Roku Developer Program

[Ajith1]

Hi,
Our video streams audio are  EAC3 encoded and can either hold 5.1 or Atmos audio. The issue is when my Roku Streaming Stick+ is connected to a Dolby Digital TV, the Roku settings show Audio Mode Dolby Digital and the deviceInfo API says it can passthrough Dolby Digital. So when I play the  stream which has the 5.1 Dolby Digital Audio encoded in the EAC3 format, the player throws Audio not supported error. 

"decoder:pump:Unsupported audio format: Dolby Digital Plus"

Why is Roku not extracting the 5.1 Audio and passing it through to the TV?. Is it because it's encoded in EAC3 format instead of AC3 ? Please suggest.

[cocotower]

One of my biggest user complaints used to be that some of the videos were silent.  After examining closer it seems they had MP3 or AC3 tracks?  I didn't want to risk converting to any other audio formats so I'm not sure what else works, but "AAC" always works for my Roku 3 and TV.

I wouldn't want to wish this **bleep** on anybody but what if somebody converted hundreds of their videos to use an unsupported audio format and then uploaded them all to an S3 account.  Talk about a nightmare.  Maybe Roku can quit trying to fix things that aren't broken and focus on the video player features, like a VR 360 mode!!  🙂 🙂

[Ajith1]

Absolutely agree. Our users couldn't see even the silent videos, as the player started throwing error while attempting to play the stream. The stream had only one audio track so the Roku couldn't do much. I would take your suggestion of putting a additional AAC track in the stream and check.

[RokuJonathanD]

Hi @Ajith1  and @cocotower,

Have you looked at our streaming specification? It outlines the supported video and audio codecs and provides encoding guidelines.

[Ajith1]

Hi Jonathan,

Thanks. I went through the docs, and as I understand only Roku Ultra(a specific model) and Roku Tvs are capable of decoding AC3 and EAC3 formats on their own and rest of the devices just pass through the audio to either Tv or Soundbar to which they are connected. I'm sure we are in line with the streaming guidelines specified by roku.

Here's the scenario. A Roku Streaming Stick + is connected to a TV (Samsung UE55JU6800) which is only DD,DTS capable as per the default Roku audio settings page. I play a video stream which has 5.1 audio encoded in EAC3 format, but the video player throws Unsupported audio format: Dolby Digital Plus error. 
But when I force my Roku audio settings to Dolby Digital Plus (i.e HDMI option to Dolby Digital Plus) and play the same video stream, the video plays fine and I can hear the audio as well.

Is this a expected behavior. What's the subtle settings change doing here. Please let me know your thoughts.

Regards,
Ajith

[Aknight2015]

After reading the streaming specifications listed, and trying to play a MKV movies using AAC, AC3, and EAC3 audio and getting NO audio. Reality has determined that tech specs are a lie.

[cocotower]

I make MKV's with AAC audio all the time.  I think the video ID is 0 and audio ID is 1, but not sure if this makes a difference.  What encoder are you using?

[Aknight2015]

I'm viewing via plex.

[Redflash]

While it's an old thread, Plex on Roku still has not fixed this issue. 

I quit using PLEX as it has tooooooo many problems.  Used it for years, but the developers are constantly breaking things or refuse to fix items or take years to address issues.  The Emby player on Roku has NEVER failed to work for me, and plays EAC 5.x just fine on Ruko without having to go reconfigure it like when running Plex. I just set audio for Auto and Emby always works.

Do yourself a favor and leave Plex and move over to the Emby solution.  I run both on TrueNAS still, but rarely use Plex except as a music server hosts for Alexa...

[Aknight2015]

I would, but the server I'm a member of doesn't do Emby. Otherwise I'd hop over in a heartbeat.