LG C9 + Arc + UB820 / Multichannel PCM for DTS Blu-Ray discs

Panasonic’s Technical Department is wrong. I have the UB820 and I am getting it to send 5.1/7.1 PCM to the Arc.

On the PlayStation I was using, under its sound settings, I ‘manually’ added the LPCM 5.1 codec with sampling rates of 44.1kHz and 48kHz to the audio-out on the HDMI port connector.. if left set to automatic the ‘handshake’ does not include that codec when connected to the LG C9 TV - it showed it as supporting LPCM 2.1 channels only, at various sampling rates, (which is correct for the TV audio output). The TV however will allow the ‘pass-through’ of the 5.1 codec through its own ports, even though it doesn’t support it and hence I was able to get it to work with the Arc.
 

Hope that answers the question.

Why do you need to run the PlayStation and Xbox through the Arcana and not plug them into the TV?

A word of caution to you because I am in a similar position. If you care about the HDMI 2.1 capabilities of the PS5 (same for Xbox Series X) then a HDMI switch is a no go. At the time of current writing I have not been able to find a switcher on the market that is HDMI 2.1 compliant/capable. 

I have the same issue in that I cannot get Tenet (which only contains 2 audio tracks here in the UK) to play in anything other than stereo through a UB820 player on an LG CX (despite the new software update to the Arc meaning we can do multichannel 5.1 PCM). I considered the HD Fury Arcana but I realised because I have both a PS5 and Xbox series X it’s a no go. The Arcana would need several ports for me to use (Xbox, PS5 and Ub820) that for e-Arc and still use HDMI 2.1 capabilities. As far as I am aware I can’t still output sound from the Ub820 through the Arcana with E-ARC and leave my console plugged into the TV’s HDMI 2.1 ports and output sound from all 3 devices through the Arc soundbar. That would be 2 e-ARC systems (1 being within the TV and the other being the Arcana).

I’ve ripped my Tenet disc and confirmed this has just 2 audio tracks FYI. DTS-HD MA and DD 5.1 unforunately audio described so a no go’er. I cannot get this to work BUT for stereo on the UB820 on an LG CX which for a big budget film I want to have my full surround in use with the sub, Arc and surround old play:1’s that I am using.

@Ken_Griffiths Thanks for the info. We have determined that the LG can pass through multichannel PCM. The problem has always been the LG working with specific external media devices. In this case, it is the Panasonic UB820 UHD player.

I did a bit of playing today with an LG C9 TV and an old PS3, playing a Blu-ray movie. Initially set to bitstream output on the PS3 and TV, the Movie output its audio as Uncompressed Dolby TrueHD. There was no Atmos metadata, but that’s irrelevant here for the following test. 

My purpose was to then see if the LG C9 TV would pass-through multichannel LPCM 5.1 uncompressed audio, as I had seen some users mention earlier in the thread (and elsewhere on the forum) that the C9 TV doesn’t support the pass-through of that codec and apparently some were considering getting the Arcana to bypass their TV. Anyhow here is my result … see attached screenshot. 

It seems clear the TV will pass-through multichannel LPCM after all. 

What I had to do to make this work was switch the PS3 over from Bitstream to do ‘on the fly transcoding’ to LPCM in the video settings menu (LPCM transcoding is its default setting anyway) and it will transcode DD and DTS codecs. I then had to manually change the audio output on the connected HDMI port to support the following codecs (do not use the automatic detection setting):

• DD 5.1/Plus/TrueHD
• DTS 5.1/HD/HD-MA
• Linear PCM 2CH/5.1CH 44.1/48kHz

I didn’t bother with 7.1CH or any higher sampling rates as I understand Sonos supports sampling up to 48kHz... and note again these settings were setup manually.

On the LG C9 TV (additional) sound settings. I changed the HDMI input port audio format (HDMI 3 is where the PS3 was attached) from Bitstream to PCM and played the same Blue-ray Movie which arrived at the Sonos ARC as LPCM 5.1. This revealed that the TV will (and does) pass-through the multichannel LPCM codec.

I just thought that info. was worth sharing here, as I see some were considering bypassing their TV sets thinking that the LG C9 didn’t pass-through the codec. The results here tend to suggest the TV will pass it through. 

The TV’s HDMI2 Port for the connected Sonos Arc was set to eARC (obviously) and audio pass-through. TV firmware version 5.00.10

I hope the info above may assist other LG C9 TV owners trying to pass-through the LPCM codec.  

Purchased HDFury Arcana and am now able to get Multichannel PCM 7.1 through Sonos while watching a DTS-X disc on my LG CX and Panasonic 820.

However, this only works if you plug the Panasonic directly into the Arcana via the HDMI IN port. So it appears that I will need to use an HDMI switcher for my other devices (Apple TV 4K, PS5, Fios, and Nintendo Switch) so that they can all plug directly into the HDMI IN port of the Arcana.

Someone above suggested that for e-ARC televisions, it would not be necessary to plug the devices into the Arcana because the e-ARC TV would act as the “switcher”. However, when I tried plugging the Panasonic directly into the TV via HDMI like I usually do, I was only able to get Stereo PCM 2.0 through the Arc.

My next thought was to connect only the Panasonic to the Arcana through the HDMI IN port and leave my other devices (Apple TV 4K, PS5, Fios, and Nintendo Switch) connected directly to the TV via HDMI. But when I tested a Dolby Atmos Netflix film on the Apple TV, I was getting “Dolby Atmos (DD+)” through the Arc. When I used to watch Dolby Atmos content on Netflix, the Sonos app showed “Dolby Atmos”.

I did some research and it appears that the “(DD+)” indicates that the Arc is not connected via e-ARC, only regular Arc. I believe this is a lossy Atmos rather than lossless.

All in all, I’m happy to have found an (annoying) solution and will need to purchase a different HDMI switcher because my current one only has 3 external ports and I have 5 devices that will need to feed into the Arcana.

Im not sure who’s at fault however the LG CX is able to pass LPCM from both my Series X and PS5 so that leads me to believe the issue is with the Panasonic somehow

Is the purpose of the Arcana not to provide eArc capability for older TV’s that do not have this feature? I don’t see why a CX would require such device something is clearly not working as intended however getting either Sonos/Panasonic or LG to own up that the fault is theirs could prove problematic

I have the Panasonic UB820 UHD player and the Arcana, and I can confirm that I get multichannel PCM 5.1/7.1 audio playing from the Arc with all of my DTS-HD Master Audio and DTS:X encoded Blu-rays.

As long as you are getting the audio you want passing through your TV from the device, you don’t need to connect it to the Arcana. But if you want to connect multiple devices to the Arcana, it will require an HDMI switch. I have all three of my devices connected to a switch because my TV can only pass through Stereo 2.0 from external devices.

Yep, I agree. Would be surprised if LG bothered since they have to focus on their 2020 issues and any upcoming 2021 models. 

If I read the HDFury site correctly, the Arcana require me to put it in between the TV and the Arc with the Fury’s HDMI audio output going into the Arc. Then to use my other devices (Tivo and Apple TV), I would have to further add a switcher to get them into the Fury too, right?