Emby App Won’t Output 5.1 / 7.1 Surround Sound – Works Fine on Plex & Jellyfin

[Cayan 0]

Hi everyone,

I was really excited to switch over to Emby—it seemed like the perfect alternative to Plex! The interface is clean, it handles my music exactly the way I like, and overall it feels like a better experience.

But I’ve hit a major issue: Emby won’t output surround sound.

Here’s my setup:

• I have two Android TV boxes at home.

• One of them is connected via HDMI to a 7.1 Atmos receiver in my living room.

• Using Plex and Jellyfin, I get perfect passthrough for Dolby Digital, 5.1, 7.1—no problems at all.

• But with Emby, the sound always gets converted to stereo (2.0).

I’ve tested with the exact same movie files that play fine with surround sound on Plex and Jellyfin. In Emby, I’ve tried every audio setting I could find:

• Set to Auto

• Set to Convert to Dolby Digital

• Toggled passthrough options, etc.

Still, whenever I check the playback stats, it says the audio is being converted to 2.0 because it “exceeds the limit of audio channels.”

This is incredibly frustrating. I even signed up for Emby Premiere because I was so impressed with the app otherwise. But without surround sound, I can’t use it as my main player.

To summarize:

• Same Android TV box

• Same receiver

• Same movie files

• Surround sound works on Plex and Jellyfin

• Fails on Emby – always downmixes to stereo

Has anyone else run into this issue? Any solutions or suggestions? I’d really love to keep using Emby if I can solve this.

Thanks in advance!

[Luke 42077]

 

Hi there, let's look at an example. Please attach the information requested in how to report a media playback issue. Thanks!