cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
Adrenaline82
Founder
Founder

5.1 audio not working

Hi!   

Set up my second stadia in my living room.   And started playing destiny.  Noticed that it was only playing in stereo ok my Yamaha 5.1 system.   Went through settings.   Verified it was on an Arc port on my lg oled, tried pcm instead of auto.  Tried optical and also rebooting the Chromecast, tv, and Yamaha.  No dice.   I then casted netflix, and hulu shows to it and they played in 5.1, youtube didn't though.   What am I missing?

 

0 Kudos
13 Replies
colombiashae
Stadia Player
Stadia Player

I'm actually having the same issue, I have a Sony 5.1 soundbar set up and it says "5.1 not supported on this device"

0 Kudos
JohnZoidberg
Gold Stadia Guide
Gold Stadia Guide

I believe Stadia 5.1 channel audio is uncompressed coming out of the Chromecast Ultra and that ARC can only support compressed 5.1 channel audio (eARC may be able to carry uncompressed 5.1 channel audio, but that is a newer technology than plain ARC). If you can connect the Chromecast Ultra directly to your audio system and send just the video from there to the TV, you may have more luck.
Why not Zoidberg?
0 Kudos
Adrenaline82
Founder
Founder

The only question with that is through the same Chromecast ultra 5.1 work s with almost every other video app.  Hulu, Netflix, Disney plus, and Amazon prime video all support 5.1 through it. Just YouTube and stadia do not work.   I also tried the eArc setting for audio and didn't make any difference.

0 Kudos
JohnZoidberg
Gold Stadia Guide
Gold Stadia Guide

Hulu, Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon are likely sending multi-channel audio in a Dolby Digital compressed format. Stadia (and YouTube) use an open-source audio compression format that is decompressed on the CCU into multi-channel (or stereo) PCM. It's common for TVs to negotiate a stereo PCM format in this case.
Why not Zoidberg?
0 Kudos
Classic-Rando
Stadia Player
Stadia Player

I have a Philips 65OLED806 that plays stadia in beautiful 5.1 through my Nvidia Shield, Sonos Arc, sub and surrounds, through the eArc port on my TV.

What I find strange is the native app for the TV can only play dolby stereo, or pcm stereo, no matter the amount of settings fiddled with, seems to make a difference.

Is the base android TV app unable to play 5.1?

As I use my shield for almost everything else, but as I'm sure you know there is no HDR on shields, so I just want to use the android TV app, my sonos Arc, sub and surrounds through the TV with eArc hdmi 2.1 socket.

Let me know what I'm missing if you can.

Thanks

Rando.

 

Edit. 

I can't even get stadia to play 5.1 from the shield now, the best I can get is dolby digital plus 2.0?

Any help would be appreciated. 

0 Kudos
Larris
Founder
Founder

Interesting that you mention YouTube also gets it, because the preferred codec there is the same that Stadia prefers and that Chromecast supports, VP9. I'd say that sound advice you got sounds sound.

0 Kudos
DonTonyDeluca
Stadia Player
Stadia Player

It is for sure because of ARC. I myself am in a similar situation and have no 5.1 because my very new TV doesn't have eARC and my audio setup only uses ARC (Sonos). So I am writing to Stadia daily to make Stadia surround sound work through ARC as well. I hope others can join me!

1 Kudo

Ok, I have the same problem. Something is extremely fishy with Stadia and Dolby Digital 5.1.

I've a Samsung UE49NU7179N. This TV has an optical out (toslink) and a HDMI ARC compatible port. My CCU is connected to this port and I've activated HDMI-CEC (anynet+), because ARC only works with activated CEC. Furtheremore I've connected my ~15 year old Yamaha AV Receiver over toslink with the tv. The receiver does not support DD+ and does not have any HDMI ports.

As Sound output I select "Audio Out/Optical" at the TV. If I cast Netflix to the CCU, I can select the Dolby Digital Audio Stream and everything works as it should. I also see in the TV menu under Sound => Expert Settings, that the Digital Output Audio Format "Dolby Digital" was selected, not PCM (I could manually select PCM, though).

With Stadia this will not work. After I've started a game, the connection status information show me, that 5.1 surround sound is on, but my AV receiver does not switch to Dolby Digital. In the TV menu I can't select Dolby Digital, only PCM is present.

I've tried the to force the surround sound in the app to ac3 or ac3/eac3, but this will not help. The receiver always gets only the PCM stream and thats not a Dolby Digital Surround Sound at all.

The Chromecast Ultra support Dolby Digital, e.g. in Netflix, but Stadia don't or only support other, non Dolby Codecs? I don't get it...

1 Kudo
JohnZoidberg
Gold Stadia Guide
Gold Stadia Guide

Source material from Netflix (for example) is available with Dolby Digital encoding built in. So, when playing that through the CCU, it just passes it straight through to the TV, which can pass it straight through the Toslink or ARC paths. However, Stadia audio is not available in that format – it only uses open source codecs for audio. When connected to a receiver directly, the CCU will decode into multi-channel PCM to make 5.1 work. But, since neither toslink nor ARC support 5.1 channel PCM, the TV has to negotiate stereo PCM with the CCU. So, it's not "fishy" – it's a result of a number of constraints conspiring to result in sub-optimal behavior under some conditions.
Why not Zoidberg?
2 Kudos

Thank you @JohnZoidberg 
Very good explained.

In the meantime I've found this Stadia help entry [1]:

  • If you plug your Chromecast into your TV: Chromecast Ultra plugged into a TV that supports HDMI eARC, and TV plugged into an AV receiver (connected to your 6-channel home speaker system) that also supports HDMI eARC.
  • If you plug your Chromecast directly into your AV receiver: Chromecast Ultra plugged into an AV receiver that is connected to a 6-channel home speaker system.

Ok, so the requirement is a eARC HDMI port at the TV. Otherwise I have no chance to get 5.1 running. Is that so?

What are the requirements for a AV receiver? If I understand you and the help page correctly, the AV receiver doesn't have the eARC HDMI port requirement. But what must a AV receiver support? Multi-Channel PCM?

Is there a more detailed documentation about the audio codecs of Stadia?

 

1: https://support.google.com/stadia/answer/9607891

1 Kudo
JohnZoidberg
Gold Stadia Guide
Gold Stadia Guide

Yeah, eARC can carry more than ARC (which is pretty much just toslink over HDMI). It should have enough capacity to carry the full-decoded 5.1 channel PCM. That said, I am not sure this ends up working perfectly for every TV, so it may not be a guarantee of success. But, I have my CCU plugged into my receiver, and that works quite well for me, so I don't have to worry about potential eARC compatibility issues. The receiver just needs to support multi-channel PCM coming in from the CCU over HDMI. Most receivers that support HDMI should have no trouble with that. ARC/eARC runs over HDMI as well, but it's in the reverse direction (coming from the TV), so when you connect the CCU directly to the receiver, ARC/eARC aren't in play. I haven't found any official documentation on what audio codec Stadia uses, but I have seen an analysis that claims it uses Opus, a scalable open codec that supports low latency (which is an important consideration for Stadia compared to pre-encoded content like Netflix).
Why not Zoidberg?
2 Kudos
Broncanius
Founder
Founder

Exact same problem for me. 5.1 was working fine yesterday with my Denon AVC-X3700H. Since today I only receive PCM 2.0 when using Stadia. Usually Stadia gives me PCM 5.1.

When I check my connection it says "5.1 Surround Sound: Unsupported Device". 4K and HDR is fine. 

No problems with Netfilx, which passes through DD+ just fine. So I assume the problem is within the Stadia app.

First streaming Netfilx and then switching won't work for me. When launching Stadia the signal switches back to Stereo.

Also launching the game from mobile phone and cast to CCU won't solve the problem for me. Restart also did not solve anything. 

0 Kudos
jangix
Stadia Player
Stadia Player

I had the same problem and I had resolved it in this mode (also for HDMI not ARC/eARC and also for Bitstream or PCM protocols):
- Configure the ChromecastUltra withthe Android app called "Google Home".
- in the same app, go to "Device Settings" and set "Surround mode" as "Audio surround AC3/HAC3".
- Reboot the Chromecast from menù with 3 dots and play a game to verify...the surround 5.1 will be active now.

0 Kudos