Question

5.1 passthrough to soundbar

  • 25 November 2017
  • 2 replies
  • 1969 views

Not many televisions support Dolby Digital 5.1 passthrough from HDMI, ex. Apple TV 4K connected to TV with HDMI and sound optical out to soundbar/soundbase. Ex. 5.1 sound when I play Netflix in the TV:s smart app, but not when I play the same from Apple TV or Playstation.
The normal is 5.1 sound out from optical port everything from the TV itself, like the built in apps or HD TV-channels, but never from connected things. Its only Dolby Pro Locic simulated surround from stereo source, like the fir round systems from VCR.
Is there a solution to this?

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2 replies

Normally you would need to go in to all the things that are plugged in to the TV, and set their audio outputs to Dolby Digital, so that the signal that they feed to the TV would be sent through in a fashion in which the PLAYBAR/PLAYBASE could deal with it.

There are a few TVs (but not many) that also transcode data, so you may want to be sure that the TV isn't changing the signal that comes in on the HDMI.
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My TV doesn’t pass through 5.1 so I got an audio extractor from Monoprice, the MD-415ARC. It extracts the audio to the optical connection and allows for an HDMI connection to your TV for video.

I have my Apple TV, PS4 and Xbox One S plugged into it. Since I have a Harmony remote, the extractor switches to its appropriate input as needed and works flawlessly.

Like you, I wanted to be able to have 5.1 via optical from my TV as well. I don’t use the internal apps on my Samsung but I wanted my local TV channels to come in as 5.1 (for football). So I got an optical switcher as well. It has a total of 3 inputs so the optical from my HDMI audio extractor is connected to the optical switcher, as is the optical cable from my TV. Then the optical switcher is direct to my Playbase. Again, having the Harmony makes all the input switching effortless.