DTS-HD MA on Sony TV with soundbar

[arrbee99 1815]

Have a new Shield Pro which feeds Sony X900F tv which feeds a Samsung N850 soundbar with extra rear speakers. I have a few Atmos demo files which play Atmos audio on the soundbar, including the rear speakers. When I play DTS 5.1 the rear speakers also work. When I play DTS-HD MA the rear speakers do nothing. Any ideas maybe ?

[Luke 42077]

Is it passing through? We'd have to look at an example. Thanks.

[FrostByte 5392]

Is DTS-HD passthrough enabled in settings?

[arrbee99 1815]

I have the Shield going in to the TV and the TV is connected to the sound bar via ARC. Examples would I guess be 4K Harry Potter movies. DTS-HD MA just uses the soundbar while DTS 5.1 use the bar and rear speakers.

What settings where ? Shield or TV or app or server. Far as I can tell everything is set to Auto and I think some settings are disabled on the TV as the TV speakers aren't being used.

[sooty234 266]

I just tried this in the new mobile app. It plays my TrueHD with Atmos, but converts DTS-HD MA

17:32:15.871   Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (copy)
17:32:15.871   Stream #0:5 -> #0:1 (dts (dca) -> ac3 (native))

ffmpeg-remux-e2ca4142-b873-4f97-a510-ac0a141e6715_1.txt

[FrostByte 5392]

41 minutes ago, arrbee99 said:

 

What settings where ? Shield or TV or app or server. Far as I can tell everything is set to Auto and I think some settings are disabled on the TV as the TV speakers aren't being used.

Sorry, under playback setting within ATV app there should be a setting for DTS-HD passthrough.

I just played a movie with DTS:X which Direct Played and triggered DTS:X on my soundbar so DTS-HD is working for me and I don't think it's a problem with the new Exoplayer

Edited September 7, 2020 by FrostByte

[arrbee99 1815]

In the ATV app I have Audio - Auto, Allow DTS Passthu - yes and Enable DTS-HD Passthu - yes and it doesn't use the back speakers. If I have Enable DTS-HD Passthu - no then it does use them. Says its direct playing either way.

A review the the N850 said The N850 also benefits from Samsung's ownership of Harman Kardon, with the former ensuring the soundbar supports Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD and Dolby Atmos, along with DTS Digital Sound, DTS-HD Master Audio and DTS:X. Meanwhile, the latter has ensured the soundbar delivers a sound that is dynamic and spacious but retains clear voicing.

[pünktchen 1409]

The Sony X900F has a bug with extracting the core from DTS-HD MA audio. But that is needed because as you probably now already, DTS-HD is not possible via ARC.

[FrostByte 5392]

Does your N850 have an input HDMI?  Then have the soundbar passthrough the video to the TV.

Like my setup:

Shield HDMI (1) / XB1X HDMI (2) >>> Samsung Q90R soundbar >>> ARC Samsung TV

[arrbee99 1815]

So ideally I need eARC ?

At the moment its Shield to TV to Soundbar. I think I could change it to Shield to Soundbar to TV but it seems neither the TV nor the Soundbar have eARC. People seem to have asked about firmware upgrades for both to eARC but doubt if it will happen.

Anyway, would swapping connections actually make a difference d'you think ? Getting access would be a bit of a mission...

[FrostByte 5392]

I remember reading a lot of an upcoming firmware update adding eARC for the N850/N950 on Avsforum, but I don't recall if it ever happened.  

Even if the N850 doesn't have eARC the DTS decoder is supposed to be smart enough to pull the core DTS track from DTS-HD.  Which your Sony should do too, but punktchen mentioned there's an issue with the Sony TV doing that.

I still think you might be better off hooking your Shield into the soundbar, you should hopefully get DTS 5.1 at a minimum.  If it doesn't work you can always put it back 

[arrbee99 1815]

People are still moaning on Samsung forums about updating and abandoning stuff as soon as the new model comes out, etc, etc. So no update so far, probably not ever.

I seem to get DTS 5.1, if thats what you're talking about, the rear speakers are definitely working for that (and now for HD with it switched off in the app).

Might possibly try rearranging cables but its not a just reach round the back job, so...

So the sound in general is pretty reasonable to me now, so far, touch wood. Not sure if I'd notice the difference with lossless audio tbh anyway.

[FrostByte 5392]

Ya, the DTS decoder is supposed to know if your system is DTS-HD or not, if not then it's supposed to pull the DTS 5.1 core out of the DTS-HD which is what you're probably hearing now like you said

From what I've read you need to have a really nice audio system and really really good ears to tell the difference between DTS-HD 5.1 and DTS 5.1 @ 1536kbps.  DTS:X and 7.1 channels are probably another story

[arrbee99 1815]

Oh well, I'm not an audio connoisseur (which also has the advantage of being cheap), but I now get a significantly improved effort and I almost get my socks blown of in a higher-fi way

[pünktchen 1409]

You do not eARC at all -> from Shield to Soundbar to any HDMI input of the TV.

[CBers 7450]

7 hours ago, arrbee99 said:

In the ATV app I have Audio - Auto, Allow DTS Passthu - yes and Enable DTS-HD Passthu - yes and it doesn't use the back speakers. If I have Enable DTS-HD Passthu - no then it does use them. Says its direct playing either way.

Disable the 2nd DTS option and the ATV app should pass through the core DTS track.

My LG soundbar supports DTS, but not DTS-MA, so that's how I have the app set up.

 

[arrbee99 1815]

2 hours ago, CBers said:

Disable the 2nd DTS option and the ATV app should pass through the core DTS track.

My LG soundbar supports DTS, but not DTS-MA, so that's how I have the app set up.

 

Thats what I've done and thats what seems to work. Definite improvement compared to previous, but basically the same as just playing the alternative DTS 5.1 soundtrack I have anyway, which isn't  a huge surprise I guess...

[Drubei 1]

On 9/6/2020 at 7:09 PM, arrbee99 said:

So ideally I need eARC ?

At the moment its Shield to TV to Soundbar. I think I could change it to Shield to Soundbar to TV but it seems neither the TV nor the Soundbar have eARC. People seem to have asked about firmware upgrades for both to eARC but doubt if it will happen.

Anyway, would swapping connections actually make a difference d'you think ? Getting access would be a bit of a mission...

You don't need eARC.  Instead use a good splitter.  They very cheap, you just have to choose the correct one.  The one I use passthrough all audio formats with no problem and it auto detects your settings, no need to configure.  Just plug it in.
 

Shield -> Splitter -> Output 1 -> TV
                              -> Output 2 -> Soundbar

The one I'm using is this for $20.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07XCZC6SP/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[rbjtech 5284]

@arrbee99 - Your high end soundbar has 2 HDMI inputs and 1 HDMI output for a reason

You do not need to even concern yourself with ARC or eARC, and certainly you do not need any HDMI 'splitter' equipment.

As has been said above -

Simply connect your Nvidia Shield to one of the HDMI INPUT's on the Samsung 850 and connect the HDMI OUTPUT to your TV.

Set the Shield to Auto (Sound Settings) - and it will passthrough every HD sound format just fine.    You do not need ARC (Audio Return Channel) as you are not passing Audio back, you are receiving it directly from the Shield.  The Soundbar is passing the VIDEO to the TV, just like a Receiver would do.

 

[arrbee99 1815]

Thanks. I have thought about it, just a bit of a fiddle with access. Just to check, even though you've basically said as much already, I can use any HDMI into the TV... arc, non-arc - completely unimportant ? I shouldn't specifically avoid arc or anything ?

You don't thing passing though 4K hdr video will be a problem ?

[pünktchen 1409]

Your soundbar can pass through 4K HDR and your tv supports 4K HDR with 60fps on hdmi port 2 and 3, but only 30fps with 4K HDR on port 1 and 2.

[arrbee99 1815]

Thank you. Hopefully will experiment next week. Mustn't touch before the weekend...