TCL Roku TV and Playbar

8 replies
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I know versions of this question may have been asked before, but I have a Playbar and just added two Ones and also just bought a new TV and was excited about having surround sound, but then realized that I just have stereo sound instead. Is there a TV that will push Dolby Digital to the Playbar through the digital optical cable - OR - is there an adapter I can get that - without noticeable loss in sound quality - can get my new TV (TCL Roku) to push Dolby Digital to the Playbar? Like maybe an adapted that goes from the digital optical cable to HDMI into the TV? Really blown away that this is something I now have to worry about with how much money I’ve spent with Sonos.

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W

wds0001

Prodigy I

I have a TCL Roku tv and Dolby Digital goes out just fine to my beam. Go into the tv audio settings and make sure that Dolby Digital is selected. Do not attempt auto, or any other setting than Dolby Digital. Keep in mind that some sources on the tv are simply only presented in stereo.

J

jeseay80Author

Contributor I

I think Beam can handle it, it’s the Playbar that can’t. Checked all that other stuff.

Airgetlam

The Beam and PLAYBAR run the same software. The only difference is the HDMI-ARC connection, which tells the TV which codecs that can be processed/received, and forces the TV to send only Dolby Digital.

Bruce

B

brymck

Lyricist II

I have a TCL Roku tv that, up until an hour ago, was running fine with Dolby DTS selected. Now, the only way the Playbar gets any audio at all is PCM stereo...Dolby Digital doesn't even work. Same setup, 2xplay1 in surround...now with PCM, no surround.

Airgetlam

Odd. It shouldn’t have worked at all with Dolby DTS selected, unless the program was in Dolby Digital itself, and sending that signal through. The TV wouldn’t “up-rez” the signal, it would just pass through what it’s receiving.

I’d certainly recommend that you contact Sonos Support directly to discuss it.

I suggest the phone folks, they have more tools available because they're on the phone with you, but they are only available Monday through Friday during business hours. The Twitter support folks are available 24/7.

Bruce

B

brymck

Lyricist II

Yeah, I thought the same. I was using the Plex app on the Roku and streaming from local Plex server. Some of the media is, I think, DTS encoded. Maybe the TV is not the greatest about actually passing what it says it’s passing, since Dolby Digital 5.1 should work but does not.

I’m going to try rebooting all components (TV, playbar, play:1 rear channels) and see if it fixes it. Unfortunate that the web API reboot apparently doesn’t work any more, as chasing down power cords is annoying.

Airgetlam

Heh. Yea, the reboot was lost when they made some security changes, due to, as I understand it, lots of people leaving their speakers exposed to the world. Those of us who have knowledge sometime have to pay the price to protect those who either don’t know better, or don’t care.

Bruce

B

brymck

Lyricist II

And now, with the only change being a manually assigned DHCP address for the Playbar, everything is working again with Dolby Digital from the TV. Surround from the rear channels, and I noticed that the system wasn’t visible from the Spotify app to send music to, but now it is again.

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