I tried everything, ARC from TV, optical from TV, to using HDMI to optical extractors, Google Chromecast DOES NOT provide Dolby Digital (AC3) 5.1 sound when using Netflix or Prime. Only Dolby Digital Plus that is not supported by Beam.
I tried Fire TV stick, and it does work well.
I have an old but really good “dumb” TV, and I’m not buying a new one anytime soon.
2 conclusions:
- Beam has a poor codec support, and inability to have HDMI passthrough with DD+ is annoying as hell. eARC is not widespread enough yet. Sonos, please give us HDMI passthrough on HT devices… Don’t make us buy $200 Arcana eARC extractor for the Sonos Arc.
- Google doesn’t give a [bleeep!] about Dolby Digital (ac3) support. Support forum “volunteers” doesn’t care and give you non-answers. No real support is available. It would be nice if Sonos could talk to Google on implementing transcoding from DD+ to DD. We the normal people can’t get any replies… I’ve pinged Sonos on Twitter about this, no reply.
Sonos, can you please talk with Google about DD+ to DD?