues really became prevalent on are all Dolby Digital (AC3) therefore not needing any conversion. My equipment is all fairly new and up to date in regards to handling everything thrown at it,  so yeah it was throwing me for a loop as to why I was having these problems. I got a Shield after all the reviews and recommendations from friends, so was very frustrated to say the least when these issues started manifesting themselves.