I need help (Soundbar/TV/Console Audio question)

[Millennium]

OK, so here is what I have:

Samsung UN65JU7500FXZA

VIZIO SB4051-C0

Obviously my PS4 and Xbox One.

All are connected via HDMI (Console to the TV to the Soundbar via ARC)

My question is this - The TV and both consoles have audio settings where I can choose the following:

TV - HDMI Audio Format - PCM or Bitstream
PS4 - Audio Format (Priority) - Linear PCM or Bitstream (Dolby or DTS)
Xbox One - HDMI Audio - 5.1 Uncompressed, 7.1 Uncompressed or Bitstream Out; then Bitstream Format DTS or Dolby.

I need to know what selections will result in the best audio. I can't for the life of me find anywhere that can tell me if my soundbar supports lossless audio, in which case I would think PCM would be the way to go across the board. The one major thing hold me back from PCM is when I play Witcher on Xbox 1 when using Uncompressed 5.1 I don't get any voices from the center channel.

I've been researching this pretty much for the last week, and still have not had any luck. Can anyone lead me in the right direction for the answer? As I said - I think the answer is PCM/Uncompressed across the board, or something like that, but I'm not certain.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

[Blzer]

Re: I need help (Soundbar/TV/Console Audio question)

As long as the audio is lossless, anyone will tell you that PCM and bitstream audio are no different (in theory). Bitstream means it lets the receiver do the decoding, and PCM means the console handles the decoding. Normally, so long as PCM is in an uncompressed format, it is the safer option. However, I choose bitstream for my PS3 for two reasons: it's the only type that can do lossless audio for 3D films, and when I look at my receiver and it says Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD MA, it looks cooler to me than does PCM. No other real reasons.

But that is for my receiver. As for my soundbar, I was once having trouble with my it not giving me center channel audio with some games for the longest time as well. Then I found out my soundbar was incorrectly on the 5.1 setting when everything else was not... or maybe it was the other way around. My main problem really is that my soundbar does not have a menu screen of any kind, so everything I do is kind of trial and error. If yours does, or if it has options or its own remote, try and see if you can switch its capabilities from stereo to surround while playing Xbox, or the other way around.

To be honest though, I don't think your soundbar can decode or pass-through lossless audio. With the options of DTS Digital Surround decoding, DTS TruVolume, DTS Studio Sound and DTS Circle Surround, and nothing that said DTS-HD MA, I'd say you're more than likely getting lossy audio as is. So if Xbox One has any other surround audio options where it gets center channel audio, I'd say go for that one because there is a good chance you are not actually missing anything.

[Graphik]

Re: I need help (Soundbar/TV/Console Audio question)

Also keep this in mind for the Xbox 1. I hooked my optical cable up to my receiver through the xbox and for most games and apps, you can get the true DTS Surround sounds and for certain apps like Youtube, you must convert from bitstream out back to digital 5.1 to hear the correct sound. This is a natural problem with the xbox 1 and it has to do with however the apps like youtube were ported to the xbox. Dont know much about the PS4. Hopefully this will save somebody some time since I wasted a good chunk of time trying to figure out why I wasn't getting sound out of my rear speakers.