Needed Feature: 5 Channel Stereo/Full Audio option when playing video sources

  • 10 August 2020
  • 7 replies
  • 832 views

Userlevel 1

I appreciate how the Sonos app will let me send “music” audio (from the app) to all the speakers in my surround setup -- but we also need this option when using video audio (via HDMI)!  I watch lots of music via YouTube/Facebook/Etc -- but the Sonos tries to play this stereo output as 5.1 which means 95% comes through the center (Beam) and none through the rear (One SL) speakers.  This is easily done for music, so it should be possible for video content too -- thank you!  


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7 replies

Userlevel 4
Badge +12

Hi @Justnoah, welcome to the community.

Thank you for the suggestion, I will be happy to pass this along as a feature request.

There’s a way for the TV audio to come out to the surrounds speaker as if they’re regular speakers.

However, this involves removing the surround speakers and group the two speakers to the Home Theater speaker in the app. (Home Theater speaker needs to be selected first)

After that, any audio from the Home Theater speaker will come out to the Two speakers as regular audio.

However, having this feature in the Home Theater setup already will be nice to have. So I’ll pass this along for our Engineers to look at. 

If you have other concerns, feel free to reach out. The community will be here to help.

Userlevel 1

Hi @Justnoah, welcome to the community.

Thank you for the suggestion, I will be happy to pass this along as a feature request.

There’s a way for the TV audio to come out to the surrounds speaker as if they’re regular speakers.

However, this involves removing the surround speakers and group the two speakers to the Home Theater speaker in the app. (Home Theater speaker needs to be selected first)

After that, any audio from the Home Theater speaker will come out to the Two speakers as regular audio.

 

Thanks Kyle!  The solution proposed does work from the sense of arriving at a place where your TV audio will come out of the rear speakers, but this then prevents you from using your speakers for a true surround setup as intended for content that is in 5.1 -- so the ability to switch, temporarily, to a full setting (like happens when you play music from the sonos app to that room) and not destroy your surround setup would be great.  

Hi @Justnoah, welcome to the community.

Thank you for the suggestion, I will be happy to pass this along as a feature request.

There’s a way for the TV audio to come out to the surrounds speaker as if they’re regular speakers.

However, this involves removing the surround speakers and group the two speakers to the Home Theater speaker in the app. (Home Theater speaker needs to be selected first)

After that, any audio from the Home Theater speaker will come out to the Two speakers as regular audio.

 

Thanks Kyle!  The solution proposed does work from the sense of arriving at a place where your TV audio will come out of the rear speakers, but this then prevents you from using your speakers for a true surround setup as intended for content that is in 5.1 -- so the ability to switch, temporarily, to a full setting (like happens when you play music from the sonos app to that room) and not destroy your surround setup would be great.  

Does the ‘TV Level’ slider bar not do what you are looking for? It’s located in the Sonos App “Settings/System/[Home Theatre Room Name]/Sound/Surround Audio” … just slide the bar over to the right to shift the TV audio to it’s rear surrounds. The EQ balance control will also shift the audio between left and right.

This is a request that come up fairly regularly, not just for music, but for those with hearing issues for regular TV content.  I think for this feature to work well, it needs to be a easily accessible toggle, not just something buried in the configuration.  It would nice if you could long press the play/pause button, or something like that,  to switch between HT audio mode and stereo mode.  I realize the long press is already used for grouping/ungrouping, but perhaps the functionality changes when currently playing TV audio, you configure long press functionality, or some other button combination.

Hi @Justnoah, welcome to the community.

Thank you for the suggestion, I will be happy to pass this along as a feature request.

There’s a way for the TV audio to come out to the surrounds speaker as if they’re regular speakers.

However, this involves removing the surround speakers and group the two speakers to the Home Theater speaker in the app. (Home Theater speaker needs to be selected first)

After that, any audio from the Home Theater speaker will come out to the Two speakers as regular audio.

 

Thanks Kyle!  The solution proposed does work from the sense of arriving at a place where your TV audio will come out of the rear speakers, but this then prevents you from using your speakers for a true surround setup as intended for content that is in 5.1 -- so the ability to switch, temporarily, to a full setting (like happens when you play music from the sonos app to that room) and not destroy your surround setup would be great.  

Does the ‘TV Level’ slider bar not do what you are looking for? It’s located in the Sonos App “Settings/System/[Home Theatre Room Name]/Sound/Surround Audio” … just slide the bar over to the right to shift the TV audio to it’s rear surrounds. The EQ balance control will also shift the audio between left and right.

 

I believe that is just volume of the surround channels.  It does change rear audio channel to play the same audio as the front channels.

Userlevel 1

 

Does the ‘TV Level’ slider bar not do what you are looking for? It’s located in the Sonos App “Settings/System/[Home Theatre Room Name]/Sound/Surround Audio” … just slide the bar over to the right to shift the TV audio to it’s rear surrounds. The EQ balance control will also shift the audio between left and right.

 

This doesn’t help when the content coming into the Sonos is 2 channel stereo -- you can crank the volume on the rear surrounds but they still have nothing coming out (and then when you watch a movie with 5.1 audio, the whole system is out of whack).  

Userlevel 4
Badge +12

This is a request that come up fairly regularly, not just for music, but for those with hearing issues for regular TV content.  I think for this feature to work well, it needs to be a easily accessible toggle, not just something buried in the configuration.  It would nice if you could long press the play/pause button, or something like that,  to switch between HT audio mode and stereo mode.  I realize the long press is already used for grouping/ungrouping, but perhaps the functionality changes when currently playing TV audio, you configure long press functionality, or some other button combination.

Hi @melvimbe, thank you for the inputs.

Agreed, that having the surround audio setting as a quick access toggle rather than being buried in the settings is ideal.

Also, the Full setting to work with the TV audio not just Ambient would be nice.

For the button combinations, the infinity button or join button already has multiple uses;

mostly relegated to adding, setting up a Home theater, troubleshooting, and button processes like Factory Reset and LED diagnostic. 

Also, mostly Sonos products only have one function button. Having button combinations might have conflicts with other functions mentioned.

Anyway, I’ll pass along the inputs and our Engineers will decide what they’ll put into the system. 

 

@Justnoah, you’re welcome, if you have other concerns, feel free to reach out. The community is here to help.