Hi Folks,
I’ve done a bit of searching and I can see some people opt for splitting HDMI into Optical with an external device. I have a television that will allow for Optical Audio out. I was wondering if anyone had experience using this method to get their Pi audio connected to a surround sound system with optical? My surround sound is Dolby Digital and DTS compatible, but I have no HDMI input. I have played around a bit already and so far haven’t been able to get any audio out on my speakers. Though to be honest, I haven’t tried anything other than my R-Pi with this setup. I will check another device to see if it can pass the HDMI audio out through the TV. If that works, then I’d appreciate any support from this forum to get the Pi working.
What your TV will output via optical out depends entirely on the individual TV but I believe that even TV’s that are capable of outputting Dolby Digital and DTS over optical will typically only do so from their built in Tuner, and will only output a 2 channel downmix in stereo PCM from any HDMI source regardless of whether the HDMI source is Dolby Digital / DTS. (Eg they can’t pass through Dolby Digital DTS received on an HDMI port to SPDIF)
So in that case the external splitter may be the best option.
DTS passthrough from TV through optical out is rarely supported.
Dolby Digital (AC3) is more commonly supported (but not always). See:
Note: if AC3 is supported, Kodi can transcode DTS (and other formats) to AC3 for multichannel audio.
(This really needs a Pi2 - Pi1 struggles with the CPU required for this).
I have an LG tv and the raspberry is connected to one of its hdmi ports.
It passes the ac3 and dts streams through to my receiver via optical out just fine.
My tv has a helpful built in menu/guidebook. Something new you learn while searching for features, I suppose. Under my advanced features, Anynet+(HDMI-CEC). If the TV is displaying DTV the TV will send out 5.1 channel sound to the reciever. When the source is a digital component such as DVD and connected to TV via HDMI, you will hear only 2 channel sound.
For reference I"ve got a Smart Samsung LED tv. Case anyone else wants to know.
Make sure settings level is on advanced.
In system/audio settings, set “number of channels” to 2. Enable AC3 passthough, and disable DTS passthough. Enable AC3 transcoding.
@popcornmix
My settings were correct except I needed to set decoding method to software/not hardware under Video - Acceleration. After further tinkering I found that I could select hardware acceleration as well. Encoding only took place when OMXPlayer hardware acceleration was disabled.
I have set this setting now and, for example, a DTS file is re encoded to 5.1. Only problem is that Kodi crashes after having played the file. Keep getting the face over and over…
Correction: Kodi boot loop may have been a one off. Will monitor and report if it occurs again.
What settings would you recommend for the Pi2?
I have set:
Decided to get an external splitter for the audio passthrough. Simple thing from amazon cost 20 Euros. Works great so far, only thing I’ve noticed is that home screen sounds only kick when you scroll through movies and hold down the button. Otherwise single clicks will not register sound, not life altering, and probably related to a setting. Just wanted to give a heads up on the “conclusion” for me.
Device Name/Description: Familymall™ 5.1CH HDMI Audio Extractor / Audio Splitter Konverter HDMI zu HDMI + SPDIF + RCA L / R mit HDMI+ Audio Output RCA Analog.
dvdplayer/mmal has been substantially rewritten for Isenguard (and is actually the default on Pi2), so it would be good to know if your problem still occurs with a nightly build. (Not sure if there’s an easy way of doing this with OSMC).
If you provide a sample file I could check if it plays well with latest dvdplayer/mmal.
There are a number of tools out there that let you cut a small sample from a video without re-encoding the audio or video - use one of these to make a sample file from the problematic file and verify that the sample also exhibits the problem.
If decoding method is set to software, MMAL is disabled by default and the video plays without buffering/jerkiness.
Edit: My HTC One M7 takes videos in mp4 format. Currently set to record in HD. RPi2 struggles playing video via DLNA with hardware encoding and above setting. I need to set OMXPLayer and MMAL to disable for it to stream without buffering.
I can supply a video file from my phone as well if required.
I’ve just tried your sample on an Isenguard build and it plays smooth with MMAL.
I’m happy to test the mp4 file from your phone if you’d like.
Isenguard is coming soon (it’s at second beta in kodi tree), so this won’t be fixed for Helix, but I want to test as much as possible with Isenguard code.
face over and over…