ShieldTV with external usb SPDIF output

[heciruam 23]

Hello everyone,

So I recently purchased the new Shield Pro with an external usb soundcard.
Reason is simply that the Receiver doesn't support anything above DD or DTS, and the screen doesn't support HDR.

Now it works with the Netflix app but doesn't with the native Emby app. If I use VLC as an external play i can activate passthrough.
What sucks is that the playback in VLC take 30s or longer to start. Also EAC (DD+) audio is not supported by receiver. I'm not sure how I can tell emby to not use the external players for that?

Is there an option to get a better experience?
Will setting up Direct Paths help?
Kodi with EmbyforKodi?


 

Edited January 21, 2021 by heciruam

[ebr 14903]

Hi.  What, exactly, isn't working?  Can we look at an example?

 

[ebr 14903]

Oh, wait, this is an optical (spdif) connection?

[heciruam 23]

Yes this is the (2019) Shield Pro with an external USB to SPDIF Box.

I guess I need to explain the setup a little more.

- Ancient receiver that only supports Ac3 and DTS over Optical(SPDIF) inputs
- Projector that can't do HDR
- Shield which does tonemapping perfectly.
- external USB soundcard the outputs vie SPDIF

Now I have the following senarios:

Amazon, Netflix, and so on all put out Dolby Digital no problem.

The Emby AndroidTV app however only outputs stereo (with my external usb->Spdif box). If I use VLC as an external Player I get DD and DTS Audio. However if the video file has EAC as audio, which my receiver doesn't support, VLC just passes it through. Since I can't tell Emby to play that audio through the internal emby app player (is it exoplayer?) itself to get stereo or some trancoded ac3 stream or stereo, I'm looking for alternatives on how to get a less tinkery solution.
Thats why I'm wondering what the direct path option will do for me in this situation. Will the emby app out put more than stereo? Will Emby for Kodi help me to output DD and DTS but transcode EAC?

I know, I know everyone will say upgrade your receiver and all your problems go away, but I really don't want to. If I used Emby Theater on a PC(with an SPDIF port) could just check which audio formats are supported, but I would get a Netflix experience without mouse and keyboard.

 

Edited January 21, 2021 by heciruam

[ebr 14903]

Okay, yeah, the optical output support is limited in the player we're using and Google isn't all that motivated to do anything about it in this day and age.  We may be able to work around this in the future with our own customization options to the player.

[heciruam 23]

Thanks for the info. I guess I'll have to live with it.

[rbjtech 4222]

Why not use a HDMI passthrough box to create the SPDIF signal ?

Something like this -

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HDMI-to-HDMI-Optical-SPDIF-Audio-Extractor-Converter-Splitter-Coaxial-Converter/373109080375

As far as Exoplayer is concerned - you are using HDMI, so it shouldn't care that you are using SPDIF to actually get the signal to your AV Receiver.

 

Edited January 22, 2021 by rbjtech

[heciruam 23]

Well I simply saw that Nvidia supports certain usb boxes. Whats weird is that everything is working now through the internal player. DTS and DD is passed through while EAC,DTS-HD, trueHD, ... is transcoded.

Did you guys update the app?

 

[ebr 14903]

15 hours ago, heciruam said:

Did you guys update the app?

What version of the app are you running?

[heciruam 23]

1.8.54g

[rbjtech 4222]

17 hours ago, heciruam said:

Well I simply saw that Nvidia supports certain usb boxes. Whats weird is that everything is working now through the internal player. DTS and DD is passed through while EAC,DTS-HD, trueHD, ... is transcoded.

Did you guys update the app?

 

Optical/Toslink/spdif simply does not have the bandwidth to carry HD Audio - (DTS-HD/True-HD).  EAC3 is supposed to work with AC3 only equipment, but unlike DTS-HD which has a 'core' (and pretty much always works), the EAC3 equivalent seems to be very unreliable, so select the AC3 track if you have one.   The fact DTS/AC3 is direct playing - I would be happy with that ..  

[heciruam 23]

Yep DTS/DD is what I was looking for with my orl AVR. It didn't work before with the adpter on Emby (it only output happening was stereo), but now it works the way I wanted it to.

Cheers

[ebr 14903]

8 hours ago, heciruam said:

1.8.54g

No, that one hasn't updated in a while.  Did you just update the firmware on the device maybe?

[heciruam 23]

Not actively. Might have been an automatic update.

Well it works. I will come back if it ever stops working again.

Thanks for the help!