Question

will I get 5.1 from my T.V. to my surround?

  • 10 March 2018
  • 3 replies
  • 3573 views

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I have a Samsung series 8 TV 65" curve. I connected it to my Play bar with the optical connection and the sound is very nice. I added a sub recently and that took the sound to a very nice level. However, the sound bar isn't like a true 3.1 system where you get distinct sounds going to different speakers. Maybe, because the sound bar don't cover the distance that true 3.1 would cover from left, right and center speakers. I checked and the output from my TV has PCM, DTS Neo 2.5 and Dolby Digital. However, Dolby Digital is in the pull down list on my TV, but is grey out and not select able. I have PCM selected now. My quest is if I added two play ones to complete my 5.1 setup, well they behave more like a true 5.1 or more like adding two more speakers in stereo?

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3 replies

Userlevel 7
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Needs to be Dolby Digital. Some have said the option is only selectable when DD 5.1 is actually playing at the same time so worth a try!.

5.1 does sound better than PCM.

Blu-ray wise you'll need a player that can downmix DTS to Dolby Digital, I use a Samsung BD-F6500.
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I will check to see if mind is. My BR player is a 4k player so I suspect it is 5.1 DD output
Userlevel 7
Badge +21
Even if you left it at PCM, the rear speakers will actually function more like rear speakers than stereo... but while Sonos' audio processing for simulating surround sound from a stereo audio signal is good, it's not perfect. Switching to DD on the TV would be best.

I have an 8-series flat 4K TV (from 2016 if it matters)... Per Samsung's documentation (yeah, I'm "that guy" that actually dug for the full documentation on their website), the TV needs to be playing DD audio in order to select DD as the audio output.

If you also have a Samsung 4K Blu-Ray player, it will also convert outgoing audio to Dolby Digital once the correct setting is chosen in the settings for the Blu-Ray player. Note that that applies only to Blu-Ray and 4K Blu-Ray movies... apparently DVD movies don't get converted according to Samsung's documentation. Samsung's regular HD Blu-Ray players have the same functionality too.