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Alien on 4K disc only playing in Stereo PCM??

  • 22 September 2021
  • 3 replies
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J
Userlevel 1
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Hi there

I started watching Alien 40th Anniversary Edition in 4K tonight and was looking forward to hearing the 5.1 surround sound the disc comes with. However, on the sonos app I use on my phone it says it is in Stereo PCM and not 5.1. Can someone explain why this is and what does it mean? 

The TV I have is a new Sony Bravia 4K and the 4K player is also a new Panasonic DP-UB820. I have a Sonos Beam, two Sonos One speakers and a Sub for bass, which creates a great 5.1 surround sound when watching other 4k movies I have or streaming films on Amazon or Netflix.

I have never had an issue with anything that says it is in 5.1 until tonight when I started watching Alien which was only in Stereo PCM. I have toggled with a few settings on the TV and Bluray/4k player but nothing seems to change.

I would appreciate if someone could know what the problem is.Thank you.

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Best answer by GuitarSuperstar 22 September 2021, 21:55

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3 replies

G
Userlevel 7

The English track on the Alien 4K disc is encoded in DTS-HD Master Audio. Sonos speakers don’t currently support DTS audio, although Sonos recently announced support for DTS Digital Surround audio coming by the end of the year on the S2 app. When this is updated, the Beam should be able to play the core 5.1 DTS audio track… but until then, you are stuck with Stereo PCM. 

Just to test… the Spanish, Thai, and Czech audio tracks should play in 5.1 audio out of the Beam as they are encoded in Dolby Digital 5.1 (which the Beam supports).

 

"Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you." - Rashi
J
Userlevel 1
Badge +1

Hi

Thanks for this information as I would never of known that myself.

I think I managed to sort out the issue last night by changing some of the sound settings from Bitstream to PCM on the Panasonic UB-820 bluray player which seems to have resolved the issue but I assume this is not in the true DTS-HD Master Audio you were referring to as Sonos doesn't support it yet?

Just forr clarification, after I changed the sound settings on the Panasonic bluray player it did say on my Sonos phone app that it was now 5.1 Surround with the film set to the English Master 5.1 Audio setting, so does that mean I fixed the issue or is it something else I'm hearing and not the true DTS-HD Audio?

Before I got it supposedly working I actually tried 5.1 Surround in foreign language settings as you suggested and those worked fine so you were right about that.

G
Userlevel 7

What exact audio format does the Sonos app display with the Panasonic player set to PCM?

The Beam (Gen 1) is not capable of supporting DTS-HD Master Audio as it is a lossless audio format that requires an HDMI eARC connection which the Beam doesn’t have. But after the Sonos DTS update, the Beam should be able to play the core lossy DTS Digital Surround audio data that is included on all DTS-HD Master Audio encoded discs.

"Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you." - Rashi
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