4K/UHD bluray players that decode DTS to Dolby?


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With 4K bluray players starting to emerge now, seems we really need to start keeping straight which ones will allow those of us with Sonos Playbars enjoy some semblance of Dolby sound when certain 4K blurays only offer DTS. (Note, I haven't yet purchased a 4K bluray, so am unaware of the typical sound offerings.)

But we went through this once already, for regular bluray players, with many threads devoted to outlining the multiple Samsung models of bluray that decode DTS to Dolby 5.1 (I ended up buying a Sony that also does so). Now let's do the same for 4K players.

So far we have the Samsung UBD K8500 (which seems to clearly decode DTS to dolby.) Now what about the Philips? The Panasonic? The Xbox One S?

Anyone have any idea?

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By the time I started looking at the price of OPPO devices, I decided it was just easier and more cost effective to go the whole hog and buy a proper AV receiver. If stereo/prologic was first gen movie audio, then Dolby Digital is 2nd gen. DTS is 3rd gen and then uncompressed audio like DTS-HD and Dolby TrueHD is 4th gen. With Atmos and DTS:X we're now on 5th gen movie audio at home and Sonos is stuck in the 90s.

I loved my Panasonic 1080p plasma for years but, despite still being happy with the picture, decided it was time to move on to the latest OLED to move into modern times. I didn't regret it. Doing the same for audio just made sense, so now my PLAYBAR is in the home gym with the old plasma. Great for music videos whilst working out.


Good ole panasonic plasma's had the VT20 & VT50 models... :-)

I have a full blown DD ATMOS System in our main Cinema Room, the sonos route was really just something to work in our family room, as i didn't want anything complicated, but didn't realise the DD issue via 5.1..... oversight on my part.

So rather than selling and buying something else (which i'm reluctant to do so, as i really like the sound) i thought i'd try to work with it and see what goes. I'll see how i get on with the M9500 tomorrow and hopefully it helps as a temp solution for at least watching 4k blurays for now.


I've got the UBD-K8500 and it works well, although it's lacking Dolby Vision now which may become annoying in the future. The transcoding part of it worked well until I upgraded my audio, my cabling just got a bit of a struggle when I went 4k as all my adapters and switches only worked on 1080p and it meant upgrading the lot if I kept the old setup.

Good luck getting it to work, if you have a Harmony remote to hand that will let you into the LG Engineer's menu.
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Something is strange here but it works. I have a LG OLED TV 2017 model that can pass through DD 5.1 via optical and UBD-M8500 player (Samsung does not offer the M9500 in my region) Recenlty I'm experiencing random dropouts or short pauses after the latest firmware update when playing either blurays or 4k blurays, so I decided to try someting. Instead of setting the player to re-encode to DD, I set it to bitstream unprocessed, and I set the TV sound output to internal speakers + audio out. The playbar would not get any sound (says Unsupported in the app) at the disc menu, but it would get a DD 5.1 signal from the TV once the playback started. I tried several 4K UBDs and all worked and no dropouts so far.
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Something is strange here but it works. I have a LG OLED TV 2017 model that can pass through DD 5.1 via optical and UBD-M8500 player (Samsung does not offer the M9500 in my region) Recenlty I'm experiencing random dropouts or short pauses after the latest firmware update when playing either blurays or 4k blurays, so I decided to try someting. Instead of setting the player to re-encode to DD, I set it to bitstream unprocessed, and I set the TV sound output to internal speakers + audio out. The playbar would not get any sound (says Unsupported in the app) at the disc menu, but it would get a DD 5.1 signal from the TV once the playback started. I tried several 4K UBDs and all worked and no dropouts so far.

Are you aware of the bug in version 7.4? I have the 2016 version of the LG OLED TV and like many, many others I immediately starting getting dropouts after updating Sonos to 7.4. There's a long thread here about this. I found a work around by changing the TV's audio out from HDMI & Optical to just optical. As soon as I did that, the dropouts stopped. Meanwhile I am still waiting for Sonos to finish with the beta "de-bugged" version and do an official update. But, as we all know, Sonos's software development pace is very slow.
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Epic news!! I was following this thread for a while and i still went with the oppo in hopes of dolby vision and dd upgrades and sure enoufh on the day of my unboxing (today) i found that oppo has a betta firmare that ads a dts or dolby digital conversion over optical!!! It does not update automatically. You have to go to their website and download it to usb and then hard update. Only issue for me now is my ps4 and wii u now cant utilize since the optical goes from oppo to sonos bar. But im thinking of playing with the hdmi pass though option the oppo had with my ps4 pro. Which in turn should allow my games to play in 5.1 through the oppo when gaming, which was an issue since ps4 pro doesn not do dd 5.1 over hdmi......(yet ps3 does. Lame)

My first time here but i wanted to save people from giving up the sonos!!! Ive been playing moana currently which is a dts 7.1 format and under about my sonos it comes up dd 5.1


Sorry for stupid question but I assume the Oppo 203 DTS solution uses the toslink straight from the player to the Playbar rather than using digital coax?
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Sonos playbar has optical input.
My 2016 LG oled has optical output - dd5.1 only for internal apps and tv channels ( where appropriate)
Oppo 205 has optical input
Oppo 205 has optical output - dd5.1 is now configurable for all throughput since software update?

So does anyone know if I can connect tv to Oppo by optical connection, then connect Oppo to Sonos playbar by optical connection, Thereby getting fully synced dd5.1 sound and vision from blurays and tv without using an extra switch box?

BTW the Oppo manual isn’t very helpful on USING its optical input in this way.

Many thanks in advance
Ok, so Samsung will do it. Thanks.
Sounds like no on Philips. No on Panasonic DMPUB900. And no on Xbox One S.

Last hope (for the time being) for an alternative to Samsung 4K bluray player is the upcoming Sony Neo - thoughts? Since the PS4 players now seem to transcode DTS to Dolby, I'm thinking there's a decent change this player will too.


Note that the Original Xbox One DOES do DTS to Dolby re encoding as well as Dolby to DTS re-encoding. I'm surprised they took that feature away on the S.

Check your options on setting, (by logging on to your Xbox ID and selecting the gear) First look under "Disc and Blu Ray Settings" One option is "let receiver decode signal" If it is checked, the Xbox One (and presumably the S and the 😵 passes the signal originally encoded in the signal, whether it be LPCM, DTS, or Dolby. If it is unchecked then the Xbox decodes it into a sepcific format determined by another setting.
Next you do back one step and select Video/Audio options. Then audio options. Then on HDMI output select either "bitstream" if you are using Dobly Atmos or DTS X, or select "stereo uncompressed if you are using 5.1 or 7.1 headsets (Turtlebeach.com linked me to this discussion becuase I have similar problems with my X42 surround headsets.) where there is enough bandwidth to house one coded DTS or Dolby 7.1 signal in there, plus will send a Stereo uncompressed to a TV without a speaker boost. Then for Optical, select "bitstream". Finally, under format, pick the format you want to convert to, whether it be DTS or, as I, and most people on this website want to do, Dolby.

If you're able to do all of the above, and you hear accurate 3D positioning from your Sonos Soundbar, or in my case, the Turtle Beach X41 or X42, then don't touch a thing.

As for headphones, if you're willing to pay $15 there is an excellent Dolby Atmos-> Dolby Atmos Headphone converter on one of 2 Dolby Xbox apps. Even though my X41s and X42s are very good when it comes to directional sound, atmos adds a little more crispness and subtlety, as hear on Mad Max Fury Road ( I don't know if the 3D mode has it, I just tried the 2D version because I didn't want to bother with the glasses), and you can use any Stereo headset that will work with the Xbox 3.5 mm adapter, just be sure to have the head strap postioned as intended for accurate Up/Down/Forward/Backward sound locations. I would have bought it except it doesn't do DTS-> Dolby conversions. DTS movies sound awful this way. Then I compared Pixels 3D with both the X41s and the 3.5 mm headset. No difference. It's either because there's not enough room for both 3D and Atmos therefore Atmos is lost on 3D versions, in which case Max Max Fury Road 3D wouldn't have it either, or maybe because there's very little difference in Atmos vs. 7.1 in a headphone environment, or maybe Fury Road was more optimized for Atmos than Pixels was. If anyone has a theory on which of those 3 reasons is the truth, tell me.
I setup the Samsung Ultra Blu-ray player and can confirm that you can set it to convert DTS-HD to DD 5.1 which the LG TV is correctly passing to the Playbar.

So if you're going 4K Blu-ray and you're using a Playbar, go with the Samsung and avoid the Philips.



Just got Samsung M9500 but I can't get DTS converted to Dolby Digital 5.1. 😞
I have a Samsung 4k TV (KS800) and I am trying to make this work.

I am using Planet earth II (4k) disk that has DTS audio, hoping to see it converted to dolby digital 5.1 but even after chainging settings on M9500 still no luck :@

My settings on M9500 :-
audio output format to Bitstream (Re-encoded Dolby D)
PCM Downsampling - YES
Dynamic range control - auto
Downmixing mode - Normal stereo
DTO neo - off

This is really frustrating ...
I setup the Samsung Ultra Blu-ray player and can confirm that you can set it to convert DTS-HD to DD 5.1 which the LG TV is correctly passing to the Playbar.

So if you're going 4K Blu-ray and you're using a Playbar, go with the Samsung and avoid the Philips.



Just got Samsung M9500 but I can't get DTS converted to Dolby Digital 5.1. 😞
I have a Samsung 4k TV (KS800) and I am trying to make this work.

I am using Planet earth II (4k) disk that has DTS audio, hoping to see it converted to dolby digital 5.1 but even after chainging settings on M9500 still no luck :@

My settings on M9500 :-
audio output format to Bitstream (Re-encoded Dolby D)
PCM Downsampling - YES
Dynamic range control - auto
Downmixing mode - Normal stereo
DTO neo - off

This is really frustrating ...


So i finally got the DTS converted to DD 5.1. I am going to write down steps here that worked for me with Samsung KS8000 + Samsung UBD-M9500
1. Unplug everything, shut down your TV, SONOS and blue ray player.
2. Make sure you have the setting for audio output to - Bitstream (Re-encoded Dolby D)
3. Connect HDMI from your blue ray player to HDMI on one connect box. (Do not use the ARC HDMI port).
4. To verify that you are getting DD 5.1, play a blue ray with DTS format and look at the information being displayed. (on your blue ray player remote do tools -> information). It should show you video / audio info, and hopefully you will see the dolby digital 5.1 sign. You can also verify the DD signal from your sonos app.

P.S:- I should have done my research before buying SONOS system. To any one out there looking to buy it I would strongly suggest NOT to buy it to use it as home theater system.
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"Xbox One DD5.1 setting:
All Settings > Display & Sound > Audio Output
Set to:
HDMI audio: Bitstream out
Optical audio: Bitstream out
Bitstream format: Dolby Digital (other option is DTS Digital Surround)"

Just to confirm that this is still working on the Xbox One S. Surprised that people are writing that this functionality has been taken away on the "S". It's news to me. Still getting converted DD 5.1 here.
I read through this entire thread but still not totally sure which of the current solutions meet me needs.

I have two TVs that pass DD5.1 out the optical. So I have the optical out connected to my Playbars. One TV has Dolby Vision. I’m looking for one, maybe two players. If one, it would be for the non-Dolby Vision TV.

I have my sources connected to the TVs via HDMI. I do not wish to use an optical switch for either TV.

What are my choices? My priority is keeping the connections the same, but if there’s Dolby Vision for the TV that supports it, that’d be great. I also don’t need the same players for each TV. I see the Samsungs would work. What about the X Box One S? Anything else?

Thanks.
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Its a bit pricey but the Oppo 203 could work pretty well for you. It does both HDR standards, 3D, and has fantastic upscaling for non-4k content (great if you have a DVD and Blu-ray collection).

Without a switch its a bit tricky but I think the connection would be as follows:

1. TV HDMI ARC to OPPO HDMI Input

2. Oppo Optical out to Playbar Input

3. Set Oppo to convert DTS to Dolby 5.1

My current setup uses an Octava switch that works between TV, Input Components and Playbar, but with the Octava's HDMI input port you could bypass as long as the TV ARC handover doesn't screw up the audio conversion for Oppo.
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Hi All,

Just to confirm, my Xbox One X produces DD 5.1 over Hdmi through my Sony 65XD9305 using the settings below. Test disc was Guardians of the Galaxy 2 Blu ray. I have a 4K disc arriving Wednesday, but I'm confident the end result will be the same.

Thanks!
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We bought the Samsung UBD-M9000 yesterday and it works brilliantly with our Sonos 5.1 surround system, playing all Blu-ray discs to utter perfection. We're thrilled with it. The remote is really good, too, working perfectly with our Panasonic TV. We'd previously tried the new Panasonic player - but quickly found that it will not play Blu-rays through Sonos with 5.1.
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We bought the Samsung UBD-M9000 yesterday and it works brilliantly with our Sonos 5.1 surround system, playing all Blu-ray discs to utter perfection. We're thrilled with it. The remote is really good, too, working perfectly with our Panasonic TV. We'd previously tried the new Panasonic player - but quickly found that it will not play Blu-rays through Sonos with 5.1.

The Panasonic players will decode some 4K blue Ray's but not DTS HD which only gets decoded to DTS unfortunately. I try to look for Dolby Atmos on the back of the disc which it decodes to 5.1 okay. Where I have made a blue I tried with the included blue ray and found I got 5.1 okay. On my 43 inch Panasonic tv it is not that much of a compromise with the up scaling being pretty good. I'd rather have 5.1 sound. DTS support from either Panasonic or Sonos would be better of course.

I liked the fact that the Panasonic player fits neatly between the legs of the tv, which are the most stable of the tvs I looked at, and which in turn fit neatly on the Playbase. It all looks a lot more cohesive than a lot of setups I have seen.
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The Panasonic is a very attractive and well-made player, for sure.

I'm currently waiting on Amazon for a 3-in-1 optical connector so I don't have to keep switching my optical cables into the Sonos. I didn't know whether to go for that or go down a 4-in-1 HDMI route. Do you have any recommendations? What a pain Sonos have created here - a brilliant system let down by its single TOSLINK input.
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No, I use the hdmi out to the tv and the optical out from the tv to my Playbase.
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I could only get Dolby surround 5.1 from my TV and it’s own “apps”. My Virgin box and BluRay player would give only stereo when I took the feed from my TV, so I’ve had to use a separate optical lead from each - I can’t wait for the switch to come tomorrow as it’s a pain manually swapping them onto the Sonos playbar.