PCM when speaker configuration is Passthrough

[danieljlevine]

I was ready with a camera to take a picture this time and saw the text. I’m not sure if it’s the same message, but this time I had it happen for an ATSC 3.0 channel:

Digital audio passthrough is not available - playing PCM
audio

Is this saying my sound system can’t handle AC-4 and so it’s defaulting to PCM. I know no sound systems can support AC-4 natively. So I guess this isn’t surprising.

So, I’m now puzzled. What is the setting that produces the best sound possible with my sound system? Would that change if ATSC 3.0 stations started producing Dolby Atmos?

I would think that there should be a sound setting that says Atmos (if not specific speaker configurations).

[nickk]

I checked the logs from this evening... it is quite happy doing AC3 passthrough when playing ATSC 3.0 channels.

AC4 passthrough fails and there is no AC4 system codec so the HDHomeRun sets up cloud transcode with AC3 passthrough.

If you are seeing a message it may be a miss-trigger from AC4 passthrough failing but it is definitely doing AC3 passthrough when playing ATSC 3.0 channels.

[danieljlevine]

Thanks for checking and interpreting what’s going on. I thought one reason I was using the Fire TV 4K stick was because of support for AC4. I think I was under the impression that I might not have any audio for ATSC 3.0 stations if it didn’t. I didn’t realize the expected path was cloud AC3 conversion. After reading another thread here, perhaps my Fire TV 4K stick isn’t Gen 2?

So is it silly for me to have the audio set to passthrough? It seems to be the right answer for ATSC 2.0 audio.

Perhaps the best overall audio setting should be the surround sound option in the Fire Stick 4K HDHR app and my Dolby 5.1.2 sound system? If that option supports Dolby Atmos too if present on ATSC 2.0 (which presently isn’t the case) perhaps it should be named Dolby? Or would a new Dolby Atmos sound setting be necessary at that time?

Or should there be one setting for ATSC 2.0 audio and another for ATSC 3.0. Normally, I’d expect to tell HDHR 4K app what I have and have it detect what to do, which perhaps is what it’s doing now?

[nickk]

Problem confirmed - we will get the false warning message fixed/removed.

Passthrough is good as long as you are happy with the way volume control works.

In passthrough mode stereo audio is passed as stereo. If you select 5.1 or 7.1 the HDHomeRun app has to do the upconversion.

[danieljlevine]

Let me know when you’d like me to try again with the fix in place.

[danieljlevine]

I just tested. Not
Fixed for me yet.

[nickk]

It will be a new Android app release (not the release that just went live).

[danieljlevine]

Interesting. I tested about 45 minutes ago on 2 ATSC 3.0 and didn’t see the message. Not sure if Firestick updated the app yet, but according to you that doesn’t matter.

[danieljlevine]

Actually, I take that back. Perhaps the broadcast I was watching at the time was surround sound. Football today on Fox’s ATSC 3.0 station gave me the message, so I guess when I retest, with Football on Fox 145.1 or 105.1 after the Amazon app update.

[danieljlevine]

Let me know when I should check the HDHomeRun app for my Firestick 4K to verify this no longer happens. Is there an app version number I should look for before retesting?

[nickk]

The new Android / FireTV release is out - 20241016

[danieljlevine]

I checked yesterday and still had the message. Perhaps I don’t have the latest version on the Firestick yet?

[danieljlevine]

Ok, I looked and still have 20241016 app version on Firestick 4K. I don’t see any way to upgrade it, so perhaps it eventually becomes available.

[danieljlevine]

I’m now starting to understand why you have the dynamic configuration capability implemented. As there’s a lag for each app store to get updated binary versions of the HDHomerun app. So for Amazon App Store, it goes through Google play store first and then the Amazon App Store. Still waiting for it to show up in there to test on my FireTV 4K stick. I probably could side load it, but I’ll just wait for the Amazon App Store to get it.

[danieljlevine]

As far as I can tell, still waiting for Amazon to get the November version of this app.