Sony KD-55AF9 4K DTS eARC no sound

[khaeid2]

I am trying to play 4K 2160p video with DTS 7.1 audio from SSD connected to the TV USB using the stock Media Player, audio sent to Marantz amp using eARC.

- No problem with video playback

- Audio starts playing, Marantz show DTS, but after few seconds sound starts to drop out, and then stops, no more sound comes out.

- Tried pause, play, rewind, forward, quit media player and open, change all kind of audio settings, reset audio settings, nothing works, I only get sometimes stereo output when choosing PCM output (other options are Auto1, Auto2)

- Only when I restart the TV, it works for few seconds, then stops again.

- I tried different HDMI cables, some did not pass any audio, others had same problem

-  Tried playing using Kodi, getting different problems, it used to have same DTS problem then stops, today it outputs normal dolby sound from DTS track, and I do not understand how this happens, and when pause or skipp, it gets out of sync, 

I suspect it could be the HDMI cables, I will purchase an Ultra 8K cable and try, but I am not that optimistic.

Any ideas?

[Marino.Manolo]

Have you this last one update?:

https://www.sony.co.uk/electronics/support/oled-tvs-android-a9f_af9-series/kd-55af9/downloads/000164...

AF9 has ARC not eARC... But is Ok for DTS...

Edit: Sorry, AF9 also had eARC, like ZF9... 😏

[kinggo01 · Accepted solution]

no eARC on AF9. And even if there is, eARC does not work for internal/streaming apps. Only as passthrough for external devices, blu ray players and such. In a days when everything goes online, pretty useless feature.

[khaeid2]

Actually my TV do have eARC, and I am trying to use it ass passthrough for audio from internal playback

[khaeid2]

I am trying to download it, but the Firmware I already have on TV is same

[Marino.Manolo]

You don't need of eARC for DTS...

The problem is elsewhere...

[khaeid2]

I read somewhere that normal ARC cannot handle high definition multi-channel pass-through, it can only do 2 channels, only eARC can 

[Marino.Manolo]

Checking if is PCM in [Settings] — [Display & Sound] — [Audio output] — [Digital audio out] and change it...

[kinggo01 · Accepted solution]

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@khaeid2 wrote:

Actually my TV do have eARC, and I am trying to use it ass passthrough for audio from internal playback

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yeah......sorry about that. SONY naming and mess with SoC they used do not help.

Anyway, you can not get any lossless or atmos audio from internal playback (apps). What netflix does is using dolby digital plus for their atmos (which is not real atmos but......) and that is the only way to get atmos from your TV. So for prime or disney or.......... they need to do the same thing as netflix does, it has nothing to do with the rest of your equipment or with SONY.  So it won't work for files from your hard drive no matter what you try because it is a system limitation.

But you can get regular lossy DTS or DD from any lossless audio formats with internal player.

[khaeid2]

seems not possible to get DTS HD with eARC, i managed in the end to play DTS HD through eARC, but when it gets to some parts of the video full of action with high audio in all channels, the sound starts to cut, and it stops in the higher passages, and then plays ok when the action ends.

It seems I will sadly ditch the Sony internal Android system and get me an Nvidia Shield TV, connect it to my receiver and use the AF9 as only screen, this is really frustrating, I feel I threw away lots of my money in this TV, I could have got only very good OLED screen with one HDMI input for much less money, and connect it to my Marantz receiver, getting signal from Nvidia Android TV