Solving the 5.1, DTS issues with the Playbar

I got this setup and it seems to work with Dolby true hd conversion to Dolby 5.1. Playing ironman 1 with output from the player set to bitstream reencoded Dolby 5.1 on setting about my system it indicates i am getting Dolby 5.1. I have an hdmi running from the player to the tv and an optical cable running to the playbar. I don't have a dts disk to test but I will look for one. The manual indicates it will do dts as well. Will post when I try it.

Follow up to my earlier post. I just tested my setup with the Bourne identity using dts-hd and can confirm i am getting Dolby 5.1 into the playbar. I previously tested it and got the same with Dolby truehd. Setup is as follows: Samsung bd-f5900 with hdmi into a Samsung c630 TV. Optical cable fom the blu ray player to a $10 monoprice toslink switch from amazon into the playbar. Using playbar, sub, and 2 play1s for rear speakers. This is a $95 player at Walmart, a lot less expensive than the $500 oppo player discussed as another solution elsewhere in this forum. Hope this helps.

I was wondering if this would solve all the 5.1 Surround problems (DTS) for the Sonos Playbar:

The Hama HDMI Audio Splitter:
you find it on the Conrad site and it cost 69,99 euro.

Anyone got some experience with this product?
Iam curious about it..

Answerd at the dutch forum.

Audio output. PCM192 for those movies that dont have a 5.1 DD option.

Racin929, or anyone else. I just purchased an Oppo 103 and tried the suggestion above. I still cannot get 5.1 DD from the movie "Moon" which only has a DTS track. What are the other settings that I need? Thanks much.

--Orccro

Follow up to my earlier post. I just tested my setup with the Bourne identity using dts-hd and can confirm i am getting Dolby 5.1 into the playbar. I previously tested it and got the same with Dolby truehd. Setup is as follows: Samsung bd-f5900 with hdmi into a Samsung c630 TV. Optical cable fom the blu ray player to a $10 monoprice toslink switch from amazon into the playbar. Using playbar, sub, and 2 play1s for rear speakers. This is a $95 player at Walmart, a lot less expensive than the $500 oppo player discussed as another solution elsewhere in this forum. Hope this helps.

Mr Woofer, quick question, I have an Apple TV and a Sony Bluray. How I accomplish the 5.1 is to get the tosh link and run optical cable from the ATV and the Bluray to the tosh link then to the playbar? What about the tv? Right now I have playbar optical right to tv. Thanks

If anyone is still interested, the Monoprice 7974 performs with mixed results. It WILL convert Dolby TrueHD into Dolby Digital 5.1. It WILL NOT convert (transcode) DTS-HD into Dolby Digital 5.1. It appears that it would convert DTS-HD to DTS 5.1, which is still useless to the Playbar. So, this unit is not a solution to the DTS/Playbar issue.

My setup as tested:

Sony KDL-70R520A TV (which will pass 5.1 through optical, even for HDMI-connected sources)
Sony BDP-N460 Blu-Ray Player
Monoprice 7974

I connected the BDP to the 7974 switch with HDMI. I connected the 7974 to the TV with HDMI. I connected the 7974 to the Playbar with Toslink.

I played the 2009 Star Trek Blu-Ray, which has a Dolby TrueHD track. The 7974 switch was outputting Dolby Digital 5.1 to the Playbar, according to the Sonos app.

I played "The Heat" Blu-Ray, which has a DTS-HD track. The 7974 was outputting an incompatible audio format to the Playbar (likely DTS 5.1).

So, it gave me 5.1 sound from Dolby TrueHD discs, but not from DTS-HD discs. Until Sonos fixes the Playbar to decode DTS, the Monoprice 7974 is only half a solution.

Other notes: The 7974 seemed like a solid unit. The HDMI-CEC worked properly and switched between active inputs with no effort on my part. The ARC function worked properly and passed the Dolby 5.1 to the Playbar from my AppleTV and DirecTV receiver that were connectied directly to the TV. The LEDs on the front are a little bright. Might want to color them over with a marker or something.

If anyone is still interested, the Monoprice 7974 performs with mixed results. It WILL convert Dolby TrueHD into Dolby Digital 5.1. It WILL NOT convert (transcode) DTS-HD into Dolby Digital 5.1. It appears that it would convert DTS-HD to DTS 5.1, which is still useless to the Playbar. So, this unit is not a solution to the DTS/Playbar issue.

My setup as tested:

Sony KDL-70R520A TV (which will pass 5.1 through optical, even for HDMI-connected sources)
Sony BDP-N460 Blu-Ray Player
Monoprice 7974

I connected the BDP to the 7974 switch with HDMI. I connected the 7974 to the TV with HDMI. I connected the 7974 to the Playbar with Toslink.

I played the 2009 Star Trek Blu-Ray, which has a Dolby TrueHD track. The 7974 switch was outputting Dolby Digital 5.1 to the Playbar, according to the Sonos app.

I played "The Heat" Blu-Ray, which has a DTS-HD track. The 7974 was outputting an incompatible audio format to the Playbar (likely DTS 5.1).

So, it gave me 5.1 sound from Dolby TrueHD discs, but not from DTS-HD discs. Until Sonos fixes the Playbar to decode DTS, the Monoprice 7974 is only half a solution.

Other notes: The 7974 seemed like a solid unit. The HDMI-CEC worked properly and switched between active inputs with no effort on my part. The ARC function worked properly and passed the Dolby 5.1 to the Playbar from my AppleTV and DirecTV receiver that were connectied directly to the TV. The LEDs on the front are a little bright. Might want to color them over with a marker or something.

Thanks for the info. Can you tell me if this switch can transcode from dts to dolby 5.1?

Thanks for the info. Can you tell me if this switch can transcode from dts to dolby 5.1?

I can't say for certain, but based on what I've seen, no. I think the switch will downconvert the higher-level formats to their 5.1 versions, but will not transcode between Dolby and DTS formats.

so after 11 months of waiting, the latest response from Sonos at ask.sonos.com to the DTS question is....


....brace yourself....

... is it a 'Yes'...

.... is it a 'No'....

..."John M (Official Rep) about 10 hours ago
Vineet, I do not have an update at this time. You will be notified via email when an update is made to the thread."

wow - after 4 months since the last update, I feel so much better now with that really useful insight into what is going on :rolleyes: