Dolby 5.1 not passing from Directv receiver through TV over HDMI arc to Samsung UN60D6000 TV

In most cases, when an item is “greyed out” on the TV, that’s an indication that the signal being currently fed to it is not a Dolby Digital signal. Which is somewhat common on DirecTV, depending on what channel you’re watching. Make sure you’re watching a recent movie on a pay channel, or TNT, etc, one that’s certain to be in Dolby Digital. Just because the setting on the DirecTV box is set to Dolby Digital doesn’t mean the content being sent is. 

And frankly, some of that is on the channels, too. For instance, while living in Austin, TX, they would show the Dallas Cowboys pregame shows on the local CBS station. The station would send a Dolby Digital signal to DirecTV which would pass it on to me, but the station actually filming the action was only using a stereo signal. So while my TV “thought” it was getting a Dolby Digital signal (and it was, getting the carrier of that), the actual content was in stereo, which meant no center channel, no surrounds, no subwoofer….and the voices all sounded super odd, and bad. 

And older TV’s are harder to get right (if at all) than newer ones. My 2011 UE46D8000 would not get surround from a PS4 without tricks, while my 2019 QE65Q90 does this without complaint…….

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Thank you all for your input.  I have checked the DTV output on multiple channels and program types that I am pretty sure are in Dolby Digital, but I still only get a PCM indicator on Sonos app and TV Audio info. I understand my TV is 10+ years old, but I’m really not ready to replace it, as, other than this mysterious quirk, it functions perfectly and has a great picture. 

It’s certainly likely that a TV that ‘old’ wouldn’t be able to pass through a Dolby Digital signal. My 2 year old TV, while it can play Dolby Digital Plus from internal apps, can not pass a Dolby Digital Plus signal through that is coming from an external source. 

Bruce-

I agree that older tv’s might have some issues, but the weird thing about my situation is that the old TV is passing the Dolby Digital it receives from my AppleTV box.  It is only the DTV box where it appears I am only getting PCM, regardless of whether the program source is in Dolby or not. Somehow, though apparently receiving Dolby from the DTV receiver (at least based on the info I see relative to audio on that box), the TV is only delivering PCM from that DTV box, while it does deliver Dolby Digital from the AppleTV.  It has me scratching my head. But thanks for the input.

Huh, yup, that’s weird alright. Couple of thing s I’d try are:

1. reboot of the DirecTV device, by unplugging it from power for 2 minutes. I had an HR44\100 that seemed to work fine. I did have one of the satellite devices for my second TV that failed and needed replacement, but that was video.p more so than audio.
2. try a different HDMI cable
3. Try a different HDMI port where you’re plugging in the DirecTV. Since the AppleTV is working, it’s clear the issue is not on the Sonos side, since it doesn’t know what device is sending the signal, other than it is from the TV, and encoded in a specific codec
4. Call DirecTV’s customer service, and explain that you can’t get a Dolby Digital signal out of your DirecTV device. 

5. Try a different TV (temporarily) to see if maybe your TV is the culprit.

As I said above I too had strange results getting DD from different sources on my older Samsung . My TV provider’s settopbox was fine, so was my Apple TV 3. My PS4 needed an HDMI extractor & embedder (https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B0746K9BNL/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1) and my Mede8er needed an edid feeder manager (https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B01M3SH3CL/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1) to get DD and so surround from my Beam. On my 2019 Samsung all is fine from the box. I had no need for both devices anymore.

moetex,

Have you swapped the DirecTV and AppleTV inputs to the TV? For my test I would swap at the device end of the cable, not the TV end.

That’s a good idea ..and if it works also try swapping the cable to the other TV HDMI port, it should help establish if it’s the original HDMI cable that’s the issue.