Sony KD-65 XE9005 and Dolby Digital Plus

[paul1simon]

Can someone more technical than me please help! I've tried searching endlessly for a solution but to no avail ...

I have a Sony KD-XE9005 which I know supports DD+ based on the specs of the TV and the fact I have confirmed this via the Sonos S2 app - my Sonos Arc is connected to the TV via the HDMI Arc input on the TV. When watching Netflix UHD from the TV app I get confirmation on my Sonos app that the audio is DD+. All good so far...

However, with all of my other sources connected to the TV (Virgin V6 Box, Apple 4K TV, etc) the best I can get is DD. Having said that, I played with the audio settings on the TV and for a short time did indeed get DD+ from the Virgin box broadcasting an HD channel (into HDMI 4 on the TV) ... but it didn't last - I changed to another HD channel and it reverted back to DD, and when I changed back to the original HD channel which had received DD+ it was now just in DD! Frustrating!

I have the same problem with my Apple 4K TV - no DD+ on the Sonos Arc, even though I have the Audio Format to Auto, and the Audio Mode to Auto, which I believe ensures the best audio format available. So, even when I watch the same content on Netflix UHD from my ATV, I only get DD, whereas the same content from the native Netflix app on the TV was showing on the Sonos as DD+. Again, very frustrating!

Any help welcome

Thank you 

[Peter_S.]

Hi Paul,

To my knowledge the TV doesn't support DD+ pass through from external devices.

So you might want to connect your external devices to the soundbar directly and pass the picture through the soundbar to the TV (if the soundbar supports this).

Cheers

Peter

[merseyswine]

Hi Peter

yes, I find that configuration works well if, like mine, your soundbar has multiple HDMI inputs. It has added advantages - one being of lip-sync. Any delay will be the picture lagging behind the sound and that's easily corrected by adjusting the sound delay. Another advantage is that you can get Dolby Atmos sound even if your TV does not have eARC. That's because it doesn't need the TV to pass the sound to the soundbar

[paul1simon]

Hi Peter, and thanks for the reply.

I thought that may be the case, but it's very strange that for a short while I did get DD+ passthrough - from my Virgin V6 box into the TV, as it showed up on my Sonos Arc S2 app. Very strange!

Unfortunately as the Sonos Arc only has 1 HDMI I can't connect any sources to it - it has to be used to connect to the TV.

I have just read some info on the HD Fury - https://www.hdfury.com/product/4k-arcana-18gbps/ - which would seem to solve the issue .... potentially?!

Thanks

Paul

[rooobb]

If your only need is streaming content i do not see any quality difference between DD and DD+ being that they have always only 5.1 channels AFAIK