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



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So after speaking with Sonos over the phone, and doing diagnostics, they basically are saying that all/most of Blu Ray DTS is a version of DTS called ‘DTS4’, which Sonos don’t actually support.

And the reason I get it when eARC is turned off is because my TV then converts DTS 4 to DTS.

In case this is derailing this thread (which is more about C9 and the lack of DTS at all), I’ve made a new thread about DTS 4 - 

If you’re in a similar situation to me, and having to toggle eARC on/off to get DTS, please feel free to get involved in this thread.

I have the LG C9 TV and it passes-through the supported DTS 5.1 and for other unsupported formats like DTS-X/HQ, I simply switch/use the Mc-LPCM codec on the sending device.

Are you using the UB820 player? I know there’s a way to downgrade DTS-HD to DTS, but it does the same with Dolby too if you turn it on, so you lose Atmos and the like.

I mean, I can also get DTS 5.1 when I turn eARC off, but it’s a pain having to keep switching it every time (and remembering to switch it back on after you’ve watched a movie).

Ah no (sorry) - I am just using a PlayStation - I don’t have to switch off eARC on the C9 TV however in order to play DTS 5.1 audio - that codec works with eARC either ‘on’ or ‘off’ and I just leave it enabled for that and obviously for the Mc-LPCM (lossless) audio too.

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I’m running an LG C9 with a Panasonic UB820 Blu-ray player, Sonos Arc + Sub gen 3 + One SL surrounds. The lack of DTS support on the Arc has been frustrating for non Dolby encoded Blu-ray discs, so I have been eagerly awaiting the multichannel PCM update.

It’s finally arrived (thanks, Sonos!) and I tried playing a DTS encoded Blu-ray and… no dice. Still stereo PCM 2.0. Has anyone running a similar set-up managed to get 5.1 PCM output from the Arc?

The C9 supports eARC and multichannel PCM, I’m using 48gbps HDMI cables that support up to 8k60Hz, all of the devices are up to date, I have the C9 set to PCM with eArc enabled, DTS output set to PCM on the UB820… I’m really at a loss here. Any ideas or suggested settings?

I’m assuming everyone with this setup got this issue sorted now?

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Hi Community,

I am sort of having the same problem what others have described in this thread, albeit having slightly different equipement: I own a LG OLED55BX9LB TV, connected to a Sonos Beam. Some time ago, I bought a Panasonic DP-UB820 4K Blu-ray Player and would like to play my existing Blu-rays with the 5.1 DTS Sound on the discs - hoping that I can somehow tweak my settings from the Panasonic Blu-ray, that the Sonos Beam is playing it with transcoded 5.1 Multichannel PCM.

I tried already all kinds of settings, but whatever I choose, I end up with the crappy Stereo PCM sound. I know that the LG OLED55BX9LB (as most other recent LG TVs) do not support DTS passthrough ... but isn't there a way that I pass the sound as raw "Bitstream" from the Blu-ray Player so that the Sonos Beam is then playing it as 5.1 Multichannel? I read through this thread, but I’m a little lost. 😔 Some apparently have figured it out, some did not … ?

Here is how I connected my setup (TV, Blu-ray and Beam all running the latest available software updates as of 18th Jan. 2024):

  1. LG OLED55BX9LB connected on eARC/ARC with Sonos HDMI cable to Sonos Beam
  2. TV Audio set to ARC
  3. Panasonic DP-UB820 Blu-ray connected on HDMI 2.1 Port of TV via 2.1 HDMI cable

I screenshotted all relevant (I think) settings from the Blu-ray player, please see attached files from a session where I had a DTS disc in use. Somehow I feel like I am getting lost in the settings and I'm not sure if I made a mistake somewhere which I overlook.

So my question to others who are using a similar setup: is there a way to overcome the "DTS passthrough burden" with this LG TV and the Panasonic Blu-ray player, to have the Blu-rays play with 5.1 sound?

I highly appreciate any tips, hints or feedback! 

 

@fabian,

Rtings show these codecs supported by the TV…

 

So there’s no DTS 5.1 or McPCM option either (assuming it’s a Beam gen 2) - so I don’t think you’ll find success with that TV - at least that’s my guess, but you could probably achieve success by bypassing the TV with an audio extractor, like the HDFury Arcana etc, but there are some cheaper options on the market too if you’re just looking to get DTS 5.1 audio to your Beam. Maybe checkout Amazon for such ‘compatible’ audio extractors.

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In the mean time try setting Downmix in your first screenshot to surround encoded and bump up the volume in your surrounds a touch. I get some surround info with my Playbase that way with DTS tracks. DTS X doesn't need the volume bump as much for some reason.

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@fabian The DTS/DTS-HD setting on the UB820 needs to be set to PCM to get Multichannel PCM audio.

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 Appreciate your input and help! 👍🏻

@Ken_Griffiths: yes, it’s the Beam 2 (should have mentioned it first). I heard about the HDFury Arcana (I have not looked in detail into it), but always thought that it’s primarily for users with a TV that does not have an ARC (or eARC) capable HDMI port - which my LG BX has, despite lacking the DTS passthrough. I’m not sure if want to invest another 250$ “just” for that. Is there any recommendation on any cheaper device that you can give? I was really hoping to somehow solve this with tweaking the Audio Settings in my setup - specifically with my Blu-ray player.

@Silverthorn: unfortunately, changing “Downmix” to “Surround encoded” did not help either. Still says “Stereo PCM” when I play my disc. I left all other settings as seen in my initial screenshot. The discs I am trying to play have just “normal” DTS, not DTS X. Here is a photo of the disc:

@GuitarSuperstar: tried also that: switching “Bitstream” to “PCM” for DTS/DTS-HD in the second screenshot. Still, Sonos App shows the sound as “Stereo PCM” when I play the disc.

I even tried both: setting it to “PCM” and changing Downmix to “Surround encoded”. Still no luck.

Anything else worth trying?

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@fabian Does your TV have the latest firmware installed?

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You misunderstood my post about the downmix option @fabian . Yes the Sonos app will still show stereo PCM but it will have a dolby pro logic style information added to it. I suggest you try it again and have a listen again to a good DTS soundtrack and put your head next to the one of the surrounds. It does work at least it does for me with my Playbase.

 

Dolby Surround Pro Logic is the full name that refers to the matrix surround format and decoding system in one. When a Dolby Surround soundtrack is created in post-production (Dolby MP Matrix), four channels of sound are matrix-encoded into an ordinary stereo (two-channel) soundtrack.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolby_Pro_Logic

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@fabian Does your TV have the latest firmware installed?

Yes, 100%. I usually have it on auto-update and my LG BX is running v04.50.53, as of today. Panasonic Blu-ray player and Sonos system for Beam 2 also running latest update.

You misunderstood my post about the downmix option @fabian . Yes the Sonos app will still show stereo PCM but it will have a dolby pro logic style information added to it. I suggest you try it again and have a listen again to a good DTS soundtrack and put your head next to the one of the surrounds. It does work at least it does for me with my Playbase.

Interesting, sorry for my misunderstanding - I will give this of more thorough test later. Could you post a screenshot of how this exactly looks like in your Sonos app? Just to be sure: the only thing I would need to change in the settings from my posted screenshots is changing “Downmix” to “Surround encoded”? All the values under “Digital Audio Output” should (must?) be left as “Bitstream” … correct?

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@fabian You could set the DTS setting in your second screenshot back to PCM rather Bitstream but I don’t know that it matters, my TV is also a Panasonic and I think the two play nicer together than another TV might so it might do. The app will just show Stereo PCM but get a disc with a good DTS track and find a good action scene. You should notice a difference. I would try with something a bit newer to test with and bump the volume of your surrounds a bit.

 

They added this quite some time ago. The first Divergent movie had a DTS based track and when I replayed it at some stage I notice I was getting a decent surround sound experience.

 

 

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Thank you @Silverthorn for explaining. So basically, there is no indication on the Sonos app as “confirmation” (like it is when you e.g. hear Dolby variants, etc.), you can only confirm by closely listening. That would also mean changing back and forth between “Downmix” → “Surround encoded” and “Downmix” → “Stereo” should make a difference when listening, correct? I will give this a try. Just out of curiosity: did you find this out yourself or was this documented somewhere?

To give you a little broader background on how I initially tried to achieve what I wanted to achieve: next to my Panasonic Blu-ray, I have a Media PC (an Intel NUC) which is running Kodi mediacenter. This streams my digital movies from a NAS drive in my home network. I have a lot of digital movies with DTS sound too and I only recently found out that Kodi is able to transform multichannel audio (like DTS) to AC3 in 5.1 sound - so despite these DTS encoded movies, I can watch them via my LG BX TV (no DTS passthrough) in Dolby Multichannel 5.1 sound, transcoded by Kodi and outputted on my Sonos Beam 2.

The discussion I had on this can be found here: https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=367120

Long story short: I was somehow hoping to solve this the same way with “tweaking” my settings on the Panasonic Blu-ray and have my DTS Blu-ray discs played on my Sonos Beam 2 with “Multichannel 5.1” sound. I don’t care if it’s not “native” DTS - anything better than this crap Stereo PCM sound would be considered a success for me.

As a lot of other users, I did not pay enough attention to DTS-passthrough capabilities when I initially bought this LG TV in 2021. I only added the Sonos Beam 2 in 2022 and the Panasonic Blu-ray in 2023.

Anything else with Dolby sounds absolutely great on the Beam 2, regardless if I play the source on Kodi with digital media or via Blu-ray discs on the Panasonic. It’s just that DTS on my discs are giving me a headache that I couldn’t figure out on my setup yet...😩

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No as I mentioned I only noticed it when I replayed Divergent and noticed I was getting a decent surround experience. It was a DTS-X track and for some reason they seem to get bit more volume in the surrounds so it was quite noticeable.

 

I’m not sure but I think they added support for LPCM around that time so they might have added support for this as well. If I remember people were surprised LPCM wasn’t already supported and agitated for it? Someone else might remember more. 

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Thank you @Silverthorn for all your feedback! Appreciate your input. Quick update: I decided to buy a HDFury Arcana to split up Audio & Video from my devices (MediaPlayer, Blu-ray, Gaming Console, ...) and have the raw Audio signal sent straight to the Sonos Beam 2 to get “proper” DTS. I got tired with all the tweaks and fiddling in settings which in the end does not achieve the same result as getting 100% clear DTS on my Beam 2 when e.g. watching Blu-rays.

Penny-pinching LG to blame who did not want to pay the license fees to DTS and supporting DTS passthrough in their TVs (at least the models from the past years). I got the Arcana for a very good price and bought it 2nd hand/used on eBay - looking forward to try this out soon.

Anyway, again thanks for all the feedback and help until this point!

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