XBMC 5.1 Dolby, DTS etc soundtracks

[Bobjuana]

Hi, I'm a newbie on the forum so my apologies in advance if my problem is a well known limitation/issue etc.

I've searched the forums to avoid duplicating past queries but cannot find anything related?

I purchased a T8 over Christmas and have it connected to an Onkyo receiver with Droidbox set to HDMI pass through and XBMC set to enable pass through, 5.1 and DTS etc. I can't for the life of me find any 5.1 soundtracks, which seems wrong? What am I doing wrong? Every movie I open only has a 2.0 soundtracks which seems bizarre, as i am assuming some/most movie lovers will be looking for a decent soundtrack to accompany their viewing and I can't identify a way of findings these or is there something I'm missing?

Is my install of XBMC the problem or indeed is it a limitation of the device which I'd be hugely disappointed with given I purchased the "best" box available. I'd really appreciate some help and guidance. I've googled and searched forums but found nothing and I don't find XBMC the most intuitive of platforms/Ui's - one of the reasons I bought a Droidbox for I.e. to take some of the hassle and set-up frustrations away.

Thank you in advance for your help.

Regards

 

[David Savage]

It's hard finding dts sound tracks as the band width, I found some on All Your Streams, also Phoenix repo demon88 and TNPB has 5.1 on 1080 movies also Navix. Good luck

 

[Bobjuana]

Hi David, thank you ever so much for your help. I've had a look at the Pheonix repo and like you said, there's a good few 5.1 soundtracks on there and decent 1080 quality streams. Wasn't immediately outputting 5.1 to my amp, but reset audio settings within XBMC to default and then re-enabled HDMI pass through and immediately my amp started recognising Dolby D. haven't found a DTS soundtrack yet, but I'm greatly encouraged by this. Thanks again.

 

[David Savage]

Hi again, I have my box going to my Oppo blu ray player then my amp. When I 1st got my box on demon88 had a lot of dts sound tracks, but now hardly any since Mashup went. I've found some dtsHD sound tracks on Entertainment (the blue E) on video add-ons, but again very hard to come by. I think it's down to space( takes a lot if band width), plus dts was only at 720p. You can find a lot on NaviX 5.1 and 3d too. Hope you enjoy looking....thanks for the like, much appreciated.

 

[Bobjuana]

Sorry... a quick follow-up. The one file I found which was a Dolby D soundtrack output to my amp as Dolby D. Anything which is listed as a standard 5.1 soundtrack is being output to my amp as 2.0??? I've tinkered with every setting I can find and can't get it to output as 5.1... do you have any idea what I might be doing wrong?

 

[David Savage]

Is your box straight to your amp, if it is I don't think you need pass through on. Also are you using HDMI or optical out. Try going and changing one at a time to see if it works. Mine is set HDMI and no pass through, and works all the time. I have heard that some boxes don't like some amps, mine is a denon. I wonder if we will get Atmos soon...

 

[xbox4life]

Mine was 2.0 on everything until I changed the speaker mode on my Harman Kardon, strange but when I changed that I got 5.1 etc

 

[David Savage]

Hi, most amps have dts neo witch is just 2.0 made into 5.1/7.1 it sounds good but is not pure dts. Also most 5.1 sound tracks are also heavily compressed so it will never be as good as dts orDD on a DVD. It's still better than 2.0...sounds like you've got a nice system. Mine is 6.1 using B&W speakers and sub and sounds great load, just the wife complains abit...

 

[ChrisM]

If you ever want to experiment, I've found https://drive.google.com/a/droidbox.co.uk/file/d/0B4nYAKUiVpepY1NuQW5ER3l3SXc/edit to be very useful. The out of phase test for the speakers works really well, and I'd assume with it being DTS you can also use it to check the amp is identifying it correctly.
I've plugged in an old surround sound amp from the late 90s for some basic testing, but it looks like David has got the proper equipment to test!

 

[Bobjuana]

Hi guys, thank you for your comments on this thread. I've been tied up the last few days and so only just been able to have another look. My setup is a Droidbox T8 running through an Onkyo TX-NR818. I've tried optic and HDMI but 5.1 streams are still showing as 2.0 input into my amp (amp outputting as 5.1 according to whatever setting I'm using, which at the moment is THX Cinema). An example of the situation is going to Pheonix > TNPB > 1080P Movies > Annabelle, this has an Dolby D soundtrack which my amp plays recognising as Dolby D 5.1. Playing Guardians of the Galaxy which appears to have a standard 5.1 soundtrack I.e. Non Dolby D, plays but is only sending 2.0 to my amp? Amp I missing something obvious??? I'd expect to see 5.1 Input aswel as output???? Thanks again for your assistance.

 

[David Savage]

Hi when playing a movie, press ok on the remote go to the speaker icon on the bottom the go to audio output and change it and see what happen. Also you can check audio stream to. Like I said before I've got mine to my oppo 103eu then goes to my denon amp. It pick up all 5.1 tracks and converts all other to dts neo 6.

 

[David Savage]

Have you tryed NaviX, more power (5th from top)movies are mostly dd5.1 and 720/1080p... Enjoy

 

[ChrisM]

Can you double check the speaker count (speaker configuration) is correctly set in XBMC? Only thing I can guess (haven't got anything recent to test with, AV receiver-wise) is if you had 2.0 set, that some audio encoding settings/codecs over ride it and allow surround.

Frodo screenshot, not seen it in Gotham:

 

[Bobjuana]

Right then... I've finally fixed my problem. It took abit of googling and the solution was a little counter intuitive which is why I didn't stumble across it when trying different setting options. Basically I've set the channels in XBMC to 2.0. The explanation I found online was: "I know this seems wrong and sounds confusing but you have to set the channels to 2.0. This is really the number of PCM channels that are supported. SPDIF only supports 2 channel PCM digital audio. AC3 and DTS are audio formats where 5.1 information is compressed into the two channels. The other multi-channel audio formats that are disabled will be decoded to PCM and then compressed into AC3 for your receiver". My amp is now recognising Dolby D 5.1 input from all 5.1 XBMC tracks. Thanks for commenting on this post and helping me to find a resolution.

 

[David Savage]

I'm glad you found a solution, like I've said I've here'd some amps have trouble. But mine aways work and my amp shows me how many channels (audio) going in and on the right going out. I hope I've shown some good movie sources...so just sit back and enjoy.

 

[ChrisM]

@Bobjuana, thanks I've passed the info onto everyone here.

 

[gez18]

Bit late but how I got it to read dd was channels 2.0 optimised enable passthrough click all three n all play even tv in dd 3.2.1


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[David Savage]

Enjoy..