Oreo: DTS passthrough definitively dead?

[Jecht_Sin]

In Android 7.0 DTS passthrough was working at least with Sony's Video app. Now all I get in my AVR from it and also Plex is no audio signal at all. What happened, instead of fixing it they removed DTS passthrough definitively?

UPDATE: Actually it is much worse than that. I tried few videos with HiRes audio (Dolby True HD and DTS HD MA) and I get no audio from my AVR. If I select the speakers the videos with TrueHD have the audio heavily stuttering. DTS doesn't play at all.

[stormyuk]

A couple of questions I have as I am curious.

1. Is it just DTS or does it affect DD too?

2. Is it HDMI only or Optical too?

3. Is it only when "audio system" is selected via menu or if "TV speakers" is picked too?

This is probably the key reason I have not upgraded as I need 5.1 passthrough via Optical from the internal video app..

[Kuschelmonschter]

Situation is as follows...

With Oreo, Sony introduced API support for DTS and DTS-HD (DTS Core only for ARC and S/PDIF). That hasn't been the case in Nougat and before. The Video app used some private APIs which worked. The new APIs however do not work. When using them, you either get silence in the best case, or in the worst case it breaks something along the A/V pipeline, requiring you to restart the TV to get proper media playback working again.

I found several workarounds:

- disable passthrough

- disable passthrough for DTS formats if separate settings exist (e.g. Kodi)

- switch digital audio output  format to PCM

- switch audio output to TV speakers

So question is why does Sony introduce new APIs and leave them broken? It is indeed worse now as the BRAVIA pretends to support DTS publicly which breaks Plex support for example which previously transcoded DTS to DD but now thinks that the TV can actually do DTS... while it can't...

[Kuschelmonschter]

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@stormyuk  schrieb:

1. Is it just DTS or does it affect DD too?

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DTS only. However, when trying to output DTS, media playback might break entirely, requiring you to reboot the TV to get it working again.

2. Is it HDMI only or Optical too?

Both.

3. Is it only when "audio system" is selected via menu or if "TV speakers" is picked too?

Workarounds already discussed in the above posting.

[stormyuk]

Thanks for the info, think I will still not upgrade then.

[Jecht_Sin]

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@Kuschelmonschter wrote:

Situation is as follows...

With Oreo, Sony introduced API support for DTS and DTS-HD (DTS Core only for ARC and S/PDIF). That hasn't been the case in Nougat and before. The Video app used some private APIs which worked. The new APIs however do not work. When using them, you either get silence in the best case, or in the worst case it breaks something along the A/V pipeline, requiring you to restart the TV to get proper media playback working again.

I found several workarounds:

- disable passthrough

- switch digital audio output  format to PCM

Sorry, how? In Video or general settings, I mean. Not sure I have ever seen the options.

- disable passthrough for DTS formats if separate settings exist (e.g. Kodi)

That one was working fine, I remember! 

- switch audio output to TV speakers

Not working, as I wrote in the update. It heavily stutters with TrueHD audio. I mean, I just briefly tested it, out of curiosity to see if it was finally fixed and it seems worse than before

So question is why does Sony introduce new APIs and leave them broken?

My question is why Sony doesnt give us the option to get a rid of Android TV and replace it with a thinnier OS (like the one of the XE70), obviously including a fully working YouTube app (with HDR and BT.2020 included) which is all I need as smart part of my TV at this point. Unless they fixed Android TV on the Master Series, sure (but I don't know why, somehow I doubt it).

[Kuschelmonschter]

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@Jecht_Sin  schrieb:

Sorry, how? In Video or general settings, I mean. Not sure I have ever seen the options.

It is somewhere in the BRAVIA's sound options. Don't know it by heart.

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@Jecht_Sin  schrieb:

Not working, as I wrote in the update. It heavily stutters with TrueHD audio.

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Which app? Video? As far as I can remember, it does not support True HD at all, even in case of BD where True HD has an AC3 compatible core. I just get silence in case of the Video app (same as with Nougat). Kodi is able to extract the AC3 core for passthrough and also to decode it to PCM.

The TV does not pretend to support True HD. So it is up to the respective app to decode and output as PCM or extract the AC3 core for passthrough. Nothing broke there. It is still the same as it has always been.

[Kuschelmonschter]

Keep in mind that after having tried DTS passthrough, the BRAVIA might be in a inconsistent state afterwards. So better reboot the TV.

[stormyuk]

PCM output is definatly available as I have played around with the android sound settings (Home, Settings, Sound, Advanced?) because my old AV reciever can sometimes "warble" with DD5.1 Netflix/Amazon and I think its some incompatibility with DD+ which I can't seem to defeat. There is an option to set the output from Compressed to PCM, my AV receiver then just resorts to good old, old Dolby Pro Logic (fake 5.1).

[Kuschelmonschter]

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@stormyuk  schrieb:

because my old AV reciever can sometimes "warble" with DD5.1 Netflix/Amazon and I think its some incompatibility with DD+ which I can't seem to defeat.

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Also in sound option there is this setting for Dolby output. You can set it from DD+ to DD. The BRAVIA is able to extract DD from DD+ and output that to AVRs which can't properly cope with DD+. Doesn't that help?