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LPCM ETA for Arc?

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D
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I’m not sure if that’s the case: from what I understand the LG TV’s weren’t supporting multichannel PCM before, so they were always provided signal that was compatible in different way, like DD5.1 etc.

now they support it, so Apple TV and the like send it through, and TV can play it just fine on speaker or feed through to eARC… assuming that the device on there can understand it… and Sonos Arc can’t.

It is the case.  They weren’t supporting it - they were processing it to bitstream.  You can see posts about folks with LG TVs who did not upgrade their firmware and don’t have the issue. 

Wouldn’t that suggest that there’s a bug in LG firmware? That should pass on bitstream if connected to Arc instead of sending LPCM? I’ve done some googling since I got the Arc, and that doesn’t seem to be the conclusion. So I don’t know.

either way: as mentioned in couple of Arc reviews as well and this forum, Sonos did promise to bring LPCM to Arc. So I just hope it’s gonna happen sooner lather than later. 🤞

N
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We are actively testing multi-channel LPCM on Sonos and we'll be releasing it as part of a software update by the end of this year. We will update this thread again once it's available.  

Excellent news, thanks for the update.

Is this coming to the Beam?

I think that would depend on a few things. Manufacturers do like to be able to differentiate their product lines (entice you to pay more for features even if technically possible). It may also be the case that the arc port on the Beam can’t handle the bandwidth which may need earc specs. It would be nice though, at least then Sonos would stop being criticised for no DTS support, even if the format is losing popularity with streaming ever more common for consumers. It’d be nice to see the Beam updated to earc spec but Sonos tend to move very slowly.


Yea I wouldn’t be surprised if they tried to use this to force an upgrade.  But I bought the beam about a week before the Arc was announced. I just want my Nintendo Switch to work with surround sound!

 


Same here, sound on my Playbar 5.1 setup sucks with the switch as it only plays 2ch sound and the ps5 out next week uses 5.1 and 7.1 pcm so again I'll get 2ch only with lpcm support - it's becoming more common for gaming machines to switch to lpcm because it's free you don't have ridiculous license fee to Dolby and dts. And of course my pc also only supports 5.1/7.1 pcm - so until the Arc gets lpcm support all my gaming consoles and PC are stuck on 2 channel audio

SONOS ARC | SONOS Sub | SONOS Play 1 x 2 | LG C9 OLED | PS5 | RTX3090 Gaming PC | Sennheiser GSP600 Headset | Audio Pro T8L Desktop Monitors
E
Userlevel 4
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I’m not sure if that’s the case: from what I understand the LG TV’s weren’t supporting multichannel PCM before, so they were always provided signal that was compatible in different way, like DD5.1 etc.

now they support it, so Apple TV and the like send it through, and TV can play it just fine on speaker or feed through to eARC… assuming that the device on there can understand it… and Sonos Arc can’t.

It is the case.  They weren’t supporting it - they were processing it to bitstream.  You can see posts about folks with LG TVs who did not upgrade their firmware and don’t have the issue. 

Wouldn’t that suggest that there’s a bug in LG firmware? That should pass on bitstream if connected to Arc instead of sending LPCM? I’ve done some googling since I got the Arc, and that doesn’t seem to be the conclusion. So I don’t know.

either way: as mentioned in couple of Arc reviews as well and this forum, Sonos did promise to bring LPCM to Arc. So I just hope it’s gonna happen sooner lather than later. 🤞

That’s exactly what I’m saying.  There is a bug/feature removal in LG’s latest firmware. 

N

Hi all.

 

I just wanted to add my experience.

Its been driving me mad having the same setup with the addition of a Fire Stick 4k…. no problems with my Sonos beam… but when I updated to the Arc I have been having some really random problems.

Before I go into detail… I want to reiterate what someone else has just said… at ALL times playing content purchased from the iTunes store such as 4K ATMOS movies they work fine.. and the ARC outputs in Atmos.

My problems stemmed from other apps on the AppleTV.  Netflix, and Amazon Prime.  Movies that were supposed to be 5.1 were coming out 2,0.   Atmos content was not working at all, and mostly coming out at 2.0.  Then, it decided to loose the centre channel so I could not hear the dialogue.

Researching the problem, I found this thread.  

I grudging accepted that I could not diagnose the issue and I started to use the Fire Stick (which has no problem outputting to the ARC in atmos) or the inbuilt LG apps (My LG is the OLED 2019 model with eARC)

This is so frustrating as ive checked my settings over and over… and there is something that just doesn't work.  Lots like this LPCM issue with the arc is to blame and I hope they fix it soon.

However… as I said.. ive got no problems whatsoever with iTunes content… its the only app on the TV that seems to do it correctly.  I just cant get my head around why one app works from the same box, and the others dont.

That explains it for me then as to why it works fine, as I only use it for the iTunes purchased stuff.

 

I just cant get my head around the problem.

The AppleTV is clearly capable of sending and ATMOS soundtrack to the ARC via the LG eARC port… and it clearly works for iTunes content...  However other apps from the same AppleTV do not work at all with varying degrees of weirdness.

Its certainly to do with firmware and correct format support but we are talking about 3 devices that are involved in this chain and the fault could be with any one of them.

So annoying at this is designed to be super simple - and yet its not.

 

 

A

Thanks - that’s interesting. 

 

This could not get more complicated if they tried.

 

When you say you’re getting atmos - is that through an external Apple TV 4K console, or the LG Apple app?

F
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Now this is interesting - with Arcana and TVOS14, audio set to Auto - Atmos enabled, the ATV BITSTREAMS DD5.1 over eARC to my Sonos Arc. And it sends the full Dolby MAT stream, which is the point of the Arcana of course. So for me, this LPCM requirement is off the table but I can imaging it’s still needed for those TVs where this doesn’t work. Not sure though if TVOS14 has changed anything on this front.

N
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Which requires an eARC connection. 


so whats the problem then?

SONOS ARC | SONOS Sub | SONOS Play 1 x 2 | LG C9 OLED | PS5 | RTX3090 Gaming PC | Sennheiser GSP600 Headset | Audio Pro T8L Desktop Monitors
E
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Thanks - that’s interesting. 

 

This could not get more complicated if they tried.

 

When you say you’re getting atmos - is that through an external Apple TV 4K console, or the LG Apple app?

Apple TV 4K.  You can’t get Atmos through the LG Apple app (or any Apple app).  Apple only allows Atmos through their own hardware (not their Apple TV apps).  That’s true on all brands of TVs that have Apple apps.  And they only allow Atmos through their own hardware with an eARC connection (no ARC).  Why?  Because they are Apple and Apple does stuff like that.

E
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HUGE.  Thank you Sonos.

A

Thank you very much for the clarity here.

 

I purchased the Sonos ARC and connected it do an older Samsung through an ARC port and haven’t been able to get Atmos through my Apple TV 4k (or any other source for that matter).

 

Your comments confirming new LG’s with an eARC connection pass through atmos are steering me in the direction of picking up a new LG  GX.

E
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Thank you very much for the clarity here.

 

I purchased the Sonos ARC and connected it do an older Samsung through an ARC port and haven’t been able to get Atmos through my Apple TV 4k (or any other source for that matter).

 

Your comments confirming new LG’s with an eARC connection pass through atmos are steering me in the direction of picking up a new LG  GX.

Yeah I have an Apple 4K TV connected to a 2018 Samsung QLED 60 and no dice on Atmos (though I get it through Roku, Firestick and some Samsung TV apps).  LG GX is a nice TV.   I recommend buying through Greentoe.  You’ll save a bunch of money.   Just got my E9 a couple of weeks ago (wanted a 2019 for the full HDMI 2.1 ports and the better price). 

C

Its just that Sonos is so insanely slow on implementing state of the art stuff from 5 years ago.

Even Trueplay isnt possible with the ipad 2020 i just bought. its just too slow for the pricepoint

L

Hi ewolkoff. Apologies for the delay in responding. Many thanks for pointing that out. I have changed it to auto, but, due to my messing around with other settings (basically resetting my 4KATV to default I appear to have removed Atmos from my setup now and can only get Dolby Vision (Dolby Digital 5.1) sound.

I have dismantled all the connections and reattached and simply cannot get Atmos back.

I have tried to reset the Sonos Arc (unplug > hold PLAY and replug > wait for flashing amber and white light – but it just goes straight to green) but it doesn’t delete from the S2 app, in order for me to ‘re-establish’ a whole new setup.

And now the app doesn’t even register the audio going through the ARC. 

I have tried now every variation of setup on the LG, but Atmos is gone.

 

E
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Thanks - that’s interesting. 

 

This could not get more complicated if they tried.

 

When you say you’re getting atmos - is that through an external Apple TV 4K console, or the LG Apple app?

Apple TV 4K.  You can’t get Atmos through the LG Apple app (or any Apple app).  Apple only allows Atmos through their own hardware (not their Apple TV apps).  That’s true on all brands of TVs that have Apple apps.  And they only allow Atmos through their own hardware with an eARC connection (no ARC).  Why?  Because they are Apple and Apple does stuff like that.

This is not correct.  The internal Apple TV app on my LG CX has recently been updated. It now plays Atmos tracks. I believe LG tv’s are the first devices to be able to play atmos tracks via the Apple TV app.

I stand corrected.  Just released: https://www.macrumors.com/2020/06/30/lg-smart-tv-dolby-atmos-support-apple-tv-app/

Can confirm it works on an E9. 

E
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Hi ewolkoff. Apologies for the delay in responding. Many thanks for pointing that out. I have changed it to auto, but, due to my messing around with other settings (basically resetting my 4KATV to default I appear to have removed Atmos from my setup now and can only get Dolby Vision (Dolby Digital 5.1) sound.

I have dismantled all the connections and reattached and simply cannot get Atmos back.

I have tried to reset the Sonos Arc (unplug > hold PLAY and replug > wait for flashing amber and white light(but it just goes staright to green)) but it doesn’t delete from the S2 app, in order for me to ‘re-establish a whole new setup.

And now the app doesn’t even register the audio going through the ARC. 

I have tried now every variation of setup on the LG, but Atmos is gone.

 

If you go to your HDMI advanced settings in the LG audio settings, do you have Bitstream enabled or PCM?  You need Bitstream there.  I think on your TV’s settings it would be where it says Sound → Additional Settings → HDMI Input Audio Format

Mark P
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Hi @ledzep1.

Welcome, thank you for reaching back to Sonos Community.

I'll submit a feature request to add LPCM to a supported audio format to our development team.

We don't have a timeline we can share for this feature, but we'll be sure to make an announcement if we have any updates.

In the meantime, you can check this link for the Supported audio formats in Sonos.

If you need help with any other information, please be sure to let us know.

Help others find useful content by clicking the like button and selecting the best answer to your question
L
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I’m trying to update Sonos on my iMac running 10.15.7 and I keep getting an “Update failed” error message.  Anyone else?

 

D
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Now this is interesting - with Arcana and TVOS14, audio set to Auto - Atmos enabled, the ATV BITSTREAMS DD5.1 over eARC to my Sonos Arc. And it sends the full Dolby MAT stream, which is the point of the Arcana of course. So for me, this LPCM requirement is off the table but I can imaging it’s still needed for those TVs where this doesn’t work. Not sure though if TVOS14 has changed anything on this front.

What’s Arcana?

M

I have updated my SONOS Arc now, but unfortunately my 3 year old Samsung QLED TV does not forward the LPCM signal to the Arc so I still unfortunately only get PCM 2.0 audio.
Thinking about changing TV. Anyone can confirm if you get surround from a Nintendo Switch with an LG GX / CX TV and a SONOS Arc together?

L
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The only other device is an Android which I updated.  Still getting the error message on my Mac no matter how many attempts.

T
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Fantastic news 😁

SONOS ARC | SONOS Sub | SONOS One SL x 2 | SONY XG809 |
C

I can confirm I get multichannel PCM 7.1 as the audio in when playing switch. 

C
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We are actively testing multi-channel LPCM on Sonos and we'll be releasing it as part of a software update by the end of this year. We will update this thread again once it's available.  

Fantastic, can’t wait!

E
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Have you done the steps set forth earlier in the thread with the photos?

 Hi ewolkoff. Yes, I was excited to see your photos and copy the setup exactly, but unfortunately it did not work for me. My settings on the Apple TV were identical to yours but the Audio/Sound settings on the LG are slightly different, as you can see from my pix.

Once the HDMI is selected there is no sub-menu offered, like in your images. I have to navigate to Additional Settings to find the Pass Through and eARC options.

But now, to add to my woes, I messsed around with the settings on the tv AND the 4KATV and now the Dolby Atmos option is gone from the Apple TV Audio Options - it just offers Dolby 5.1 now. :(

I knew I shouldn’t have messed around with my settings.

Your problem is the pass through setting.  You are “passing through” the LPCM signal to the Sonos, which cannot decode it.  You need the TV to decode it first. Do you have an “auto” choice?

L
Userlevel 5
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Only just noticed this but any Dolby 5.1 content via my Apple TV 4K box is outputting in multichannel pcm 7.1?

Anyone else.

 

Lg cx setting all set to bitstream/ passthrough eARC on.

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