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Multichannel PCM on Arc


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Are you really not supporting multichannel PCM on the newly announced Arc?

Why? It’s not a licensing issue this time.

It seems like there is always something missing with your home theater products.

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Best answer by Ditte 10 November 2020, 16:39

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Sounds like lpcm is working great on the Nintendo switch, thanks Sono's - now just to find an ARC in stock as most of the time it’s sold out in the stores in my town.

 

Has anyone managed to test if it works using a PC - so running an hdmi cable from your pc into the TV and setting TV to pass through audio and then right click on audio settings in windows and hopefully the 5.1/7.1 audio options are selectable and not greyed out? 

Yes!!!! Thanks Sonos! My Nintendo Switch does Multichannel PCM 7.1 now instead of stereo 2.0 :D

 

Good stuff!

Do you know if this is possible using apple tv 4k? 

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Yes!!!! Thanks Sonos! My Nintendo Switch does Multichannel PCM 7.1 now instead of stereo 2.0 :D

 

Good stuff!

Do you know if this is possible using apple tv 4k? 

It is.

Yes!!!! Thanks Sonos! My Nintendo Switch does Multichannel PCM 7.1 now instead of stereo 2.0 :D

 

Good stuff!

Do you know if this is possible using apple tv 4k? 

It is.

Thanks for answer. I do only get dolby digital 5.1 when using infuse, vlc, mrmc looking at mkv with dolby true Hd 7.1. Am I missing anything, thought this update would fix this. Happy for any help 

Thanks for the update. It certainly has improved things. However, with my UHD 4k Blu-Ray Player (Panasonic UB 820), I have DTS set to PCM. It only still plays in Stereo PCM 2.0.

My Nvidia shield and Apple TV pays DTS titles with PCM 7.1 which is great, but very disappointed that the Blu-ray player does not. Any ideas?

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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.

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Thanks for the update. It certainly has improved things. However, with my UHD 4k Blu-Ray Player (Panasonic UB 820), I have DTS set to PCM. It only still plays in Stereo PCM 2.0.

My Nvidia shield and Apple TV pays DTS titles with PCM 7.1 which is great, but very disappointed that the Blu-ray player does not. Any ideas?

I may be wrong but you are telling the player to output in plain old stereo 2.0, set the player to bitstream and see what you get.

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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.

You want input to be bitstream, not PCM. Output Passthrough. 

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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.

You want input to be bitstream, not PCM. Output Passthrough. 

So the output of the PS4 should be Bitstream too? Maybe I’m not getting something, I understood that now that we have PCM multichannel support in the Arc, we’d want to have PCM all along, in the PS4 and in the Arc.

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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.

You want input to be bitstream, not PCM. Output Passthrough. 

So the output of the PS4 should be Bitstream too? Maybe I’m not getting something, I understood that now that we have PCM multichannel support in the Arc, we’d want to have PCM all along, in the PS4 and in the Arc.

I’m not sure about output on PS4, but you want bitstream on input on tv and pass through on output. Otherwise it will flat it down to stereo. I believe PS outputs LPCM in bitstream.

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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. 

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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.

You want input to be bitstream, not PCM. Output Passthrough. 

So the output of the PS4 should be Bitstream too? Maybe I’m not getting something, I understood that now that we have PCM multichannel support in the Arc, we’d want to have PCM all along, in the PS4 and in the Arc.

I’m not sure about output on PS4, but you want bitstream on input on tv and pass through on output. Otherwise it will flat it down to stereo. I believe PS outputs LPCM in bitstream.

If I select bitstream in the PS4, I have to select bitstream in the TV as input format, and doing so gets surround working with the Arc but I get the painful audio delay this update was supposed to solve. My perception was that with this update, being now the Arc compatible with multichannel LPCM we could have LPCM all along the signal chain to have surround sound and no delay, but somehow this is not working for me. Selecting LPCM on the PS4 and the TV only gets stereo signal.

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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. 

If I do what you said and put the LG NanoCell HDMI input in Bitstream, the PS4 automatically changes the output to bitstream. And again, that gives surround sound but with delay 😞 

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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. 

If I do what you said and put the LG NanoCell HDMI input in Bitstream, the PS4 automatically changes the output to bitstream. And again, that gives surround sound but with delay 😞 

That's odd. Selecting the HDMI Input on my CX has no effect on what I choose on my PS4. And either way for me it is not changing anything when I switch HDMI Input on the TV from Bitstream to PCM. The only thing that it making it change is the Audio Out on the PS4 itself with Linear PCM giving me Multichannel PCM 7.1 and Bitstream (Dolby) giving me Dolby Digital 5.1. I don’t have any delay issues with DD 5.1 though so I went back to that since something seems wrong with the LPCM sound. Not sure what else you can try. It may be an issue with your specific TV model?

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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. 

If I do what you said and put the LG NanoCell HDMI input in Bitstream, the PS4 automatically changes the output to bitstream. And again, that gives surround sound but with delay 😞 

Is your output set to passthrough on the tv? 

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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. 

If I do what you said and put the LG NanoCell HDMI input in Bitstream, the PS4 automatically changes the output to bitstream. And again, that gives surround sound but with delay 😞 

Is your output set to passthrough on the tv? 

Yep, I have passthrough selected

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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. 

If I do what you said and put the LG NanoCell HDMI input in Bitstream, the PS4 automatically changes the output to bitstream. And again, that gives surround sound but with delay 😞 

That's odd. Selecting the HDMI Input on my CX has no effect on what I choose on my PS4. And either way for me it is not changing anything when I switch HDMI Input on the TV from Bitstream to PCM. The only thing that it making it change is the Audio Out on the PS4 itself with Linear PCM giving me Multichannel PCM 7.1 and Bitstream (Dolby) giving me Dolby Digital 5.1. I don’t have any delay issues with DD 5.1 though so I went back to that since something seems wrong with the LPCM sound. Not sure what else you can try. It may be an issue with your specific TV model?

Difficult to know. The TV is new, I bought it 2 weeks ago and it has eARC as stated in LG’s website. So I can’t really know what’s not working. I’ve checked all the TV’s menus to see if there was something wrong but I don’t see anything that could be the problem.

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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. 

If I do what you said and put the LG NanoCell HDMI input in Bitstream, the PS4 automatically changes the output to bitstream. And again, that gives surround sound but with delay 😞 

Is your output set to passthrough on the tv? 

Yep, I have passthrough selected

And is your delay setting in tv and Sonos sync set to 0?

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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. 

If I do what you said and put the LG NanoCell HDMI input in Bitstream, the PS4 automatically changes the output to bitstream. And again, that gives surround sound but with delay 😞 

Is your output set to passthrough on the tv? 

Yep, I have passthrough selected

And is your delay setting in tv and Sonos sync set to 0?

Yep! That’s all correctly set up.

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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. 

If I do what you said and put the LG NanoCell HDMI input in Bitstream, the PS4 automatically changes the output to bitstream. And again, that gives surround sound but with delay 😞 

That's odd. Selecting the HDMI Input on my CX has no effect on what I choose on my PS4. And either way for me it is not changing anything when I switch HDMI Input on the TV from Bitstream to PCM. The only thing that it making it change is the Audio Out on the PS4 itself with Linear PCM giving me Multichannel PCM 7.1 and Bitstream (Dolby) giving me Dolby Digital 5.1. I don’t have any delay issues with DD 5.1 though so I went back to that since something seems wrong with the LPCM sound. Not sure what else you can try. It may be an issue with your specific TV model?

Difficult to know. The TV is new, I bought it 2 weeks ago and it has eARC as stated in LG’s website. So I can’t really know what’s not working. I’ve checked all the TV’s menus to see if there was something wrong but I don’t see anything that could be the problem.


Over on AVSForum someone just posted that there are issues with the eARC on the CX (which is also a 2020 model year TV) and LPCM so it may be the TV that is the culprit for my problem. The C9 had the same problem and a firmware update apparently fixed it.Hopefully a firmware update from LG will fix it on the CX as well. Could be the same for yours?

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Intriguing news!

Doesn't the Arc automatically update?

I seemed to think the audio textures improved a couple days ago but thought it was just the program I was watching.

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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. 

If I do what you said and put the LG NanoCell HDMI input in Bitstream, the PS4 automatically changes the output to bitstream. And again, that gives surround sound but with delay 😞 

That's odd. Selecting the HDMI Input on my CX has no effect on what I choose on my PS4. And either way for me it is not changing anything when I switch HDMI Input on the TV from Bitstream to PCM. The only thing that it making it change is the Audio Out on the PS4 itself with Linear PCM giving me Multichannel PCM 7.1 and Bitstream (Dolby) giving me Dolby Digital 5.1. I don’t have any delay issues with DD 5.1 though so I went back to that since something seems wrong with the LPCM sound. Not sure what else you can try. It may be an issue with your specific TV model?

Difficult to know. The TV is new, I bought it 2 weeks ago and it has eARC as stated in LG’s website. So I can’t really know what’s not working. I’ve checked all the TV’s menus to see if there was something wrong but I don’t see anything that could be the problem.


Over on AVSForum someone just posted that there are issues with the eARC on the CX (which is also a 2020 model year TV) and LPCM so it may be the TV that is the culprit for my problem. The C9 had the same problem and a firmware update apparently fixed it.Hopefully a firmware update from LG will fix it on the CX as well. Could be the same for yours?

No idea, I can’t find anything on Google. I’ve written LG support, let’s see what I can find out (in case they answer).

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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!

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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

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