MediaTek again screwed up with Nougat concerning audio passthrough

[Kuschelmonschter]

According to the Kodi community, audio passthrough is broken completely in Sony Nougat firmware. Nougat introduces the new IEC API for audio passthrough which Kodi uses. Neither Dolby AC3 nor DTS works on Sony. So MediaTek again failed to properly implement the new API.

Some apps use the older raw API for passthrough. DTS raw API, which has been introduced by Google in Marshmallow, is also still broken with the MediaTek driver that ships with new Nougat firmware.

Only the Video player can do proper passthrough for all formats as it has access to some private APIs.

This is a total shame!!! When you think it can't get any worse... Keep in mind that Dolby and DTS have been a standard for 2 decades and Sony/MediaTek still can't properly handle those formats.

[Kuschelmonschter]

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Another Dumb question, in case you connect an external 4K device via HDMI to the TV, will it then send the sound (DTS+AC3) back via SPID/ARC to the Amplifier? (as I don't have a 4K ampli yet...)

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Yes. I tested that by connecting a PC to the TV. AVR received AC3 via ARC. That should all be done in HW...

[burn2shine]

Hi,

so just to say that same issue here. Just Kodi *****ty version works (with hack).

[rooobb]

Just to add some more experience: Archos Mediaplayer too is able to passthrough DD and DTS on Android Nougat (XD83 ATV2). It has the player UI I like most even if it is stuttering a bit on fast pan.

[Kuschelmonschter]

Archos supports passthrough via the PCM hack ("passthrough mode 1"). The reason is that it had been around long before passthrough was standardized, so before APIs like ENCODING_DTS and ENCODING_IEC61937 existed on Android, both of which the Sony TV does not support anyway.

I don't recommend using the PCM hack. If something in the system performs an audio operation (e.g. mixing with some other audio), you end up with a garbled bitstream which can destroy your audio hardware and even harm your ears as there will only be some high pitched noise then.

I really hate to read those recommendations from people who don't really know what they are actually recommending. Sony needs to support the official public Android APIs for passthrough!!! Kodi *****ty and Archos are not real solutions!

[KrK4ri]

To overcome this issue, I found a workaround using KODI's external player feature. I made a configuration xml file to force play .mkv videos with the Android TV's stock video player.

See the details here.

And here is the code (playercorefactory.xml) I use on my KD-55XD7005:

<playercorefactory>
        <players>
                <player name="SonyVideoPlayer" type="ExternalPlayer" audio="false" video="true">
                        <filename>com.sony.dtv.osat.video</filename>
                        <hidexbmc>true</hidexbmc>
			<hideconsole>true</hideconsole>
                        <playcountminimumtime>120</playcountminimumtime>
                </player>
        </players>
        <rules action="prepend">
<!---
**********                   **********
********** EDIT THIS SECTION **********
**********                   **********
-->
                <rule filetypes="mkv" player="SonyVideoPlayer" />
<!--            <rule video="true" player="CHOOSE PLAYER NAME HERE"/> <!-- Default for anything else not listed -->
        </rules>
</playercorefactory>

You can create your own rules based on your needs, you can find many examples and deatailed description on KODI wiki.

Hope this can help someone.

[Kuschelmonschter]

This way you can only access USB and DLNA/UPnP media, no NFS or SMB. There is no good solution apart from Sony/MediaTek fixing passthrough bugs...

[rooobb]

I do not  know about this kodi workaround but configuring Archos player to run an external player (I.e. video) it actually allows to stream a movie from smb directly to the receiving player. 

[Kuschelmonschter]

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Kuschelmonschter schrieb:

Archos supports passthrough via the PCM hack ("passthrough mode 1"). The reason is that it had been around long before passthrough was standardized, so before APIs like ENCODING_DTS and ENCODING_IEC61937 existed on Android, both of which the Sony TV does not support anyway.

I don't recommend using the PCM hack. If something in the system performs an audio operation (e.g. mixing with some other audio), you end up with a garbled bitstream which can destroy your audio hardware and even harm your ears as there will only be some high pitched noise then.

I really hate to read those recommendations from people who don't really know what they are actually recommending. Sony needs to support the official public Android APIs for passthrough!!! Kodi *****ty and Archos are not real solutions!

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[rooobb]

I was not suggesting to use again the pcm hack. Just that you can configure Archos to pass the streaming directly to video app that works in the right way. Only issue afaik is that in this way you cannot stop that playing and restart at the same point. It lose control of how much of the streaming you have already seen on the external player.

[chfauc]

I guess yo ualso loose the plugin functionality like subtitle downloads?

now if there is subtitle next to the file will in then work?

(other small Q if I can, once u install *****ty build, how do u upgrade? Sideload again ? will it erase settings?)

tx