I picked up a Mi Box at the local Wal-Mart and hooked it up via HDMI to my Harman Kardon receiver. So far I get perfect DTS and Dolby pass-through in SPMC, but nothing else I have tried gives anything but two channel audio. My audio options are HDMI, SPDIF or Auto (which chooses PCM). Is there something I'm missing here, or do Netflix, Hulu and others just not pass-through Dolby?
I have my Shield hooked into my Sony Android TV and then out to my receiver through ARC and I can get surround sound through Plex and SPMC but have not been able to get it though Netflix. I used to switch my Shield between being connected directly to the TV and through the receiver but now I just use the apps that are built into the TV when I need surround sound.
Does your receiver support Dolby Digital Plus? Netflix does surround sound on mine but it comes out as DD+
I currently have a 2nd gen Fire TV and an OpenELEC PC on the same receiver. The Fire TV lights up my receiver with Dolby Digital Plus for Netflix, Prime video, etc. The OpenELEC PC passes through DTS HD Master Audio and Dolby TrueHD or Atmos.
If the apps on the Mi Box are supposed to handle DD+, is it possible that the box just isn't properly detecting support on the receiver? I just assumed that my audio output settings should be HDMI, as 'auto' just says PCM in the Android UI; maybe I need to try 'auto' and see if it switches on Netflix to DD+? The plan was to move the fire into another room and use the Mi on the receiver as I watch hardly any of the Amazon content anyways.
Thank you very much for the replies, as I now know for sure that the Mi SHOULD pass through Dolby Plus.
Okay, so I tried every combination possible and under Auto it always shows PCM. Netflix on my Fire TV, same HDMI cable, shows 5.1 and outputs DD+. On the Mi Box, Netflix does not, just HD with no 5.1. In all cases, SPMC passes through Dolby and DTS just fine.
Is it possibly a hardware defect, or is it possible a firmware update can fix this? Is anyone else out there seeing the same issue?
Thanks in advance.
I was dealing with this same issue today, I tried every combo possible and I cant get any DTS from my receiver unless I force passthrough with SPMC. I had movie files on a usb drive and using other apps like vlc, I was not able to get it to register as anything other than PCM 2.0. I had one dolby digital movie that passed through correctly, but everything else that was DTS, DTS-HD, or AAC 5.1 would only register as PCM 2.0. My MiBox audio settings detect it as HDMI Passthrough, I also tried manually setting it to HDMI, but I got the same results no matter what. It's got the capability, but the only way I can get it is to force passthrough with SPMC. I hope someone will be able to figure it out.