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Multichannel PCM on Arc



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Such good news about the update!! I’ve held off buying some 4K discs that have the DTS format, until this came - after the disappointment of finding the dark Knight trilogy was in DTS-HD and limited to stereo 2.0 with the current situation.

Sounds so good now on my Arc + Sub + ONE SL surrounds now with the update!

 

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This is how I’ve got it setup:

 

LG CX: HDMI in Bitstream (I tried PCM too, makes no difference since the passthrough on the audio out may make this selection irrelevant anyways?). EARC on. Audio Out passthrough.

 

PS4: HDMI audio. Linear PCM. 
 

Sonos app reports in getting Multichannel PCM 7.1. However it sounds off. Surround and certain environmental effects are very quiet but certain other sounds like dialogue or gunfire in a game right in front from center channel is very loud. It’s almost like it is missing certain channels or something. I’ve gone back to DD 5.1 which sounds great. Change PS4 output to Bitsream (Dolby) to get DD 5.1 which sounds much better balanced to me with the surround effect. 

 

I don’t know if it’s a bug but yes I’ve seen that some stuff defaults to 7.1 even though Sonos is only 5.1 or 5.1.2

The nintendo switch asks me would i like 5.1 or 7.1 after I select LPCM, hopefully the PS4 does too?

I haven’t fullky tested mine, but I would not be surprised if 7.1 sounded wrong, because two of the channel are missing. I would think that the ARC should only allow 5.1 with LPCM, but for some reason the EDID data reported back allows all LPCM channels so 7.1 becomes available even though the Sonos system doesn’t have that many channels

 

Or maybe Sonos is allowing 7.1 because secretly they are planning to let us add another 2 sonos speakers into the surround setup for full 7.1? That would be awesome!


That’s a negative on the PS5 sadly. If I select LPCM the PS5 will default to 7.1 and will not let me change the channel layout, it’s either Dolby Digital 5.1 or 7.1 LPCM

I'm so annoyed they dont support muti channel PCM...I agree that there is always something missing with sonos. 

One reason I hate my playbar is huge lag while bitstreaming xbox one to Dolby and lack of support for Nintendo switch.

Even if I buy the ARC and a new TV it will still not solve the above problems... complete waste of time!

 

It's a "complete waste of time" to not buy something which is unfit for your purpose?  :thinking:

I'm so annoyed they dont support muti channel PCM...I agree that there is always something missing with sonos. 

One reason I hate my playbar is huge lag while bitstreaming xbox one to Dolby and lack of support for Nintendo switch.

Even if I buy the ARC and a new TV it will still not solve the above problems... complete waste of time!

 

It's a "complete waste of time" to not buy something which is unfit for your purpose?  :thinking:

Ok, waste of time probably not the right word to use. What I mean is it is a wasted opportunity in sonos not addressing these shortcomings.

 

 

 

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Nothing for the U.K. version of the nan906 yet. 

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I just performed the “DTS Sound Check” from a 2015 DTS Demo Blu-ray disc. I am playing this on a Panasonic DP-UB820 UHD player with DTS set to PCM. These are the results:
 

DTS Sound Check 5.1
All channels played the test tones correctly. The Sonos app reported “Multichannel PCM 7.1”.



DTS Sound Check 7.1
All channels played the test tones correctly EXCEPT the Left Rear and Right Rear Surround channels. The surround test tones only played out of the Left Side and Right Side Surround channels. The Left Rear and Right Rear Surrounds were completely silent. The Sonos app reported “Multichannel PCM 7.1”.


So it appears the Sonos Arc is not playing the Left Rear and Right Rear surround channels when playing a DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 track.

Thanks for sharing all of your feedback everyone. We will be adding Multi-Channel LPCM support to Arc as part of a future software update. We don’t have exact timing to share at this point and will update this thread when we do.

Does this mean the Arc will support surround sound for PC gaming too? 

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I thought that was normal at the moment as the Arc doesn't currently support multichannel pcm? 

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@GuitarSuperstar Is there a setting on your BR player to force a 5.1 output? Just out of curiosity, that fixed this exact issue in my experience. Do ARC/eARC sound bars use EDIDs or some kind of config file to tell TVs what their capabilities are? I wonder, is the problem that Sonos isn’t giving proper format instructions to upstream devices or that the sound bar isn’t properly mixing 7.1 down to 5.1. 

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Is LPCM = Dolby Multi-Channel PCM?


No. Dolby has nothing to do with PCM.

Dolby Multi-Channel PCM is the label used for a Dolby MAT container signal that contains PCM and metadata vs. a Dolby MAT container that contains TrueHD.


This is what I see on my Sonos app when I play a DD 5.1 content.. 

 

pretty confusing not knowing if my Sonos Arc is producing the right sound or it has a bug interpreting the Source audio Content as it doesn’t match what it says on the source title vs on Sonos system info

 

 

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Just leaving this post so I can keep up with this. 

The LG C9 update is to address an AirPlay issue .. the default HDMI input format on that model of TV is ‘bitstream’. The firmware update is not going to change what is available with the firmware version v4.71.25 as far as I can ascertain?

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Is LPCM = Dolby Multi-Channel PCM?


No. Dolby has nothing to do with PCM.

Dolby Multi-Channel PCM is the label used for a Dolby MAT container signal that contains PCM and metadata vs. a Dolby MAT container that contains TrueHD.


This is what I see on my Sonos app when I play a DD 5.1 content.. 

 

pretty confusing not knowing if my Sonos Arc is producing the right sound or it has a bug interpreting the Source audio Content as it doesn’t match what it says on the source title vs on Sonos system info

 

 

The Arc is likely not confusing the input. It’s more likely that the source content is DD 5.1 but the source device is deciding to decode it and wrap it in a MAT container before passing it onto the next link in the HDMI chain for consistency reasons.

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+1 for another customer with Sonos ARC + AppleTV + LG 2020 nanocell TV and no Dolby Atmos sounds.  

Do you have the latest firmware? 03.10.60

The LG C9 update is to address an AirPlay issue .. the default HDMI input format on that model of TV is ‘bitstream’. The firmware update is not going to change what is available with the firmware version v4.71.25 as far as I can ascertain?

04.80.03 :

“The device codec capability configuration (EDID) for the LPCM codec changed from 2 channels to 8 channels, so the 2019 models can Pass-Trough multi-channel PCM audio via eARC”

  • OFFICIAL CHANGE LOG: Apple AirPlay function improvement - (the rest of changes mentioned below are UNOFFICIAL, extracted from the firmware itself)

  • WebOS version updated to v4.8.0-52203

  • The device codec capability configuration for the EAC3 codec changed from 6 channels to 8 channels.

  • The list of CA certificates was updated.

  • Media server 8K video playback support added.

  • The max size of the saved EPG data was increased (size of the volume increased by 10MB).

  • Airplay application was added to the list of apps that are kept alive.

  • Built-In App-Updates:

WebOS Browser App (Chromium) updated (internal version didn't change).

LG Advertisement App updated.

  • Firmware updates of the following modules:

WIFI

Audio DSP

HDMI 2.1

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The sonos app reporting 7.1 multichannel, I thought was a bug with Sonos ARC?

All my devices that that should be 5.1 say 7.1 on the sonos app.

 

My xbox series x,  if set to uncompressed 5.1 outputs as multichannel 7.1 according to sonos app.

My oppo 203 is exactly the same.

As is my apple tv 4k for any 5.1 content that it sends as LPCM outputs as 7.1

 

Is Sonos still working on a fix, thought I read something a while back that they were aware?

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Awesome, thanks for the LPCM support.

However, i own a Xbox Series X since yesterday which supports Dolby Atmos output. So now i’m wondering, what would be the prefered output? 5.1 uncompressed LPCM, or Bitstream - Dolby Atmos?

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I can’t get surround to work with my PS4 or my Switch with the new update to the sonos Arc. I have a new LG 55’ NanoCell witch has eARC according to the specs in the web. I get Atmos perfectly when using Netflix etc.

In the TV settings for the PS4, I have the HDMI input format to PCM and the output to Passthrough. In the PS4 I have set output to PCM. I only get stereo in the Arc.

In the Switch, same story, I have selected surround in the console but only get stereo in the ARC. Same settings on the TV 😞

I have tried rebooting everything with no effect. I don’t know what else to do.

Thanks for sharing all of your feedback everyone. We will be adding Multi-Channel LPCM support to Arc as part of a future software update. We don’t have exact timing to share at this point and will update this thread when we do.

This is excellent news. Which, using an HDMI splitter, would allow me to get DTS sound from my UB820 UHD Blu-ray player while watching on my LG E6 OLED, while also getting Atmos sound from the player and other set top boxes like my Apple TV. So long as I keep my TV, which doesn’t support Atmos passthrough or eARC it won’t be a perfect setup, but it would make me seriously consider selling my Playbar and making the upgrade to the Arc.

I do still wish Sonos would simply make the deal to get DTS going so I don’t have to consider the upgrade until I also upgrade my TV, but at this point I’ll take what I can get.

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@GuitarSuperstar nada, lo he cambiado y tampoco. Es que es raro porque en la tv cuando no tenia sonos arc si había contenido dolby me salía a la drch dolby vision y luego dolby atmos, ahora con sonos arc ese cartel no me sale, sale solo dolby vision.🤔

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Is LPCM = Dolby Multi-Channel PCM?


No. Dolby has nothing to do with PCM.

Dolby Multi-Channel PCM is the label used for a Dolby MAT container signal that contains PCM and metadata vs. a Dolby MAT container that contains TrueHD.


This is what I see on my Sonos app when I play a DD 5.1 content.. 

 

pretty confusing not knowing if my Sonos Arc is producing the right sound or it has a bug interpreting the Source audio Content as it doesn’t match what it says on the source title vs on Sonos system info

 

 

The Arc is likely not confusing the input. It’s more likely that the source content is DD 5.1 but the source device is deciding to decode it and wrap it in a MAT container before passing it onto the next link in the HDMI chain for consistency reasons.

 

: If you see my testing results on Sonos Beam, Beam is receiving Dolby Digital 5.1 content from the TV ( Netflix App on Samsung Q70T  → TV HDMI eARC → Sonos Beam’s ARC HDMI connection - Sonos Beam ) with the same settings. The only difference here is the Sonos Arc ( Netflix App on Samsung Q70T  → TV HDMI eARC → Sonos Arc eARC HDMI connection - Sonos Arc ) which is receiving Dolby Multi-Channel PCM 5.1

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Hi @GuitarSuperstar 

I’m glad to hear you’ve spotted an improvement! As mentioned on another thread, we’re still not announcing it as fixed though. I’ve checked some internal documentation and it’s still not official. However, if it’s usable it’s usable - great! 

 

I have an issue here with my pc and Sonos 5.1 system.    Lg cx connected to Sonos arc directly via earc. Dolby atmos videos work fine and even 5.1 Dolby tracks (though it says Dolby multichannel pcm 5.1, but whatever ).  
Now the problem I can’t solve, why I can’t play any games in PCM 5.1.  The Sonos app says it is playing pcm 5.1 or 7.1 but rears are not working properly. Rears only turn on when there is a sound in video game that turns on all speakers like an orchestra or certain game music. 
 

I have tried switching to auto or passthrough and still same problem. It seems like others have similar issues but anyone with video game issues like mine ?

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@GuitarSuperstar Buenas otra vez, probé con el cable directamente de sonos arc y sigue saliendo digital plus, ahora le he añadido dos sonos one SL y sigue poniendo 5.1 puede ser porque tenga que modificar algo desde al app de sonos? Me sale lo que adjunto en la foto y no se si tengo que quitar la compresión. Me estoy volviendo loca de no saber que pasa.

 

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I'm in UK and webOS says 4.7.1-50018 with no update currently available. I'm looking forward to the fix

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