Hacker News Reader

Comment by flacebo | Hacker News Reader

I'm using a 2.1 system so this shouldn't affect me, but sadly it does. Lately, even very expensive TV's lack DTS codecs, so playing movies from a DLNA server is not viable anymore, unless you re-encode every audio track. I understand the reasoning, they do not have to care about playing ripped movies on their devices, but I think the $2000 price tag could probably include the DTS license.

View on HN

Multichannel audio when you try to use official means is so awful that it makes me laugh. It's like they don't want you using it considering the amount of hoops you have to hop through.

From personal experience you might encounter how:

* Your PC is not "certified"

* You haven't installed some (potentially paid) extension

* You have the extension but it isn't picked up by the streaming service

* Your streaming service doesn't support your OS

* Your media player can't do passtrough

* Your media player can do passtrough but nothing else on your system can (e.g. games)

* Your soundcard manufacturer didn't pay for the license to allow the previous point (and your OS's audio stack is too legacy to hack it in)

* Your media player can't downmix properly

* The cable you have is incompatible

* The cable you have is too compatible (causing the wrong output to be picked automatically)

* Your GPU drivers are wrong

* The default sampling rate of your sound card causes occasional crackling

* Your TV can't proxy audio from some inputs to external speakers

* Your TV doesn't recognize some formats from some inputs

* Your TV can't downmix

I *wish* I were kidding, it really is that bad.

In the end you pirate your content and output analog 5.1 straight to the speakers, it's cheaper, easier and significantly more reliable.

It's generally a mess. I have my TV connected to home cinema system via ARC and I need to manually change a setting in the TV to make it output the right format.

The infuriating thing is that the TV _knows_ what format it's dealing with and what it can handle, because when it's showing DTS content and is set to Dolby mode the 'Dolby' is greyed out in the options but DTS is available, and vice versa.

God (e)ARC is awful. I’ve got a Sony OLED, which supports DTS:X and Atmos, and eARC, and a Samsung bar that also supports eARC, and yet neither object-based format will pass through correctly no matter what settings I tweak. Also for some bizarre reason Multichannel PCM from the PS5 gets really weird level anomalies when it’s set to 7.1, but 5.1 is fine. It does work with a Denon AVR with eARC, but unfortunately full speaker-based Atmos isn’t happening in the room I’ve got available.

tl;dr eARC is terrible, whether by the nature of the standard, or by inconsistent/broken implementation of the standard

For the stuff that matters, I had to connect to my receiver then to the TV. It doesn’t help that DTS isn’t supported by my TV (LG-CX). I have a Denon AVR as well.

So basically, almost everything goes through the receiver: nvidia shield, Blu-ray player. But then again, I paid through the nose for it.

It makes more sense to me that the sound capable device is better at figuring out the audio stuff. Which means the ports to a sound bar/receiver is a real consideration.

Haven’t figured out PC audio to my receiver though. I’ve basically given up.

> Haven’t figured out PC audio to my receiver though. I’ve basically given up.

While most motherboards do not have s/pdif connectors, most of them has pins on the board itself. Check out the manual of your mobo. If it has, you can use an s/pdif backplate, or a makeshift coax cable to hook it up to the receiver.

This is usually the best and cheapest way to get clear digital sound signal out of the PC case, and you can even pass through DTS and the likes.

S/PDIF sucks all the asses out there due to terrible software support.

The source of the content you want to watch has to have support for it, the support has to actually work and it has to have a compatible audio track (or be able and willing to convert). Right now that means basically no streaming services or games, very select TVs actually output multichannel audio over S/PDIF.

(Gonna ignore the rare possibility that your sound card manufacturer has paid for the license to be able to transcode all audio)

Yeah that’s half the reason I went with Sony over LG, Sony still pays for a DTS license. My favorite part of this whole thing is how Atmos can be either Dolby Digital Plus with metadata, Dolby TrueHD with metadata, or Dolby MAT, which is just a PCM stream with metadata. The latter being what Xbox and Apple TV use.

Also yes, from what I’ve read trying to get PC audio into an AVR in any sort of predictable fashion will drive you to an asylum.

For PC audio into an AVR I have a fake HDMI second screen set to clone the main monitor. Sometimes vsync chooses the HDMI port at 60Hz instead of my main monitor at 120Hz, but for the most part it works.

That’s a TV problem, and most manufacturers still just treat them like car radios and develop a generic UI, which they’ll rarely update, and Android thrown in for convenience

TVs are terrible for handling audio. Either internally or via ARC/eARC. Not only in terms of codecs but also sync, surround, etc.

You best bet is buying a dedicated HT receiver and plugging your video sources into it (ATV, Nvidia, BluRay, etc).

It's worth noting the ATV does not have HDMI audio passthrough and the latest version has a ton of issues with Atmos:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253553714

https://www.martinloganowners.com/threads/2021-new-gen-apple...

My left/right analog signal cable pair topology has been going strong for decades.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com