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

Thanks for that link. Yeah, sounds like it might be the issue with sampling frequency still not correct. Maybe an easy fix if LG wants to do it.

I agree with the frustration (and am on a similar timeline on returning the 820). But the picture is great, and there really aren’t any other players I prefer. The Sony ones require manual switching Dolby Vision. The LG one cannot send out PCM for just DTS - it’s all audio or none. The Samsung and Oppos are not made any longer.  

Hi pdedmon,

Just new to this forum, with a Sonos ARC underway, I was getting worried about my Bluray collection with DTS tracks (and potentially new 4K Blurays with DTS). Just bought a Sony UBP-X700 as well, so I was very happy to see your post. Can you tell me which settings you had to change on the Sony to get it to output LPCM and have it working with the ARC?

I might have an additional challenge as my Philips TV does not support eARC, but I’m looking into the HDFury Arcana for that.

Thanks in advance!

Erik

@GuitarSuperstar damn that was fast Thanks! Will try this as soon as my ARC arrives (around 19 Feb  ), or perhaps I can already view the output settings somewhere. Will check it out!

@Chetiya According to the LG website, the latest firmware update only enhances the picture quality.

Anyone received any reply from Panasonic or (more preferably) LG on this that wasn’t just them denying it being a software issue or claiming it isn’t meant to be able to convert to multi channel PCM?

If people could share what they wrote to LG and Panasonic, then others that would otherwise not bother writing their own emails might then at least do a copy-paste job to them? More emails might increase the odds of rectifying the issue.

Just want to say this thread has been really useful to read, as I’m having the exact same problems.

Spoke to LG about it and they said:

Panasonic gave an even more abrupt ‘not our problem to solve’ response:
 

My HDFury DR HDMI 4K arrived today!

Happily, as expected, the device works to address the issue between the 820-LG C9-Sonos Arc. I have set the unit to the 4K max mode EDID. “Green 1 – 4k60-444-600M-HDR-BT2020-3D-FULLAUDIO” - 820 is set to DTS → PCM and Dolby to pass through. All of the media I tested before (see earlier in this thread) played exactly the same way. Dolby Atmos passed through the LG with TrueHD to the Sonos Arc. DTS Master HD and DTSX both were converted to PCM. For 5.1/7.1, they show up on the Sonos as Multichannel PCM 7.1. 2.0 DTS shows as 2 Channel PCM.

Picture is correct for Dolby Vision and HDR and looks great both for 4K native sources (Hobbit & Psycho) and upsampled 1080p and 1080i Blu-ray discs.

So, for me, this $99 (+ shipping) unit handles the handshake issues for at least the C9. Hopefully someone will verify this also works on the CX models too. The Arcana seems to be overkill for the problem (and I will try to sell mine on eBay at some point). 

I will do more experimenting when I have time on the weekend to see how other settings work.

Laird 

Thanks for confirming, mine hasn’t arrived yet but your update is reassuring! I’ll confirm it works for the GX when I get it.

Does anyone know whether the same solution works for other LG 9 versions, such as the B9? I’m having the same problem with the B9 - although I’m still not tempted by getting the HDFury, it’d be good to know it’s not restricted to just C9s.

My setup is the UB820-LG CX-Sonos Arc and I got tired of waiting for a solution from Panasonic or LG for the multichannel LPCM problem so I purchased DR HDMI 4k and tried it a few days ago.

I was hoping to just set the unit to the 4K max mode EDID. “Green 1 – 4k60-444-600M-HDR-BT2020-3D-FULLAUDIO” and have it all work, but for me it wasn’t quite that simple. Using this mode did allow me to get 7.1 channel LPCM from the UB820, but I noticed 2 problems:

1. I wasn’t getting Dolby Vision indicatations by the LG CX. Only HDR indications even for disks that supported Dolby Vision (and that I had seen Dolby Vision indicated when I wasn’t using the DR HDMI).
2. For certain disks, I would get no audio when the playback first switched to multichannel LPCM (decoding DTS). For example the UHD Bluray menu may have started in DD 5.1 and only switched to LPCM for DTS when starting the actual movie. The UB820 indicated 7.1 LPCM being sent out, but the Sonos app would indicate no audio being received. Forcing the DR HDMI to restart a handshake fixed the problem each time.

I ended up fixing this by copying the LG EDID that was being sent out into the special bank for this in the DR HDMI. Then I used the DR HDMI utility on my PC to copy the EDID to a binary file, and then used an EDID editor (with GUI) on my PC to find the Dolby Vision “Vendor Specific Data Block“ EDID that was being provided by the LG and copied that info into a side file. Then I copied the “Green 1 – 4k60-444-600M-HDR-BT2020-3D-FULLAUDIO” bank to a binary file, and I used the EDID editor to start with that as a base and then added the Dolby Vision support info that I saved off in a side file. Then I saved off the resulting modified EDID into a binary file and then used the DR HDMI EDID utility to save that to bank “Custom 1”.
(I’m a little surprised the utility provided by DR HDMI doesn’t have more support to actually “decode” the binary into a GUI that figures out each field and includes a description)

When I used Custom 1 from the DR HDMI 4k, now I could see the LG confirming that it was getting Dolby Vision and not just HDR. But I was still getting the problem of not hearing the LPCM 7.1 for some disks unless I restarted the handshake of the DR HDMI.

So then I went back and looked at what the LG was sending for supported audio and modified the EDID I was using in Custom 1 to have matching audio support (this involved things like removing audio support for things like DTS/DTS-HD/1-bit SACD audio as well as 192k and 96k support for LPCM). After I saved these changes to the Custom 1 bank of the DR HDMI and used this, now my audio worked right away all the time for LPCM 7.1 coming out of the UB820 (no need to force the DR HDMI to reinitialize a new handshake). I wonder if the UB820 was trying to send out 96k LPCM for DTS-HD on some disks initially and only redoing the handshake somehow got it to send LPCM in a format supported by the LG and/or Sonos Arc.

I also mention that when I examined the EDID being sent by the LG CX, when I looked at the audio data block section of the EDID, I couldn’t find anything wrong. So its not obvious why the UB820 couldn’t figure out that it could send multichannel LPCM based on the EDID from the LG. There must have been something else wrong or different about the EDID being sent by the LG compared to the DR HDMI 4k max mode that is messing up the UB820. Oh well, now that I have something that works, I don’t think I’m going to bother investigating that any more.

I hope this helps anyone else with this setup that doesn’t get things to work exactly right when using the built-in modes of the DR HDMI.

So, my unit arrived and I’ve done a quick test. 
 

LG GX

ub820ebk

SONOS ARC

I can confirm Aaron T’s observations with the GX on

Green 1 – 4k60-444-HDR-2020-3D-Q9FN ALLM VRR HDR10+. (That’s the description on my unit, seems a little different from what others have?)
 

Dolby Atmos pass through works fine. 
DTS is presenting as 7.1 PCM

Unfortunately, DOLBY Vision no longer works. Laird, is it the same for you?

I tried a few of the other presets but none of them worked either. 
 

I guess we’ll have to use Aaron’s workaround. Aaron, any further details on your method/ software would be greatly appreciated! 

I got mine from TMF as well. Took a couple of working days. 
 

Good idea regarding HDFury. Will give it a try.