NOW TV Boost, no 5.1

[MartinAsh1978]

Hi, 

I've just started the trial of NOW TV Boost on the NOW TV stick. HD is being recognised but the Boost settings are not recognising 5.1 even though I have that set in the audio settings. 

I have tried signing out and switching off the stick but nothing works. 

Anyone got any ideas? 

Any help would be much appreciated, cheers. 

[schnapps]

Hi @MartinAsh1978 

Are you using a sound bar, AV Receiver or the inbuilt speakers on your television ?

If so are the sound devices in your chain able to encode / decode  Dolby Digital Plus ?

Have you tried settings both Audio Mode & HDMI on your screen shot shown to Auto ?

[MartinAsh1978]

Hey,

Thanks for the speedy response @schnapps 

OK, so I do not have a standard setup, it's a pain in the ass quite frankly so I will try to describe what I have.

I have a Sonos Beam but my Samsung TV does not output 5.1 from the ARC because it's one of those TVs that simply did not have the ability to do so. So, in order to get around some of the problems I use a switch (https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0734SYLJL/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1).

I have a BT Box, NOW TV Stick, Chromecast and PS4 going into the switch and then coming out of the switch via HDMI into my TV. I also have a cable coming out via Toslink into the Sonos. This gets me 5.1 with the BT Box, PS4 and the Chromecast in some circumstances.

I'm assuming this funky setup is the reason I am having issues but I assumed the Settings option on my screenshot was not doing any tests and was just simply reading the settings on the device. Does the Now TV app do a test when reporting the settings? I didn't think it would be doing it at that point.

I have tried setting everything to auto but no joy on that one. 

Thanks for the help so far.

EDIT - I have Audio Mode and HDMI explicitly set to Dolby D but still no joy.

[schnapps]

Hi @MartinAsh1978 

To be honest i am not sure how under the NowTV App in the My Account section the Boost Pass settings knows if you have a compatible 5.1 surround sound system or stereo sound system.

Does your Sonos indicates what sound signal it is receiving and if so is it detecting stereo or 5.1 ?

The Boost Pass is still new to me and i am still playing around with it on my different AV combination i have dotted around my house.

I have only tested the Audio side of the Boost Pass so far on my AV Receiver and Roku Stick Plus and when i set the Roku Audio settings to either Auto or DD Plus.

The AV Receiver displays on the information panel DD Plus and going into the My Account section of NowTV App on my Roku Player under the Boost Pass settings it confirms 5.1 surround sound (which is what i was expecting).

Listening to my system it is definitely sending sound to the five speakers and subwoofer (sounds pretty good on the one movie i have tested it out on so far).

I have an older Dolby soundbase in the Living Room which i haven't tested yet with my NowTV 4K box, but i couldn't never get sound from it using the inbuilt Netflix App on my television where all other Apps from the TV played fine with regards to sound output. 

So i am not fully confident the Soundbase will report back  5.1 surround sound on my Boost Pass on my NowTV box based on never been able to get sound via the Netflix App from my Smart television.

I know @RoyB is coming across a similar issue on his soundbar where the Boost Pass on his stick is detecting Stereo and not 5.1.

[Hooba]

I'm using a NowTv stick, with boost. 1080p is always ok - 5.1 has been hit and miss. Today working fine with movies - live and on demand. Sports not so great - switching it to Stereo and then back to 5.1 sometimes sorts it out, mostly it doesn't. I gave up and am now using PS4 which consistently works. Dunno what to say - its pretty flaky on a Stick. When it works, it works very well .... My set up not too exotic - have the stick plugged directly into an HDMI on  my AV Amp, so no real room for things to go awry with the 5.1

[RoyB]

@MartinAsh1978 

AAMOI, what model of Samsung TV do you have, and is it documented that it can’t do 5.1 over ARC?

I know my Samsung UE55JS9000 can do it, as the NowTV app on the set itself is working perfectly, sending 5.1 over the ARC to my soundbar. 

I‘m just having trouble with getting it all to work with a Roku Streaming Stick+ on an HDMI input to the TV, where the settings that work for @schnapps don’t work for me. But I have no problem with getting the Stick to say it’s doing 5.1, just with getting the soundbar to agree that it is.

I think your HDMI switch is a red herring here; it would not matter if some or all of those devices had an HDMI port to themselves. And as you can get 5.1 out over the Toslink to the Sonos Beam from other devices on that switch, there is no clear reason you can’t get it from the Stick also.

My further researches will involve looking at other sources of 5.1 on my Stick, e.g. Netflix, to see if these work when NowTV doesn’t, or if the presence or absence of 5.1 is consistent across all apps on the Stick.

Tomorrow, perhaps......

[RoyB]

@MartinAsh1978 

A couple more thoughts:-

Working over Toslink, there is no negotiation, so you have to set it on the Samsung, or the Stick, to send what the Beam can handle, and is expecting.

I read that the Beam can’t do DD+.

Though as per your Edit above, DD ought to work.

What, in the Samsung menus, is the Samsung set to send over Toslink?

[gavs82008]

@RoyB 

Interestingly my Samsung can do DD+ via amazon video, but with Now TV through the TV app I didn’t get any sound. Only putting it to DD for Now TV works. 

The Tv bought in January and got a Samsung sound bar with wireless rear speakers a few years ago with ARC capability.

Any ideas to get DD+ working for Now TV or am I missing something? 

[MartinAsh1978]

@schnapps - You can see from the Sonos mobile app whether or not the signal is broadcasting 5.1 and it is reporting stereo for NOW TV 😞 I think I might try what @Hooba suggested and try it on the PS4, it sounds like the stick may be flaky.

@RoyB - Not sure on the TV model but I did a ton of investigating when I first got the Sonos as I just assumed it would work as the TV is not that old and cost a bloody fortune at the time. After reading up it was apparent that some Samsung TVs just did not support 5.1 from anything that was inputted into HDMI and then attempted to output via the ARC. This does relate to something @gavs82008 has mentioned as you can get 5.1 from the inbuilt apps via the ARC as I managed to do this with Amazon Prime although this would suggest the NOW TV TV app should also work and it does not sound like it is. It's frustrating but just one of those things. Apparently if I had any Toshiba TV from the last 10 years I would have had no problem. I think you are right though, I think the switch is not the issue. 

Thanks for all the replies, it is really appreciated 🙂 I'll let you know if the PS4 works when I have tried it.

[schnapps]

Hi @MartinAsh1978 

I will be interested in your findings using a PS4.

[MartinAsh1978]

@commanda6 thanks for the info, I will try that and let you know.

@schnapps the PS4 works perfectly, beautiful 5.1 🙂 

[MartinAsh1978]

@commanda6  - I tried those options and the stick started to report 5.1 on the settings. However, I didn't get any sound out of the movies but my guess is this is a failing of my setup rather than the stick as I have had the same issues with some Blu-rays. Not sure why I don't get the same issue on the PS4 though.

[schnapps]

Hi @MartinAsh1978 

Strangely enough, i have been doing some sound testing with the Boost Pass on my Living Room Panasonic 4K TV (ARC) and Maxell Soundbase system also ARC compatible.

I found if i set my NowTV box to either DD Plus or DD Plus & DTS the NowTV Box reported that it was 5.1 surround sound, but i couldn't get any audio sound out of the Maxell Soundbase system.

When i set the audio mode on the NowTV box to either DD, DD & DTS or Auto the NowTV box was reporting stereo and i was getting sound out of the Maxell sound system.

Tried the same test over Digital optical where i was getting the same results.

In my particular setup i think the issue is with my Maxell Sound Base causing the conflict being a 2.1 system and i am not sure if it's Dolby Digital Plus certified.

Where if i use use my NowTV box on the Pioneer AV Receiver in the Cinema Room i get glorious DD Plus in 5.1.

Not a biggie for me where i have just left the Living Room system in DD and it's playing in stereo 2.1 which i am guessing it is the limitation of  my budget Maxell soundbase unit only having two front firing speakers and a separate base driver.

All my serious Movie watching is done in the back Cinema Room anyway, where i can now use my NowTV Cinema & Boost Pass in 1080p HD & DD Plus 😀.

Where in the past i only watched Netflix & Amazon content in the back Cinema Room.

[Anonymous User · Accepted solution]

Hi all. For 5.1 to work the NowTV boost settings must be set to either DolbyD+ or DolbyD+/DTS all other settings result in Stereo only. Sonos Beam does not work with DolbyD+ so will not output 5.1 with a NowTV box or stick. Hopefully a future firmware update will let the DolbyD setting work which would then work with Sonos Beam. 

[MartinAsh1978]

@Anonymous User - Thanks for the clarification, I thought that may be the case. 

[Anonymous User]

Well I have a Sonos Playbar, sub and Play 1s and on my Now TV Apps on my Samsung TV and also on my PS4 all I needed to do was to click on My Account and on the green Settings next to the Boost icon and change it to surround sound and it works perfectly.

The Sonos app shows 5.1 audio.

[RoyB]

@Anonymous User @Anonymous User @MartinAsh1978 @schnapps @commanda6 

There is something of a disconnect here.

The Sticks definitely require DD+; on plain DD, they still report, and behave, as Stereo.

But my Samsung TV won’t do DD+, just plain DD, and yet the app on it gives full 5.1 over DD.

This contradicts the NowTV Help for Samsung TVs, though the entry there for LG TVs says that DD is sufficient for 5.1

Now we have the PS4 being described as working OK into the Sonos Beam, which won’t do DD+.

So it looks like the apps are working over DD, but the Sticks are only working over DD+.

Or something. With the Samsung set for plain DD, I definitely don’t get 5.1 from a Stick set for DD+ on it (or indeed, set to anything) but I do get 5.1 from the app on the Samsung.

I’ve learned more than I ever wanted to know about Bitstream versus PCM, Dolby this and Dolby that, DTS in all its flavours, HD Audio, and so on, and I think I have most of it straight now, but the above still needs explaining, and the NowTV Help needs correcting accordingly.

[Anonymous User]

I was disappointed to learn I don't get 5.1 either. 

I too have a NowTV Stick and a Roku 4K Stick and I connect them to a Samsung TV with ARC.

The TV's won't respond to DD+ set on the stick at all. No sound.

Is this ever going to change? So DD is supported?

[RoyB]

@Anonymous User 

Use the NowTV app on the Samsung TV, with the TV set to DD.

Any device that can handle DD+  can bust it down to DD when it detects a DD-only environment. It appears that the NowTV App on the Samsung does this,

But the Sticks can’t detect DD, so don’t bust DD+ down to it; and if you set them for DD, the NowTV app determines that only stereo is in use.

The obvious fix is for the NowTV app on the Sticks to use the inbuilt capability of DD+ to bust the signal down to DD when the DD option is detected in the Roku settings instead of treating this as stereo.

It then doesn’t matter at all that the Stick can’t actually test its environment, if this is true. It certainly acts as if it can.

[Anonymous User]

Thank you 

Tried the Samsung app and it does work fine with 5.1 as you say. Pleased to have a fix. 

I hope they update the sticks as I much prefer using them. Stream quality is 7831 so looks like all working as expected. 

[Anonymous User]

So i have the now tv apprunning on ps4, and ps4 audio set to bitstream (dolby). I only get  stereo.  DENON reciever aet to auto so can pick up atmos and everything below.

Ive tried linear pcm as audio output option on ps4 with no change. Im playing avenue 5 which has 5.1 track.

Anyone having any luck with ps4 using app and home cinema? App itself doesnt seem to have any audio settings.