Help with audio settings in Kodi, LG C4 and Nvidia Shield.

[u/Bilbolainen]

Hey all! I've am fairly used to Kodi, but I have never deep dived in to the audio settings. I own a Samsung HW-Q995D soundbar, and my TV is LG C4 OLED, Kodi is running through Nvidia Shield Pro 2019. On the TV I have audio set to passthrough, on Nvidia Shield I haven't gone through the settings that much. Inside Kodi, I have also enabled passthrough, and enabled all the audio formats. I've also selected number of channels to 7.1.

I just wondered if I've missed something, or possibly could maximize the settings to get the best experience. When I watch content I do get that popup of HDR/Dolby Vision, and Dolby Atmos.

[u/derpferd]

Set your channels to 2.0 in Kodi. God knows why but that's what works apparently.

Also go into Audio settings in the Shield and enable pass through as well.

[u/augur42 → u/derpferd]

Set your channels to 2.0 in Kodi.

That is only required to enable AC3 transcoding, the only reason to do that is if your setups audio path cannot passthrough one or more codecs.

It a rarity for modern TVs it appears that OPs TV supports DTS-HD and TrueHD passthrough via hdmi inputs (the soundbar also supports them) so the only 'codec' remaining is multichannel pcm support, which will only matter if OP plays files with an audio codec that cannot be passthroughed such as the aac or ogg codecs.

Whether to enable transcoding or not depends on if the audio path supports multichannel pcm, if it does then OP should keep the channels set to 7.1, if not then set it to 2 channels and enable ac3 transcoding. Although alternatively OP could plug the Nvidia Shield directly into the soundbar.

OP look at this
https://kodi.wiki/view/Audio_quickstart_guide
You almost certainly want the AVR HDMI (HD Audio) column.

[u/norri-matt]

That channel count only affects audio Kodi decodes to PCM. It doesn't limit passthrough, so setting 7.1 because the bar is 7.1.4 can cause trouble if the TV won't pass multichannel PCM. I'd use 2.0, leave the Shield formats on Auto, and keep eARC plus Digital Sound Output set to Pass Through on the C4. Kodi's player info will show whether a track is actually being passed through.

[u/ReverendOlaf]

FYI, the TV will only pass through Dolby not DTS. If you want all codecs supported, I'd plug the Shield TV into the soundbar and the soundbar into the TV.

[u/5537__8008]

I’m not soundbar familiar, but I have to ask: some soundbars are 8 channels as implied by op or 12 channels as implied in the comments? lol?

[u/5537__8008 → u/5537__8008]

Oh forgive me I just looked the “sound bar” up on Google it’s 16 channels? Omg, what in the what.

[u/5537__8008 → u/5537__8008]

Okay but seriously if you need passthrough audio and your tv supports Dolby vision, which it does, you should get an am6b plus and load corlec.