I just want to thank you guys for doing so much to figure this issue out. It can be very demoralizing and frustrating when buying new tech and it doesn’t work correctly out of the box. It seems pretty complicating just to get the HD FURY 4K to work correctly so hopefully there is an easier fix.

Hey guys, can anyone confirm that the Arcana doesn’t have the Dolby Vision issue?

HDfury have pointed me to

https://hdfury.com/tools/HDfury_EDID_collection.zip

and suggested trying some of the EDIDS. 

I’m wondering whether the easiest route, if we have to muck about editing EDIDS,  might be to modify the LG one to allow MLPCM and leave everything else intact. 

I can 100% confirm that the Arcana works - you just need to set the device to pass the audio to the HDMI Out port and you do not use the eARC output port at all. You use the device just as a passthrough, similar to the intent of the DR HDMI 4K. This is my set up now and has been stable for weeks.

I can also confirm I am running into the Dolby Vision issue with the HDMI DR 4K. So, in my rushed eval on Monday, I missed this was not working with the built in EDID. I see now that the HDFury site has different EDIDs listed for the banks than what is on the sticker on the physical device. I have more to check on this and to get an EDID editor going for my personal interest.

And finally, I have chatted briefly on the HDFury Discord server with them. They are very fast and you can scroll through a ton of old chats too which can be helpful.

M wife wanted to watch All About Eve (which has a DTS-HDMA 5.1 track) so on a whim I decided to unplug my CX for a few seconds. Guess what, the Sonos app says Multichannel PCM 7.1!!

I’m not sure All About Eve is known for its spectacular surround sound, so next, I’ll try it with Die Hard or another DTS disc.

Stay tuned...

What type of UHD Blu Ray player are you running?

Sorry, should have mentioned I have the Sony ubp-x800m2. Audio output set to PCM (Auto gives me silence).

@JockWu Could you not get multichannel PCM from DTS-encoded discs from your Sony player before you did the unplugging trick?

That’s correct - the LG CX seemed to have trouble outputting multichannel PCM to the Arc.

That’s interesting. This is the first I have heard anyone have the problem with a Sony player. Everyone on this thread has the Panasonic UB820 player.

Yeah, when I press Display on the Sony remote, it says the audio being output is LPCM 5.1. Previously, LPCM 5.1 from the Sony resulted in silence on the Arc.

OK, I have confirmed that multichannel PCM is coming through the Arc after unplugging the power cord for a few seconds.

My Sonos system is Arc + 2 x One SLs + Sub (Gen 3).

I have a Sony ubp-x800m2 UltraHD player → LG 65 inch CX OLED TV (2020 model). The LG is connected to the Arc via HDMI 2 (the eArc port).

For testing, I’m using the Saving Private Ryan (Sapphire Series) blu-ray which has English 5.1 DTS-HD MA.

Settings

Sony

     Digital Audio Out: PCM (rather than bitstream)

LG

     eArc: ON

     HDMI Audio Input: Bitstream

     Digital Audio Output: Pass Through

The Sony display says “LPCM 5.1”, while the Sonos app says the sound is Multichannel PCM 7.1. I’m guessing it’s not actually 7.1, but I’m also just glad that I can get multichannel PCM without having to wait for a firmware fix or Arcana. All those DTS 5.1 tracks can now be utilised!

Hope this helps. And hopefully this solves the issue permanently.

@JockWu

To clarify, you have to unplug before each test attempt? How long does it work for before you need to unplug again?

Sadly, no joy for me with the Panasonic using this unplug method...

Did you have everything else on/movie loaded on the Panasonic before then unplugging the TV?

No, I only unplugged the one time. I’ve only tested it on 2 discs so far (All About Eve and Saving Private Ryan). Will check if it’s still working and test on more discs later today.

@iBoyley 

Have you been able to test the unplug method?

@JockWu  thanks. Did you have to keep the blu ray player on when you did the unplug / plug as @iBoyley  suggested? I haven’t had a chance to test it yet. 

Yes. The blu-ray player was on when I unplugged the CX.

Update:

I tried Die Hard UHD this morning. TV had been switched off overnight. Result: silence.

Then I unplugged the CX. The sound returns!

I’ll do some more testing...

So, I’ve tested while having the blu ray player on with the film playing and pulled the plug for a while and still no joy with the GX. Has anyone else confirmed this method working for the Panasonic?

At present with the Dr HDMI I can replicate the LG EDIDs to play anything with DOLBY Vision that has a Dolby soundtrack. For anything with regular HDR or a non Dolby track I can use the UHD GREEN 1 setting.

The only scenario that I can’t cover is when there’s DV and DTS together, which fortunately seems rare. in this case the picture would be HDR only but at least I’ll get full surround sound. The only one I can see in my collection at a glance that has DV and DTS is Gladiator. 
 

@Laird M Malamed @Chetiya @AaronT

After all this knowledge and your experience, what would you guys suggest I get in my situation? I have the CX - UB820 - ARC with Surrounds. When I am not watching my Blu Rays I currently use the apps built into the CX for streaming, but I do plan to get an Apple TV one day when it seems support for the CX has ended. If y’all were in my situation, would you buy the Arcana or the DR HDMI 4K? It seems the Arcana can achieve DV and DTS simultaneously and the DR HDMI 4K can not (at least it hasn’t been figured out how to do so easily), although those instances where it would be necessary seem rare. The DR HDMI 4K can convert DTS and that’s currently my biggest want but I’m not sure if getting that setup is very user friendly? I’m good with tech but a lot of this stuff is very new to me.

thanks for any help you can provide

Hi @tsb4515 - 

In the situation you are describing, the question of device is not going to be a factor. We are finding that the Arcana or DR HDMI 4K (with edited EDID) are acting as a passthrough to the 820. So, if your 820 is going into input 3 on your CX, the HDFury device sits between the 820 and the TV only. The Sonos Arc HDMI goes into the TV Input 2 (with eARC turned on, HDMI set to bitstream for inputs, and passthrough for eARC out). So, the CX will then pass whichever audio out the eARC to the Sonos. That includes the audio from the 820 (that has passed through the HDFury device), the internal audio from the CX Apps or an AppleTV. 

This works because the AppleTV will output either Dolby Atmos, Dolby Digital or PCM audio - all of which will pass correctly through the CX to the Sonos Arc. I suspect other streaming boxes such as Roku or Amazon ones operate similarly. 

At this point, the Arcana can be set up with only 1 setting change (audio routed to both eARC and HDMI Output), so it is much easier to use. $100 easier? That is a question each person would have to answer.

Lastly, I am not following your point on DR HDMI converting DTS. My understanding is that no changes to the image or audio is done by the device. Instead, the device tells the source device which formats of audio/video are supported by devices downstream. So, in the case of getting multichannel audio out of the 820, what is working is that the HDFury device corrects an EDID mismatch between the 820, C9/CX, Sonos. However, any decoding of DTS to MC PCM must be done by the Blu-ray player (since the Sonos Arc cannot do it).

Hope that helps.

@Laird M Malamed I checked and my 820 is set to have downsampling at 48k, though its also not clear to me whether that only applies to the optical output or if it also affects hdmi.

I used the Advantiv EDID Editor which can be downloaded here: https://ez.analog.com/video/w/documents/750/advantiv-edid-editor

I also looked at the wikipedia page on EDID as a reference to double-check that everything really made sense: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_Display_Identification_Data

I definitely needed to reference the wikipedia page to confirm that the Vendor Specific Data Block that I found was for Dolby Labs and therefore was probably what was providing DV info.

I forgot about the HDFury EDID collection when I was initially testing things out. I did go and check out the readme and files later, and I see that many do specifically say they include DV support, but it wasn’t clear to me which of those I should use from the file names that would provide all of the other correct features and support for the LG TV and Sonos Arc.

Is there any way that you could upload the file somwehere for other uses to download onto their DR HDMI unit? That wikipedia page may aswell be in chineese for me :)

Quick update - I’ve got an Arcana now and can confirm it works with the GX/Panasonic/Sonos combo.
 

One odd quirk is when the Panasonic starts playing a disc the video input drops for a good few seconds, long enough for the “no input” wallpaper screen to show up. The Arcana manual alludes to this happening when switching display modes (HDMI renegotiation), however I was surprised at how long it takes to switch. A small price to pay to have the setup working as expected though! 
 

Annoying as hell that you need another device that costs over half the price of the Panasonic player to get this working, though I have to say the Arcana is a nice little piece of kit with quite a few handy settings (none of which I actually need as it’s set to simply output everything straight to the TV)!