Plex, Shield TV, LG CX, and DTS

by The4Dees

I know this has been talked to death but I don't see any mention of this particular problem.

I have a barrel Shield TV, LG CX and Samsung Q950a sound bar configured like so:

Shileld TV -> LG CX -> Q950a via eARC.

The Shield TV audio settings only have Dolby selected, no DTS since the LG CX doesn't handle DTS or pass it through.

My understanding is that as long as DTS is turned off on the Shield TV any DTS audio should get transcoded to AAC 5.1 and sent through the TV then to soundbar through eARC.

This happens fine if I'm using the native LG WebOS Plex app. DTS sound is transcoded and plays.

With the Shield TV Plex app what I'm experiencing is that if on the TV I have All Settings -> Sound -> Additional Settings -> Digital Sound Out -> Auto the DTS audio is transcoded and played back fine. The problem is that Dolby TrueHD audio suffers from really bad drop-outs.

If the TV is set to All Settings -> Sound -> Additional Settings -> Digital Sound Out -> Passthrough Dolby TrueHD plays back flawlessly through the ShieldTV Plex app. BUT DTS is no longer transcoded and therefore doesn't play any audio track since doesn't handle it.

So it's almost like the Shield TV is still sending the audio to the TV as DTS and not transcoding even though I've told it the TV doesn't handle DTS in the Shield TV audio settings and should be transcoded.

And the TV isn't transcoding it unless All Settings -> Sound -> Additional Settings -> Digital Sound Out -> Auto. But then I get horrible drop-outs with TrueHD.

So:

TV Digital Audio Out set to Auto: Shield TV Plex DTS audio is transcoded and plays fine, terrible TrueHD dropouts

All Settings -> Sound -> Additional Settings -> Digital Sound Out -> Passthrough - Shield TV Plex TrueHD flawless, no audio for DTS tracks.

The LG WebOS Plex app transcodes DTS regardless (unfortunately I lose TrueHD as the CX doesn't do lossless audio).

It's not a BIG deal to switch back to the LG WebOS Plex client to play back DTS but it would be nice to get both DTS AND TrueHD working through the Shield TV Plex app.

I'm not sure if this is a Shield TV or LG CX limitation causing this.

Any suggestions or am I out of luck?

pawdog

Wait a minute can your audio system handle DTS. The TV shouldn't have to be able to do DTS to allow it to pass through via HDMI. What happens when you put the Shield audio back to auto.

Gearfried

I have basically the same setup and have the same issue. I've searched around a lot recently to try and find a solution and have the below. They're not very helpful, sorry.

  1. Get a HDFURY device of some sort to act as an inbetween that will convert the DTS audio to something else. (I think that's what it does, I've just seen it suggested but not looked into it that much)

  2. Convert the media over yourself to something other than DTS.

  3. On the Shield in the Plex app, go to advanced settings and change the HDMI passthrough to Optical which then adds an extra setting where you can disable DTS. Then switch back and forth between Optical and Passthrough as needed. (This is what I'm doing)

  4. Keep on at LG to give the CX models DTS support.