
You’ll configure your audio settings under Settings > Audio in Plex Media Player. Vorbis, FLAC: While these are not as common, both support multiple channels, but few receivers natively support them.DTS-HD MA is lossless and supports 8 channels. High end equipment is needed to get native TrueHD support. This codec is lossless and supports 8 channels. TrueHD: TrueHD is Dolby’s successor to AC3.The Apple TV, for example, supports AC3 but not DTS. Low end equipment usually does not support DTS natively since there are licensing fees involved. DTS: Most common for movies, handles 6 channels at most, and is widely supported in mid-range equipment and up.However, it’s relatively low bitrate, so it might not give the best fidelity. It handles at most 6 channels (5.1) and has very wide native support in televisions and receivers. Dolby Digital / AC3: Probably the most common multi-channel format.The drawback with AAC is that while it can carry 6-channel sound, not many receivers handle it natively and it’s not designed for it. AAC: The closest thing we can get to a universal standard these days.MP3: Only carries 2 channels and is relatively low bitrate.When you are outputting in PCM mode the downmixing happens in Plex Media Player if you are running passthrough, the downmixing will happen in the receiver. For example, if you have 2 speakers connected to your receiver and you have source media with 5.1 channels, the audio needs to be downmixed to hear all the sounds. One important difference is where downmixing is done. Plex Media Player and Plex Home Theater does it) and then sent to the receiver that outputs the PCM streams (one stream per channel) to the speakers.Įncoded/Passthrough is what it sounds like: Plex Media Player takes the encoded stream and passes it to the receiver which does the conversion from encoded formats to PCM and then outputs it.


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PCM/Direct means that the audio decoding is done in software (e.g. What you need to know is that there are two major ways to handle audio in the digital age, PCM (or direct or LPCM) and passthrough (or encoded). The text here should just be considered a quick overview. Basicsĭigital audio can be complicated and there are certainly better places to get a detailed primer on the subject than this article. Passthrough” section near the bottom of the article has useful information to read before enabling passthrough. The “Plex Media Player decode of audio vs. Plex Media Player has the capability to perfectly decode most “HD audio” formats, and enabling passthrough creates drawbacks that you likely want to avoid. Only do that if you are very well informed about what it entails, because it’s probably not what you want here. Tip!: We do not recommend enabling passthrough as the first thing you do.
