Hi @Herr_Vlad 

Thanks for your post!

According to https://developers.google.com/cast/docs/media (Audio Passthrough section), Chromecast will not decode AC3 (Dolby Digital) but it will send it to a TV with audio passthrough enabled. This should allow you to receive surround sound from your Beam using the Chromecast. Your TV’s digital audio output format should be set to Auto.

The page here describes how to turn surround sound on:

https://support.google.com/chromecast/answer/7575098?hl=en-GB&ref_topic=6373879

I hope this helps.

On this forum I read a lot about people not succeeding to get surround from their Chromecasts through their TV and Sonos soundbar. I myself gave up on this on my old TV (on my new TV I do not need Chromecast because it is Airplay enabled).

I would be great to hear if this solution works!

Hi @106rallye 

As I see it, that’s very strange. AC3/Dolby Digital is ubiquitous with home theatre - the de-facto standard for surround sound. Every BluRay disc will contain at least one AC3 track to fall back to if the player/TV/audio system doesn’t support Atmos, DTS, EAC3 or whatever.

I’m not sure a device is even allowed to call itself High Definition if it doesn’t support AC3.

Personally, I had a Chromecast for all of 2 days before returning it - I wasn’t impressed by it in the slightest. My nVidia Shield runs Chromecast as a screensaver, though I’ve never used the feature as the Shield does so much more anyway. Admittedly, there is a significant price difference.

@Corry P As I understand it the problem is Chromecast only does DD+, and does not cater for DD. That’s why it (or the TV) reverts to stereo on the Beam.

Hi @106rallye 

I can only go by the page I linked to above, and it says Chromecast will passthrough AC3. If it doesn’t do this, I can only recommend contacting Google.

I honestly can’t think why any company would produce a Home Theatre product that doesn’t support AC3 in some way.

It does pass AC3 if AC3 is the source format. HOWEVER, if source is E-AC3 (Dolby Digital Plus), Cromecast falls back to Stereo PCM. This is the case with Netflix and Prime.

In contrast to this, Fire TV and Apple TV 4K will downgrade to AC3, still maintaining 5.1 surround sound.

I tried contacting google, but the only recourse is a community support forum, and there they just copy-paste useless page link from their KB that do not solve the problem.

Hence, please, can you as Sonos, talk with Google and ask them for dd+ to dd conversion on the Chromecast? You already have a relationship with them, and your devs talk to their devs for the assistant…

Herr_Vlad

It may or may not be germane to be aware that there’s an open lawsuit between Sonos and Google at this moment, so it is entirely possible that Google is unwilling to do much to facilitate Sonos users. See, for instance, their substandard implementation of YouTube music, which is substantially less effective that the original Google Music implementation was. 

Thanks for clearing that technicality up, @Herr_Vlad!