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ystian
ystian
Contributor I
April 10, 2020

Dolby Digital Plus on Beam surrounding

I have a TCL TV with roku built in and I used it with my Sonos beam with two One SL speakers as a 5.0 set-up. I connect the TV to beam through HDMI-ARC. I realize I can only receive surrounding TV audio when the output is dolby digital (e.g., the Dolby roku app), but not dolby digital plus (e.g., all other apps including netflix, hulu, disneyplus, etc.). How should I correctly set up my speakers or TV?

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26 replies

wds0001
Prodigy I
April 10, 2020

I have a TCL Roku as well.  Go into Settings.  Select Audio.  Select S/PDIF and ARC. Finally, select Dolby Digital. 
 

All Dolby Digital + sources will now play in regular Dolby Digital. 

ystian
ystianAuthor
Contributor I
April 10, 2020

Thanks for your reply! I really appreciate it. I went ahead and tried but it did not work. I can hear surrounding sounds when i play videos in the Dolby app, but not those TV shows that support Dolby in Netflix (I have a 4k premium Netflix plan, and I have 600 Mbps plan with Xfinity.)  I also tried to play video on youtube (5.1 Surround Sound Test) but I still could not hear sound (or feel the vibration when I touch) from my sounding speakers. The audio only came out from my beam. Did you have the same problem? 

 

My sounding speaks is not defective. They are fine when playing music, or play audio when using the Dolby app from TV as mentioned above.

Chris
Chris
Lead Maestro
April 10, 2020

Yes Beam does not currently support dolby digital Plus

Respect the Queue (2)Move (3)Beam (1) Era100 (2)ARC (1)SonosOne (1)Playbar (4)Play5 (4)Play1 (3)Play3 (1)Port (2)Connect (1) Roam (2) Ace (1)Connect:Amp (4)Sonos Amp (1)Sub + (9) Echo + Smartthings; (2)Play)
ystian
ystianAuthor
Contributor I
April 10, 2020

Is there a way to convert Dolby Digital plus to Dolby digital so that we can use on beam?

 

is Sonos planning to get Dolby digital plus on beam in the near future through hardware update?

    Chris
    Chris
    Lead Maestro
    April 10, 2020

    Only way to get Netflix working is if you can get the TV to transcode to dolby digital….look in sound output settings instead of the raw bitstream to set to dolby digital.   A lot of tv’s will transcode.

    As far as future, right now the hope is that with S2 software coming in June that the additional memory available will allow for additional codecs.   No confirmation if that is case but on the wish list.

    Respect the Queue (2)Move (3)Beam (1) Era100 (2)ARC (1)SonosOne (1)Playbar (4)Play5 (4)Play1 (3)Play3 (1)Port (2)Connect (1) Roam (2) Ace (1)Connect:Amp (4)Sonos Amp (1)Sub + (9) Echo + Smartthings; (2)Play)
    wds0001
    Prodigy I
    April 10, 2020

    On mine, the YouTube app will only transmit 2.0, however, with the settings I outlined above Netflix, Amazon, Disney, and all others convert to Dolby Digital 5.1. 
     

    Not all apps or shows on Roku transmit in surround, some are 2.0 regardless of any settings you would change. 

    bhaiterabhai
    Lyricist I
    April 14, 2020

    Sonos hasn't upgraded the audio codecs it supports, so it's PCM stereo, Dolby Digital and Dolby Digital 5.1, with no support for DTS or lossless audio formats. shareit vidmate

    bhaiterabhai
    Lyricist I
    April 14, 2020

    Sonos hasn't upgraded the audio codecs it supports, so it's PCM stereo, Dolby Digital and Dolby Digital 5.1, with no support for DTS or lossless audio formats. 
     

    Moderator edit: removed advertising link.

    bhaiterabhai
    Lyricist I
    April 14, 2020

    Dolby atmos is object based surround, Dolby Digital plus is an enhanced form of AC3 which is a lossy 5.1 track encoding. ... Atmos metadata can be attached to the 5.1 channel signal to be mixed over the top and give ATMOS height channel sounds. vidmate

    markkeivn123
    Lyricist I
    July 13, 2020

    Netflix series are available in Dolby Digital Plus, and some movies are available in Dolby Atmos with a 4K HDR image. ... Even better, Netflix uses the DD+ audio format to offer 5.1 or 7.1 soundtracks with embedded Dolby Atmos metadata. With a compatible A/V receiver, an unprecedented audio experience is guaranteed.

     

    VivaTV

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