I got a TCL android tv. And it only does 5.1 through Netflix, Amazon, hotstar. Any media player app like vlc, pled, mx, jellyfin - only stereo. These media players all say that they’re playing the 6 channels but the tv isn’t letting them through possibly. But then that doesn’t explain why Netflix and Amazon are let through. This is very frustrating.
It's actually pretty simple.
Your TV can passthrough Dolby formats, but not PCM.
Are you enabling audio passthrough in the Audio Settings of VLC? You have to enable passthrough in the player AND in the TV, not only in the TV. Only very high end TVs would reencode any audio to DD or DTS, the rest would either passthrough to the Soundbar or just play stereo. If VLC is sending LPCM then the TV will play just PCM which is stereo.
I personally use Kodi and never had a problem with passthrough.
Check your media file. Maybe your TV can passthrough only Dolby/Dts audio
Since you're using media rips, what audio format are they? What's the TV model