Home Theater and Television Recommendation Megathread



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According to the NVIDIA website:

 

Dolby Audio Support (Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby Atmos)
DTS-X surround sound (pass-through) over HDMI
High-resolution audio playback up to 24-bit/192 kHz over HDMI
Audio support: AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, MP3, WAVE, AMR, OGG Vorbis, FLAC, PCM, WMA, WMA-Pro, WMA-Lossless, DD+ decode, Dolby Atmos decode, Dolby TrueHD (pass-through), DTS-X (pass-through), and DTS-HD (pass-through

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Is there anybody who have tried the new Nvidia Shield Pro and seen if it can provide 5.1 Surround Sound (the old one could not).

Good Morning Everyone 

Can someone recommend Current TV’s around 49 to 55 inch for use with Sonos Play Bar / Sub / 2 x Play 1s which pass through Dolby Digital for use with SKY Q 

Looking for a bargain ha ha 

John Lewis currently offer 5 year guarantee and a £125 voucher off (next purchase) on the LG OLED55C9PLA (2019) UltraHD TV with Dolby Atmos (Supports PCM Dolby 2.0/5.1/DD+/TrueHD audio) that’s if you wish to future-proof the TV … it was originally £2,300 and is now down to £1499. It comes with built-in Netflix/Prime/Deezer/Spotify Apps, Freview Play HD Two Tuners and lots of other stuff besides. It has 4 x HDMI eARC port’s and allows audio pass-through… and will Support all the Dolby Audio formats.

The only issue is that the reflective speaker stand is low and it pays to raise the TV above the height of the PlayBar, which is easily done if wall mounting the TV, or if using it on a desktop/TV cabinet etc I recommend using a stand from Curry’s called the Sandstrom Tilt TV Base, which is ideal for all TV’s upto 60” and weighing upto 25kg … which far exceeds the LG C9.

I think Curry’s also offer this TV with interest free payments, but you don’t get the £125 voucher off your next purchase.

I have just purchased this TV myself and although it’s appears a bit expensive, it’s a real nice TV for the money… the 5 year guarantee also provides that extra peace of mind.

 

The picture on the OLED screen is stunning.

 

Here’s a YouTube video review of the C9 TV, I found for you to see it in action…

https://youtu.be/vkSOqbbuA28

 

edit: I forgot to mention that the TV also has built-in Alexa/Google voice assistants for (optionally) voice controlling both the TV and Sonos products .

I will just add that all the above is a personal opinion, based on my own experience with this TV and I’m not in anyway associated to the LG company

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Good Morning Everyone 

Can someone recommend Current TV’s around 49 to 55 inch for use with Sonos Play Bar / Sub / 2 x Play 1s which pass through Dolby Digital for use with SKY Q 

Looking for a bargain ha ha 

Userlevel 5
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To make a TV recommendation:
LG C9 2019 OLED
Does it pass Dolby Digital 5.1 from external components and over the air sources? YES
Does it have a pop-up on screen when the volume is adjusted? YES

To get the remote working, I had to go into the device connector and select soundbar, then select sonos and that's it - the magic remote controls the Playbar's sound. It passes through Dolby Digital 5.1 from my PS4 and Netflix no problem

The only sad part is this TV supports native Dolby Atmos and Sonos can't use it, all the Dolby Atmos settings are greyed out, it's painful to see 😞
Userlevel 2
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Good afternoon
I currently have a newer model Sony bluray player and it doesn't convert DTS to Dolby digital, I have to change the sound output to PCM everytime to get sound in stereo mode in Beam and play 1s which is not ideal.
I am looking to purchase a 4k Bluray player and wanted to ask is buying a Samsung UHD bluray player the one and only option to convert then ??
Thanks
Userlevel 2
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I'm going to add up what I've learned:

LG OLED55C8PUA
Kodi / Librelec source
Playbar

I can confirm my LG TV does pass through Dolby 5.1 when Optical is set to 'Auto' and not PCM (which is stereo) out of the box. I did not have to do anything special. When I play a DD 5.1, or even a DTS movie, the Sonos app says the source for the playbar is 5.1.

I've read where you must go into the LG Service Menu to change the optical signal to AC3 BUT have found this is NOT necessary. I did not have to get a service technician to come out or risk doing this myself, as discussed on the web.

I'm thrilled with the sound, now. The LG's speakers are in the back of the TV and sound horrible!
Userlevel 4
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Here’s a helpful guide that covers newer TVs that pass Dolby Digital:

https://www.maketecheasier.com/dts-vs-dolby-digital/
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Just picked up a SONY 75" costco special, Model KD-75X780F/C. Getting 5.1 via the optical cable with no issues.
Userlevel 7
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Bitstream should be fine, that's the option to get you Dolby to the HDMI. If there aren't any other audio-based settings, I'd recommend contacting Panasonic to see if there's an update available or if they have any suggestions for what might be causing the audio channel to be delayed. The Beam will be playing the audio as soon as it's received over HDMI, and it's working fine for the stereo audio. So it's something delaying the 5.1 signal, likely due to processing at the TV side.

If you're getting a delay on the audio coming from the TV to the Beam over the HDMI, it's likely because there's some processing on the audio channels that's happening before it hits the Beam. Does the TV have any audio settings that could be adding some processing like a 5.1 up-mix. Is that 5.1 audio toggle you're using telling the TV to convert the audio stream in some way or is it passing a Dolby 5.1 signal directly?


No, only relevant options I could find are the setting to put it to bitstream or PCM (or auto). As far as I understand that one I have to set it to bitstream to get Dolby 5.1. Other than that I couldn't find any relevant settings that might influence this.
Userlevel 7
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Thanks AjTrek. I don't think it will. The only detail on the specs is that it uses Dolby Digital Plus, which I know the Beam doesn't like.
If you're using HDMI-Arc, the Beam will automatically ask the TV or connected device to convert the Dolby Digital Plus to Dolby Digital 5.1, which is fully compatible by Dolby specs. You may be best off asking Panasonic directly to make sure their TV can handle this, but it should be capable.


I have a beam grouped with two Play:1's. The beam is connected via HDMI ARC to a Panasonic TX-50DXW784. The TV is again connected to a setup box and an Apple TV 4k. For both the Apple TV and setup box everyting works fine as long as the sound is set to stereo on the setup box or Apple TV, however when I set it to 5.1 a delay is introduced. Any good ideas/advice about how to deal with this?
If you're getting a delay on the audio coming from the TV to the Beam over the HDMI, it's likely because there's some processing on the audio channels that's happening before it hits the Beam. Does the TV have any audio settings that could be adding some processing like a 5.1 up-mix. Is that 5.1 audio toggle you're using telling the TV to convert the audio stream in some way or is it passing a Dolby 5.1 signal directly?
I have a beam grouped with two Play:1's. The beam is connected via HDMI ARC to a Panasonic TX-50DXW784. The TV is again connected to a setup box and an Apple TV 4k. For both the Apple TV and setup box everyting works fine as long as the sound is set to stereo on the setup box or Apple TV, however when I set it to 5.1 a delay is introduced. Any good ideas/advice about how to deal with this?
Thanks AjTrek. I don't think it will. The only detail on the specs is that it uses Dolby Digital Plus, which I know the Beam doesn't like.
Userlevel 7
Hi Prospective buyer

Ideally you would connect the Beam HDMI_ARC port to the HDMI_ARC port of your Samsung TV. The other option is to use the Optical adapter between the Beam HDMI_ARC port and the Optical port of your Samsung TV. In either scenario you'd connect the Panasonic to an available HDMI port on your Samsung.

The Beam will accept 2Ch or DD5.1 that is sent to it. Your Panasonic audio specs under Dolby Digital/TrueHD will process those signals encoded on a DVD or Blu-Ray disc. The question is will your Samsung take the information sent from the Panasonic and send it to the Beam as Stereo or DD5.1. So you really need to determine how your Samsung will send the audio.

Cheers!
Reading back over the last page. This detail about the Panasonic DMP-BDT180EB described above may also be relevant:
Dolby Digital/ TrueHD yes Decode (2ch) and Bitstream Output
Dolby Digital Plus yes Decode (2ch) and Bitstream Output
DTS-HD Master Audio / DTS-HD High Resolution Audio yes Decode and Bitstream Output

Thanks again.
Hi. Long time lurker, first time poster. Thakns for everyone's help so far. I am planning to get a Beam to go with my Samsung Frame TV. I have followed the Blu-ray threads with interest because I don't want to have to buy a new player to play old discs when I mostly stream content. My Panasonic DMP-BDT180EB (specs here: https://www.panasonic.com/uk/consumer/home-entertainment/blu-ray-and-dvd/dmp-bdt180eb.specs.html), has the following mentions of 5.1:
FLAC yes (192kHz/24bit (5.1ch))
DSD (DFF,DSF) yes (2.8MHz(2ch/ 5.1ch), 5.6MHz(2ch only))
Does this mean it will, or will not work with the Beam? Thanks in advance.
Userlevel 7
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So I read the other day in What HiFi that both Oppo and Samsung are stopping the production of Blu Ray players in the near future. Where does that leave buyers looking for players that can transcode DTS to Dolby Digital ?
While older models will still be available that can do this, another option will be certain game consoles that can do the conversion for you.
Userlevel 3
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So I read the other day in What HiFi that both Oppo and Samsung are stopping the production of Blu Ray players in the near future. Where does that leave buyers looking for players that can transcode DTS to Dolby Digital ?
After taking advantage of the latest Sonos sale I setup a Playbase / Sub / and a set of One's for my home theater. My LG OLED65B7A passes the audio correctly but the LG UP 870 4K blu ray player I was using didn't transcode DTS. After allot of searching as I didn't see any exact matches on a good 4K Blu-ray player that does transcode, I landed on the Samsung UBD M7500. Changed the sound out to transcode HDMI to Dolby Digital. Works perfectly and sounds so much better than a PCM stream for movies that have DTS encoding.
I can confirm that the LG OLED65B8PUA passes DD 5.1 through HDMI to optical. An Apple TV 3rd gen failed initially (even though Apple specs say it will pass it). I swapped it out for an ATV 4K and that works just fine. TV looks great, and now it sounds great!
I was able to get Dolby Digital 5.1 on a Beam from a Chromecast TV connected to an old Samsung TV (UE40D6510, dating back to 2011) by way of this EDID feeder:

kwmobile HDMI EDID manager feeder
http://amzn.eu/d/7niLIHT

Before I used the EDID feeder, the Beam was only recognizing the audio from the Chromecast as stereo (PCM).
By using the EDID manager set as 1080p/5.1, the audio from the Chromecast was finally recognized as DD 5.1.
The Beam is connected to the TV via HDMI ARC. The Chromecast is connected to the EDID feeder, which in turn is connected to the TV via HDMI. For testing, I played a movie (with DD 5.1 audio) from Google Play to the Chromecast. The same movie, when played from Youtube instead of Google Play, only gives stereo audio.

Hope this can help.
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I recently became the happy owner of a Sonos Beam and wanted to share with you a fine HDMI audio extractor that I use with it to acces the full 5.1 capabilities that I now have combined with my play 1’s.
My samsung tv is a bit older and only outputs stereo over optical. The extractor I use is by AGPTEK, model number HDSW0003M1. I bought it on Amazon Germany, it ran me about 32 euro’s. My LG blu-ray player and Apple TV are both hooked up to the HDMI inputs, the Beam is connected to the optical output of the extractor and the tv to the HDMI output of the extractor. The blu-ray player outputs exactly what I select on the disc, it doesn’t have any on the fly downmix or conversion capabilities. The Apple TV is set to automatic audio output, so I didn’t force Dolby digital 5.1 output in the settings. The extractor converts, as far as I was able to test, every Dolby surround variant (True HD, etc) except DTS. For that I will upgrade my blu-ray player in the future.
Everything works fine, very happy with it. It comes with a basic remote but also has buttons on the front if you want to keep it out of view, which I do because of the row of bright LED’s.
Userlevel 5
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Anyone use the Sony A8F OLED?
Does it pass through Dolby Digital for Sonos 5.1?
HDMI Switch Recommendation with UK availability.

Hi all, I've just bought the following HDMI switch and it looks like it will do the job of getting AC3 5.1 to the PlayBar from all sources consistently.

It's the snappily named 'FiveHome 3 In 1 Out HDMI Audio Extractor Splitter with Remote' and I got it from Amazon.co.uk (link below).

It's a 3 way switch with ARC, EDID overwrite and SPDIF out with auto channel switching. I'm running it with a Virgin Media Tivo V6 box and a PS4 Pro into a Panasonic TX40-CX680B TV.

I'm getting 4k @ 50Hz from the Tivo and 4k @ 60Hz from the PS4, DD 2.0 from the Tivo (haven't found a 5.1 broadcast yet) and DD5.1 from the PS4 and all the TV apps that will support it.

Automatic input switching seems to work well, if a little bit slow but it comes with a remote if necessary.

I've only had it a couple of days so it's too early to comment about reliability but functionally it seems to be all there. I've tried several of these over the last few months and they've all had various issues, but so far this seems to do the job.

I'll report back if there are any problems and if anyone has any questions, fire away!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B076XV1LVS/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1