Audio in Marshmallow update (problems in Lollipop)?

[vispen74]

In the Android 5.1 Lollipop firmware of the 2015 & 2016 series TVs, it is major problems with audio. This meaning:

• It is not possible to force the TV to always use an external AVR for audio. Every time TV turns on, it is the inbuilt speaker by default.
• It is not possible to get multi-PCM from TV to AVR.
• It is verry dificult to get audio passthrough from mediaplayer applikations such as Kodi.

All this together gives a really bad user experience, and is verry demanding to get things work on the Sony Android-TVs.

In reality it is almost inpossible to use this TVs together with external 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound on current firmware, only 2 channel PCM-sound.

Is the Android 6.1 Marshmallow update for this TV-sets compliant to the IEC61937 Audio standards that Android use? This will probably solve at least the audio passthrough problem and give the TV multi PCM output.

Please fix these probkems Sony!

//Owner of a KD-65XD8505

[Kuschelmonschter]

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It is not possible to force the TV to always use an external AVR for audio. Every time TV turns on, it is the inbuilt speaker by default.

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No problem here. Always switches to external audio when using HDMI ARC. Might be different for S/PDIF.

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It is not possible to get multi-PCM from TV to AVR.

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Not a problem of the TV. S/PDIF and HDMI ARC only support PCM 2.0, Dolby AC3 and DTS.

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It is verry dificult to get audio passthrough from mediaplayer applikations such as Kodi.

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That's indeed true and due to broken MediaTek drivers. You'll find more about it here.

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Is the Android 6.1 Marshmallow update for this TV-sets compliant to the IEC61937 Audio standards that Android use? This will probably solve at least the audio passthrough problem and give the TV multi PCM output.

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This API is part of Android 7 Nougat. Xiaomi backported it to Marshmallow though. Don't think Sony will do that. Sony's support is *****ty compared to Xiaomi. The IEC API will probably fix the Dolby AC3 and DTS PT issues. It won't bring you multi-channel PCM or any HD/3D audio as the TV can't output it via S/PDIF and HDMI ARC. The TV has HDMI inputs, no HDMI outputs. You will need an external box for that.

[vispen74]

Thanks for an informative answer!

It is not possible to force the TV to always use an external AVR for audio. Every time TV turns on, it is the inbuilt speaker by default.

-No problem here. Always switches to external audio when using HDMI ARC. Might be different for S/PDIF.

Yes, there is a problem with this, if you start Kodi (that we use for watching regular TV) without manually switch to external audio, you get 110db noice du to the passthrough settings. Not verry user-friendly, specially not wife or child-friendly.

It is verry dificult to get audio passthrough from mediaplayer applikations such as Kodi.

-That's indeed true and due to broken MediaTek drivers. You'll find more about it here.

So hopefully these drivers are better in 6.0 firmware. Interesting reading...

"Sony/MediaTek should concentrate on standard Android APIs as Kodi won’t support any hacks or exceptions starting with v17 Krypton. And what is Android’s app centricism good for anyway if the APIs don’t work as specified?"

Is the Android 6.1 Marshmallow update for this TV-sets compliant to the IEC61937 Audio standards that Android use? This will probably solve at least the audio passthrough problem and give the TV multi PCM output.

-This API is part of Android 7 Nougat. Xiaomi backported it to Marshmallow though. Don't think Sony will do that. -Sony's support is *****ty compared to Xiaomi. The IEC API will probably fix the Dolby AC3 and DTS PT issues. It won't bring you multi-channel PCM or any HD/3D audio as the TV can't output it via S/PDIF and HDMI ARC. The TV has HDMI inputs, no HDMI outputs. You will need an external box for that.

So then I will try if Optical output is better and more stable/simple for passthrough. Strange that the support of Sony Android TV is bad because thay are quite good and quick with the Android phones. So ARC is not supporting Multi PCM, that´s bad news.

I can still return my Sony TV, maybe it is the right thing to do, and get a Samsung TV and Xiaomi Mi Box 3s to get Android TV instead. It just seems to be easier.

.

[Kuschelmonschter]

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So hopefully these drivers are better in 6.0 firmware. Interesting reading... 

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Unfortunately they are not. AC3 and DTS PT are as broken as before, at least with the autumn models which already run Marshmallow.

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So then I will try if Optical output is better and more stable/simple for passthrough.

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S/PDIF (optical) is just as broken as HDMI-ARC. No difference.

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Yes, there is a problem with this, if you start Kodi (that we use for watching regular TV) without manually switch to external audio, you get 110db noice du to the passthrough settings.

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I am using an AVR via HDMI-ARC as well, and as I already pointed out, I have no such problem. When the TV boots, it properly switches to external audio (HDMI-ARC). There might be an incompatibility between the TV and your AVR.

[kinggo01]

It is not possible to force the TV to always use an external AVR for audio. Every time TV turns on, it is the inbuilt speaker by default

Most likely compatibility issue between your TV and AVR. HDMI is the worst standard ever. I have Denon AVR and I did switch off all possible HDMI controls and that was still happening if I switched of my AVR before the TV. TV would switch to internal speakers but a lot of times it just stayed like that even when I turned on the AVR.

Plus occasional very short audio drops every XY minutes.

Possible solution- if you really don't need/use HDMI CEC (bravia sync) just use SPDIF. One more cable but no more problems

[vispen74]

Okey, I miss-understood about the power on - external audio. I will check
the settings in the receiver then, maybe I find something there. Great info!

Really bad about the rest, hopefully Sony have fixed at least some bugs and
benefits since your Marshmallow version rolled out. I mean, it was a while
ago now.

[Kuschelmonschter]

I wouldn't count on Sony fixing anything. Most problems have been there since the beginning. For every bug that gets fixed, two new bugs are introduced. That's my experience with Sony.

[vispen74]

Yes!

After disabling some auto-power feature in the AVR, it works as suuposed with external audio always on

Edit: Didn't work. With Onkyo AVR it is not used until change of volume after everything is powered on whatever I do. 

Now another problem; If watching Kodi with working audio passthrough, exit, use some other app, and then start Kodi again, then passthrough is not orking, only noice from speakers. Change audio out from IEC Passthrough and back to IEC passthrough in Kodi will bring it back to normal again. Any thoughts here?

[kinggo01]

which version of kodi do you use? By description of your problem I would say 16.

Anyway, that works only because of dirty hack and that is disabled in official v17 build. For me that was very unreliable and I never used it. But in v17 there is a nice option for transcoding to AC3 so it is much better now.

[vispen74]

I'm using SPMC based on Kodi 16.1.

I have problems with HW acceleration when watching Live-TV in Kodi 17.