I know Sonos defenders talk about how it’s a niche Codec with Blu-ray’s a small part of the market and it’s a business decision etc etc… That’s nonsense though since all of their main competitors offer full DTS support, DTS-X & Neural X upmix; such as, Sony, LG, Samsung & I believe the JBL… Those brands also offer full DTS support for their mid tier soundbars as well. 
 

At $2,400 the new Sonos lacking DTS-X is just silly since they could clearly put the additional costs on the consumer & would not affect sales one bit at that price point. Instead it would add a small percentage of sales. I’m ranting because it’s a missed opportunity, the Sonos Ultimate is the only soundbar I’ve listened too that can give spatial height & does so with a nicely matched crossover. Samsung 990C is about a thousand dollars cheaper with full DTS support & sounds excellent. Sonos seams to have a little more articulation with dialogue idk if they have mid range tweeters similar to Nakamichi? 
Anyways rant over… haha you’re spot on though! Lacking 2.1 HDMI inputs, DTS-X, and at least a basic room calibration on any flagship multi channel soundbar system is just dumb…

Hi @mikeh97 

Kodi! I used to use that for years, but not in the time that I have been using Sonos for TV audio, and not since I got my Shield. Therefore, I can’t really help with the settings there - it would be from memory at best, and none of my memory includes getting it to work with Sonos.

Both Plex and Emby (and Jellyfin, for that matter) are similar to Kodi, and yet different. Their main functional difference is that you can access them via the cloud, and therefore do not need to be on the same network. Each requires an install of both an app to play, and server software to do the behind-the-scenes work. Plex comes pre-installed on the Shield, so you should already have it. You will need to set it up via a browser, however - not via the app. Their website has instructions.

LPCM is the same thing as Multichannel PCM (sometimes referred to as McLPCM). It is what all formats will eventually be decompressed to for internal processing and playback, and utilises no compression whatsoever - this is why it’s not usually used as a transport method, as the bandwidth needed is the highest possible.

The difficulty with Atmos is that the entire chain must support it - starting with the source media, the player (and the app, in the case of Shield), the TV and the sound device. This makes plug-and-play more challenging, but it usually works. Shield is rather an unusual playback device - as compared to BluRay players, anyway - but it does have useful configuration options. Personally, I turned off automatic audio format selection and then ticked all the formats that my Amp supports - Dolby Digital and DTS. For the Arc, you can of course include DD+, DD+ Atmos and True-HD (Atmos MAT) too. I have “Dolby audio processing” enabled to allow transcoding of unsupported formats, but with Plex extracting DTS from DTS-HD, there aren’t many formats left!

I can give you a couple of pointers for remuxing, but please note that Sonos - nor I - can take any responsibility for any harm caused by any third-party software that I may suggest. With that out of the way, I use mkvtoolnix to manipulate mkv files, and mediacoder to transcode. The first Google Search results for each are the official sites - I don’t recommend downloading them from anywhere else. You will need plenty of disk space (at least 2x the size of the source file, probably 3x if you recode the video too) to remux files - that could easily add up to 100GB. Once done, you can delete all but the final, resulting file, though.

I hope this helps.

@Corry P

Thank you for this considered response. I am aware that different media management apps will manage these codecs with varying degrees of success - I am using Kodi for playback. With my current settings, I was aiming to have Kodi processing DTS-HD / DTS-X codecs into LPCM 5.1, but playing these results in the Sonos app saying I am getting Multichannel PCM 5.1 through. To be honest I am fairly new to this, and I’m not even sure if LPCM 5.1 is the same thing as Multichannel PCM 5.1 even after a little bit of research

I will try running these same files through Emby/Plex and seeing what the result is, that does seems sensible. Kodi can be temperamental a lot of the time.

The difference between lossy Dolby Digital(+) and lossless Dolby Atmos / DTS-HD is night and day to me, and I would really appreciate these being more plug and play rather than fiddling around with Shield, choice of playback app, and Sonos settings. My TV can passthrough DTS no problem, to be honest I have become confused over which settings in the Shield to enable or disable (i.e Dolby sound processing, Kodi passthrough, Kodi 2.0/5.1 channels etc) and it just seems as though the Arc supporting the codecs makes more sense in the long-run, or to purchase a different system that natively supports the codecs.

I did not know about remuxing audio files into supported formats! This is very interesting information to know and I will be doing some looking into this. :)

Hi @mikeh97 

Which playback app are you using? I happen to have a Shield too, and I normally use Emby to play movies, which will transcode DTS-HD to Dolby Digital 5.1 as I play. I have noticed, however, that if I play the same movie with the same audio track via Plex instead of Emby, Plex will in fact do the sensible thing and pull the DTS core from the DTS-HD stream and pass that through to my Sonos Amp. In the Sonos app, I now see DTS playing instead of Dolby Digital. This is because DTS-HD contains a standard DTS track which is then fleshed out with additional data to increase the quality, and this standard DTS core is therefore available - with the correct handling - to be played on Sonos devices.

I did have to manually set my output formats in the Android settings for the Shield to include DTS, and also set the Plex playback app to Passthrough audio. Please note that it also relies on the TV supporting DTS passthrough - not all TVs will, and I bought my specific TV because I knew it would support DTS.

I don’t quite understand why you are getting Multichannel PCM though - if I play an unsupported format, the Shield transcodes it to Dolby Digital and I have no relative volume issues (except with True-HD, but I expect that).

Of course, if you have movie files and a computer, you could manually re-encode your unsupported formats into supported formats and include these in a remuxing of the MKV or MP4 file, including volume boosts if needed. It’s more work, certainly, but I have done it myself on occasion. Multiple free software tools are available.

I hope this helps.

I have ripped BluRay disks from my personal library including Atmos, DTS-HD and DTS-X which I play from my Nvidia Shield Pro 2019 using a Sonos Arc, Sub, and 2x surround One speakers. I do not have a working BluRay player, hence the Shield.

Dolby Atmos files sound brilliant, punchy, immersive.

DTS-HD/DTS-X passed through as Multichannel PCM 5.1 sound comparatively nowhere near as good as Atmos files. Lacklustre, and the volume needs to be increased to 90% (!!) on the Arc for borderline satisfactory results.

I am extremely irritated that Sonos have not included all modern codecs, and though I love what the soundbar does do well, poor business decisions by Sonos limit the full potential of this home theatre setup in many use cases. This is a premium product and should have such features if only by principle - the system I own is being sold at 2300 euros - there are soundbars out there for 300 pounds which support DTS lossless codecs!!

I am a Sonos fanboy usually, but this is poor. I haven’t said anything that someone hasn’t said before, but it’s important to make your voice heard.

I would be happier paying to use the codecs as a one-off purchase model, as long as the option is there!! Not that I would be happy with this, but it would be better than dropping 250 pounds on a HDFury Arcana, for example.

The theme is support for DTS HD and DTS X.  @GuitarSuperstar has every right as you to post here, especially since he addressed a way that will support DTS HD disks, instead of some anthropomorphic nonsense on how a faceless corporation is supposed to "act".

Happy that you are happy.

The theme of this discussion is not this.

I was specifically addressing someone who got rid of all of their DTS discs because of Sonos. This is completely unnecessary. All of my DTS discs sound great on my Arc + Sub + Era 300s setup.

But since you brought it up, I have been a Sonos customer since 2017 and have been active on this community forum for a few years. Overall, I have been very pleased with Sonos and the way they have responded to issues/complaints that customers have. My Sonos devices sound better today than they did the day I purchased them. And they continue to improve with every update because of the improvements and added features that Sonos implements based on the customer feedback from these forums.

This is not the way to go. We are talking about a principle not a work around to solve the problem. Sonos only want to sell new products (very expensive too) and will not care about customers. I will never buy a Sonos product again and am not recommending them to my friends. It is not the DTS HD MA or DTS X problem but the way Sonos act towards the customers.

Of course it sounds good.  Multichannel PCM is just the decoded DTS, so it will sound iexactly as it would if Sonos supported DTS.

Why did you get rid of your DTS-encoded discs? Just set your Blu-ray player to convert DTS to Multichannel PCM. This is what I do with all of my DTS discs and it sounds great.

DTS support was something that I found extremely annoying, SONOS not willing to pay the measly $1 per device fee in years gone by; when every other vendor can and did ‘afford’ this license! …all the devils advocates on here would discredit anybody that dared insinuate DTS was required

Most of my 300+ Blurays were DTS formats….and since I went SONOS to appease my family with ease of use, they are now in a box (for charity or sale) so I’d forgotten about this DTS conundrum

Lets hope SONOS listen to customers for a change

It seems that Sonos dont want to listen to this request, Pity.

I am thinking to replace Sonos stuff by Sony stuff.

...and (more importantly?) future Home Theatre products. I’m hoping the next generation of Amp will process eARC, although I have some higher priority feature requests there.

I can see why DTS:X support would be desirable - the Jason Bourne UHD Bluray mixes make noticeably more use of the overhead channels than Atmos content does on my AVR setup. However, I’m not convinced my Beam 2 setup is capable of delivering that difference with its speaker set, maybe the ARC can though.

As it stands, unless LG also back port their DTS feature enhancement to C1/A1 generation I won’t be finding out for quite some time.

Correct, optical can't pass high bandwidth codecs like DTS:X but the products with eARC should have more than enough overhead. Here's a nice diagram techhive made that shows the differences easily if anyone is in doubt:

3 is obviously true: optical cannot pass the more advanced DTS codecs but that only affects the Ray, the Playbar/Playbase are no longer sold.

This request is only valid for the Beam Gen 2 and the Arc, although it seems this is not clear to some.

Possibilities like

1. Hardware incapable of processing codec
2. codec requires more bandwidth than optical can carry
3. Huge time investment needed to add codec, very small percentage of customers interested, making cost versus profitability questionable
4. lingering potential legal issues

?

I don’t think anyone is gainsaying your desire, just that there may be issues that we’re not privy to that make this potentially not quite as easy as may be expected. And no, I don’t know if any of those are valid in this case, but it took about 10 seconds to think of those potential reasons…there could be more. I don’t work for Sonos. 

Fully agree.

You're offering one example where Sonos added an outdated (and license free) codec, something people had been asking for it since the playbar. The situation is a bit different when it comes to the DTS formats still under license, ie. the cost of a retrofit would likely be much higher (especially if rolling it out as a general update). One solution has been outlined here several times: allow the users who want it to pay for the upgrade. Low cost to Sonos (could possibly even make a little change, depending on pricing), users who need it get it, and those who don't want it are unaffected. 

I can understand to a certain degree why they didn't add it to begin with (mostly cost) but not adding it as a paid retrofit option doesn't make sense to me.

Hostility?  I was just offering historical evidence that your accusation is unfounded.  If you find that hostile, you need some thicker skin.

Lol, no need for the hostility. They added DTS cause the license was literally free

Just lke they did with DTS!

Oh, wait . . .they didnt do that with DTS.  They retrofitted it to all of the soundbars they've sold in the past decade plus.

Or they're adding it in Arc gen 2 and therefore don't wanna add it to the original Arc so that customers have (another) reason to upgrade.

They seem quite deaf on this argument, In time they will loose customers.

C'mon Sonos, be "humble enough to listen to customers" (as your CEO put it https://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/sonos-patrick-spence-listening-customers-era-100-era-300/) and make this tiny change that will impact so many of your customers