Prodigy I

Answered

Surprised & puzzled - DTS converts to Dolby Digital 5.1 in my Beam setup!

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
May 10, 2020
26 replies
6403 views

It’s well known in these circles that the Beam, Playbar and Playbase won’t play DTS soundtracks, and the best we can hope for in this situation is a down-mixed stereo output. I’ve also read that Blu-ray players that convert DTS to DD on the fly are like hens teeth - the lists I’ve seen a contain a few Samsung and Oppo players only.

So, how come I’m getting DD5.1 out of my Beam (reported by the app, and by my ears) from plain DTS and DTS-HD Master Audio soundtracks?

My setup is:

Sony UBP-M800 Mk2 UHD bluray player
Sony AG9 TV
Beam connected via the TV’s eARC connection
Sub and Play:1 rears bonded to Beam

There’s no fancy trickery or other boxes, switches, etc. It’s simply bluray player to TV to Beam, all via HDMI.

To get sound from the Beam, I had to make one change to the M800’s audio settings: “Digital Audio Output” = PCM. The other option (“Auto” = bitstream in most cases I believe) gives silence. All other audio settings on the player (and there aren’t many) are at the default. None of them appear to relate to transcoding audio formats.

The result, as reported from the player’s display and by the Sonos app:

DVD or BluRay soundtrack: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 48kHz, or DTS 5.1 48kHx
Blu-ray player output via HDMI = “LPCM 5.1Ch 48kHz”
Sonos app reports Beam is receiving “Dolby Digital 5.1”

What’s going on here? I’ve tested this on several discs, 4K and standard bluray, with the same results.

Have I misunderstood the problem everyone else is talking about? Or have I struck lucky with the Sony M800 Mk2?

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Best answer by Airgetlam

It’s a function of HDMI CEC. The Sonos reports two things to the hub, your TV, one is that it is a speaker, and the other that it handles two codecs, stereo and Dolby Digital. The HDMI CEC hub in the TV then sends the acceptable codecs to all source devices. Assuming the source device is HDMI CEC compliant, it then adjusts itself to only send a Dolby Digital or stereo signal along to the hub, which then forwards that to the speaker.

There are some devices that can accept an HDMI CEC command even when the option isn’t available in the options shown to the user in the audio settings for the device.

Unfortunately, there are some hubs (TVs) and sources that either didn’t properly implement HDMI CEC, at least in the first attempt, which is why you frequently see suggestions for people to download new software for the TV, as well as a reboot process in case something has gone awry. Unfortunately, chances of software updates tend to be slimmer on source devices, but these updates should be applied where possible.

Unfortunately, it’s frequently the receiver/speaker that gets the blame, when it is most often something upstream. To my knowledge, to date, Sonos has not needed to update their relatively tangential implementation of HDMI CEC. It has almost always been an implementation issue in the HDMI CEC hub, built in to the TV set. There have been a handful of issues with source devices, but since that’s significantly upstream from the Sonos, it’s really much harder to define from the end point, the Sonos.

Show previous replies

A

alexfirth91

Contributor I

@alexfirth91 did you change the settings on the TV or on the Blu-ray player? I also have a C9 and a Panasonic 820, and when I play a DTS Blu-Ray I get silence. I have been able to work around it by using my Xbox, but that defeats the purpose of why I bought the Panasonic. Seems I have to choose between Dolby vision or DTS until Sonos does a firmware update.

I changed the settings on the player. I’ll post exactly what I did.

Dynamic Range Compression: Auto

Optical down sampling: up to 192kHz

Downmix: Surround encoded

HDMI output settings of music playback: normal

Digital Audio Output: Dolby Audio = Bitstream

DTS/DTS-HD = PCM

BD-Secondary Audio = off

For the High Clarity Sound settings: output selection of video playback : Audio Output = Auto

Output selection of audio playback = auto

I also have in the main audio settings “Analog Audio Output” = Off

S

Silverthorn

Prodigy II

It’s well known in these circles that the Beam, Playbar and Playbase won’t play DTS soundtracks, and the best we can hope for in this situation is a down-mixed stereo output. I’ve also read that Blu-ray players that convert DTS to DD on the fly are like hens teeth - the lists I’ve seen a contain a few Samsung and Oppo players only.

So, how come I’m getting DD5.1 out of my Beam (reported by the app, and by my ears) from plain DTS and DTS-HD Master Audio soundtracks?

My setup is:

Sony UBP-M800 Mk2 UHD bluray player
Sony AG9 TV
Beam connected via the TV’s eARC connection
Sub and Play:1 rears bonded to Beam

There’s no fancy trickery or other boxes, switches, etc. It’s simply bluray player to TV to Beam, all via HDMI.

To get sound from the Beam, I had to make one change to the M800’s audio settings: “Digital Audio Output” = PCM. The other option (“Auto” = bitstream in most cases I believe) gives silence. All other audio settings on the player (and there aren’t many) are at the default. None of them appear to relate to transcoding audio formats.

The result, as reported from the player’s display and by the Sonos app:

DVD or BluRay soundtrack: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 48kHz, or DTS 5.1 48kHx
Blu-ray player output via HDMI = “LPCM 5.1Ch 48kHz”
Sonos app reports Beam is receiving “Dolby Digital 5.1”

What’s going on here? I’ve tested this on several discs, 4K and standard bluray, with the same results.

Have I misunderstood the problem everyone else is talking about? Or have I struck lucky with the Sony M800 Mk2?

The fact you have a Sony TV and player most likely helps. All three devices are talking to each other would be my guess and sorting out the issue.

With my setup I had the player setup wrong but the TV and player gave me stereo on my Playbase anyway. Didn't realise until I looked into all the details of how these things work.

"I saw the Stooges and the MC5"

C

ChrisMann

Lyricist I

I’m late to the party on this one, but perhaps my experience may be of use…

I recently bought a Sonos Beam (fell prey to Black Friday temptation!), having read and watched quite a few reviews that sang its praises.

But none of them mentioned the lack of DTS compatibility, and I didn’t think to check up on it before buying. :rolling_eyes:

So with my Samsung 4K TV and Sony X700 4K UHD player, Dolby Digital was working through the Beam but DTS audio didn’t.

I found this thread while searching for an answer. Anyway, having read that some older Blu-ray players can convert DTS to Dolby Digital, I remembered I still had my old Sony BDP-S3700 Blu-ray player, which I used prior to buying the X-700 4K player.

So I dug it out and connected it up to the TV, and delved into its menu (System Settings/ Audio Settings / Dolby D Compatible Out) and enabled the DTS-Dolby conversion, and hey presto it works - the Sonos app now reports that the Beam is receiving a Dolby Digital 5.1 signal!

So, if you have a collection of Blu-ray disks that only have DTS audio and would like to get surround sound off them, it could be worth hunting down a used or refurbished BDP-S3700 on eBay.

Mine is a unit that’s been region-hacked by a company in Croydon, UK, so I can also play region-coded BD and DVD disks from the US, of which I have a collection.

At the time of writing, the company I bought mine from are still selling them, for £149:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Sony-BDP-S3700-WiFi-MULTI-REGION-ALL-REGIONS-Free-ABC-DVD-1-8-Blu-Ray-Player-Nb/274571111098?hash=item3fedb6aaba:g:q0YAAOSw6Spe2n-F

As my Samsung TV only has two HDMI inputs (one of which is used for the Sonos Beam) I just have to swap the HDMI cable between the two players when I want to watch a DTS Blu-ray disk - not too big a deal.

Hope that helps somebody!

B

BrundeFly

Lyricist I

Very curious to find this thread, all my research thus far has indicated that Beam can only output stereo PCM from players that do not convert DTS on the fly ie: Xbox Series X, PS5 or the old Samsung/Oppo Players.

Have an LG B9 and am every interested in investing in either the Sony UBP-M800 Mk2 or the Panasonic DP-UB820 but was worried about missing out on 5.1 for all DTS based discs.

Can anyone confirm that similar results could be achieved with the B9? @alexfirth91@Withanee have you experienced any inconsistencies/issues since?

If it’s a matter of changing audio settings on the players Sonos needs to start communicating this ASAP, as the rest of the internet is under the assumption there is no hope for consistent 5.1 across all discs with the Beam.

Thanks!

C

c3k

Lyricist I

After investing in a Beam and 2*SLs on the black Friday deal to go with my new Sony 55HX9505 I became one of the large number of people to find themselves very disappointed not to be able to enjoy surround sound from my BD collection. My Sony (non-4k) BD player could output sound in PCM so at least I could get Dolby Digital 2.0 with which the Beam did attempt to produce some surround content but which wasn’t terribly convincing.

I’ve decided to upgrade by BD player to a Sony UBP-X800 M2 and after two small adjustments on the sound settings I can confirm I am getting Dolby 5.1 on the 3 discs I have tried so far - LeMans 66 (7.1 soundtrack), Apollo 11 (DTS soundtrack) and Master and Commander (DTS Soundtrack).

Settings here:

As a result of this purchase (£280 from Amazon.co.uk - prices seems to be creeping up post Brexit) I am a very happy. Hope this information helps others who find themselves in a similar position to myself.

Mike H

Retired Sonos Staff

We appear to be wandering off from the original topic, we are closing this thread.

If you need further assistance, please create a new topic.

However, as we are talking about home theater audio formats, I suggest looking through our Supported home theater audio formats for further information.

Thanks for your contributions to this topic.

Mike H.

How we survive is what makes us who we are - Rise Against

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