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rossveitch_2
Contributor I
November 9, 2019

Sonos Playbar + NVIDIA Shield TV Pro 2019 = Dolby Digital 5.1 from Plex / Netflix / Prime Video / Kodi apps

[ X-posted from /r/sonos forum on Reddit ]

 

I'm a long suffering Sonos Playbar owner who has wasted a lot of time and money trying to get 5.1 surround sound working from my Nvidia Shield TV 2015 edition. From the number of posts on the Sonos and Nvidia user forums I'm clearly not alone.

Last week I picked up the new Nvidia Shield TV Pro 2019 and I'm happy to report that the Sonos is now seeing DD 5.1 from all of the sources I mentioned above. This is confirmed both by my ears but also via the Sonos mobile app > System > About My System > Playbar TV > "Audio In: Dolby Digital 5.1"

My hardware setup: Nvidia Shield TV Pro 2019 : HDMI Out --> HDMI In : Samsung TV UA65F9000AKXXS : Optical Audio Out --> Optical Audio in : Sonos Playbar

The new Shield TV Pro 2019 has new audio settings that the old model didn't and it is handling the conversion of pretty much any surround sound format into whatever audio formats the connected device can support, which for the Playbar is just AC3 (Dolby Digital). For me this just worked out of the box for the Netflix and Prime Video apps and with a few audio settings changes for Plex and Kodi.

Shield TV > Settings > Device Preferences > Display & Sounds > Advanced Sound Controls > Available formats:

  • Auto: Use the formats your audio device reports supporting (recommended)

  • Manual: Select which formats to use

  • None: Never use surround sound

I'm using the default "Auto" selection but if you select manual then you can toggle these options:

  • Dolby Atmos

  • Dolby MAT

  • AC3 (Dolby Digital)

  • E-AC3 (Dolby Digital Plus/DD+)

  • DTS

  • DTS-HD

  • AAC

  • Dolby TrueHD

Source Android TV app audio settings:

  • Plex - Username > Settings > Advanced > Passthrough: HDMI

  • Netflix - defaults

  • Amazon Prime Video - defaults

  • Kodi - System > System > Audio > Audio Decoder > Number of channels: 5.1

  • Kodi - System > System > Audio > Audio Passthrough > Allow passthrough [On]

The new Shield TV remote is also able to control the volume on the Playbar via the IR blaster built in to the remote and the setup for that was also straight forward.

If the Nvidia marketing team happens to read this you would be well served by making all of the above explicit in your product marketing materials because elegantly handling conversion of surround sound formats is a significant USP for this device.

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    23 replies

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    JamesDan
    JamesDan
    Prominent Collaborator I
    September 29, 2020

    Any more help with this? I really do regret buying into Sonos because of this!

     

    I also found out that when playing content on Prime Video, it plays out of the back speakers, but the Sonos app shows Stereo 2.0.

    Playing Netflix etc. on the TV itself never plays in 5.1. Only ever stereo 2.0.

    Subruti
    Lyricist I
    November 19, 2020

    Just got my Arc today and spent ages trying to get the 2015 shield to work. Thanks for this got a 2019 shield on the way.

    JamesDan
    JamesDan
    Prominent Collaborator I
    November 19, 2020

    Just got my Arc today and spent ages trying to get the 2015 shield to work. Thanks for this got a 2019 shield on the way.

    Great choice, I hope you got the pro version instead of the tube. 
    In case anyone’s interested, I managed to get 5.1 working with Netflix; the problem was in fact Netflix and not any of my Sonos devices. I’m a native living in Germany so I have a German Netflix account but watch content in English. Lots of content marked as ‘5.1’ actually only supports 5.1 in German, but not in the English language. What I did in the end was use a VPN to access American Netflix where content is thankfully available in 5.1.

    The point I’m trying to make is that the SHIELD is a great choice in combination with Sonos speakers. There’s no settings that need to be changed on the SHIELD itself, everything works right out of the box (which is to be expected from a streaming device with a higher price tag).

    Hope you enjoy your purchase!

     

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