Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 audio is only output as 2.0 - where to start looking?

hellspawn · February 15, 2018 at 8:29 PM

Hi,

I'm using LE 8.2.3 on a Wetek Core which is connected via HDMI to my AVR (Denon AVR 4810).

A while ago I noticed that certain videos with 5.1 audio only playback with 2.0 audio, while others do play as 5.1.

After some digging, it seems that videos that are identified by Kodi as having 5.1 Dolby Digital Plus audio are output as 2.0.

Videos with "standard" Dolby Digital 5.1 audio are output as 5.1 as expected.

Does anyone have an idea why this is the case?

Is there a setting that I can tweak? Is it a limitation of LE? Or the Wetek? The connection? The AVR?

Thanks in advance!

Sebastian

grom_e30 · February 15, 2018 at 8:35 PM

how are you passing the audio? spdif or hdmi?

**codesnake** · February 15, 2018 at 8:40 PM

hellspawn Check you have the "Settings->System->Audio->Dolby Digital Plus (E-AC3) capable receiver" option enabled. It is disabled by default.

hellspawn · February 16, 2018 at 1:46 PM

grom_e30: audio+video is supplied to the AVR over HDMI. I'm not using S/PDIF here.

codesnake: I've seen this setting in a screenshot somewhere, unfortunately it does not show up on my system.

I've set the settings level to "Expert", but I only have the option for "Dolby Digital (AC3) capable receiver" (plus a transcoding sub-option) and "DTS capable receiver".

Sebastian

hellspawn · February 16, 2018 at 5:22 PM

I just launched the Wetek's factory Android-based OS "We OS" and the Kodi v16 app that comes with it.

After enabling audio passthrough and "DD/DTS capable receiver", I tried playing some of the DD+ files that I'm having trouble with.

All played perfectly as 5.1; no trouble at all.

So this rules out any hardware-related issue. It's something in LE or Kodi v17.

Sebastian

**codesnake** · February 17, 2018 at 1:52 AM

hellspawn Try this build, it should fix your issue: MEGA

Please let me know about the results.

jcspamcan · February 17, 2018 at 3:12 AM

In order for my system to work properly with Dolby Digital Plus or EAC I have have LibreElec booted, turn on my stereo for pass-thru ( at this point only regular Dolby works properly. DD+ has 5 or 7 channels but works as pcm audio), and re-boot. Only if I the system is re-booted with the stereo already in pass-thru mode on, will EAC work automatically. The EAC options will not even appear in the systems options until then. I don't have to reset anything. I just have to do the re-boot to get EAC to work properly with pass-thru. I have a Sony stereo, and I don't know if this is a general issue, or just my stereo.

hellspawn · February 17, 2018 at 9:57 AM

codesnake: thanks a lot! That build solved the issue for me!

After updating, the DD+, TrueHD etc. options were shown in the menu and after selecting all of them, DD+ playback now uses all 5.1 channels.

Great!

So where does this leave me with regards to the next official update?

Will this change be merged into the official build?

Sebastian

**codesnake** · February 17, 2018 at 9:29 PM

hellspawn The build I posted uses a workaround rather than a solution for the problem. I hope I'll find a proper solution soon, then we'll include the fix in one of the next releases.

uselesswolf · February 21, 2018 at 2:06 AM

ohh i made the mistake too ive put hdmi as audio device and enabled passthrough (didnt see that under passthrough there are options) and so i searched for a long time xD