Looking for HD Audio help

J

jaymazz13

Audiophyte
I am pretty new to the advanced settings of a surround sound system. I started with an Onkyo 7.1 system and started to upgrade since then. I purchased a Yamaha RX-V377 a couple years ago, then purchased a pair of Polk Audio T15 bookshelf speakers. I was using the polks for surround speakers with the onkyos still upfront for the fronts left, right, center and subwoofer. I am currently in the process of putting the polks up front and purchasing the polk TL3 for back surround. My question lies in understanding HD audio. My receiver supports dolby truehd, and dts hd, but I am having a hard time telling if it is coming through as this. I am playing movies through most of the time the apple tv or android tv or just the cable box. When hitting the info button it always says PCM, I don't think there is a light on the receiver that will notify me that is in an hd audio mode, just a dolby mode. Any suggestions on what I should check within the settings to make sure I am getting the fullest out of my receiver. Thanks.
 
lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
Sounds like the audio output of your sources are set to pcm instead of bitstream but the lossless codecs like Dolby True HD or DTS HD MA are generally only on bluray discs.
 
BoredSysAdmin

BoredSysAdmin

Audioholic Slumlord
I am playing movies through most of the time the apple tv or android tv or just the cable box.
Neither of these devices support bit-streaming of HD audio codecs, except if you android TV box is nvidia shield tv.
 
J

jaymazz13

Audiophyte
Yea the problem with all these streaming devices is there really isn't great personalization. Everything is auto, with no option to set to bitstreaming. Is there lossless codecs with netflix through the apple tv? supposedly my android tv box does support HD codecs but finding media in HD audio is harder, everything is two channel.
 
BoredSysAdmin

BoredSysAdmin

Audioholic Slumlord
Yea the problem with all these streaming devices is there really isn't great personalization. Everything is auto, with no option to set to bitstreaming. Is there lossless codecs with netflix through the apple tv? supposedly my android tv box does support HD codecs but finding media in HD audio is harder, everything is two channel.
For Apple TV (gen 4)
Video Formats

  • H.264 video up to 1080p, 60 frames per second, High or Main Profile level 4.2 or lower
  • H.264 Baseline Profile level 3.0 or lower with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps per channel, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats
  • MPEG-4 video up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats
Audio Formats
  • HE-AAC (V1), AAC (16 to 320 Kbps), protected AAC (from iTunes Store), MP3 (16 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Apple Lossless, AIFF, and WAV; Dolby Digital 5.1 and Dolby Digital Plus 7.1
Afaik Netflix doesn't support Apple Lossless,AIFF nor WAV. Rest of these are lossy codecs.
 
j_garcia

j_garcia

Audioholic Jedi
Most of the streaming services themselves only support Dolby Digital Plus which is capable of up to 7.1 but at a lower bitrate (640Kbps) than TrueHD (lossless).
 
DigitalDawn

DigitalDawn

Senior Audioholic
There's always HD Tracks and a flash drive connected to your AVR http://www.hdtracks.com/ Only problem is that your receiver needs to be able to decode the latest high resolution codecs.

Or a service such as Tidal that has high resolution streaming. http://tidal.com/us
 
BoredSysAdmin

BoredSysAdmin

Audioholic Slumlord
@Lilmo6868 I am curious to why had you decided to mark my previous post as "old"
Do you MANY android TV boxes which could natively bitstream HD audio codecs?
 
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