I'm only getting 2-channel sound from my Sony UBP-X800M2

[Fork]

Hi,

I've got a new Sky Glass 65" TV and I've connected my Sony UBP-X800M2 4K Blu-ray player to HDMI 1. I get a picture and sound, everything seems fine 🙂

However the Sony Blu-ray player is only outputting 2-channel PCM sound to the Sky Glass. I know this because if I press the "Display" button on my Sony remote control it shows that the source audio is (for example) Dolby TrueHD 7-channel, but it also shows that it's only outputting Dolby TrueHD 2-channel via HDMI.

I've double-checked my Sony Blu-ray player settings to make sure that it's correctly set to output bitstream audio, and it is. I've also checked that the Sony Blu-ray player is on the latest firmware, and it is.

Does anyone else in this forum have a Sony UBP-X800M2 blu-ray player connected to their Sky Glass TV, and if so are you getting more than 2-channel sound? If you are, can you share both your Sky Glass and Sony Blu-ray player settings please?

Thanks!

Fork.

[CoffeeDrinker]

Fellow Sony X800 M2 owner here (watching a 4k film on it downstairs on our non-Glass based AV system as I write). Will check the player on the Glass TV upstairs later on - when I've tried it in the past, I'm fairly sure the sound came through as expected. For reference, my players audio settings are :

Digital output mode: Auto

DSD Output Mode: Off (Glass won't understand DSD bitstreams from SACD)

BD Secondary Audio: Off (always turned off  my disc players, regardless of what they're plugged into)

DTS Neo:6: Off (Glass doesn't understand any DTS codecs)

48/96/192 KHz PCM: 96kHz (I suspect Glass' HDMI inputs might be constrained to 48kHz though)

DSEE HX: off

Audio DRC: Auto

Downmix: Surround

Will post when I get chance to hook the player up to my Glass TV.

[Fork]

Thanks very much @CoffeeDrinker for looking at your settings for me. I posted a reply earlier this evening but it hasn't shown up for some reason, so either something went wrong or the reply is going to show twice!

I updated the settings on my Sony blu-ray player to match yours. Most were the same but a couple (like DSEE HX: OFF) were not. My settings all now match yours. However I'm still only getting 2-channel output from a multi-channel source.

I've tried multiple media so I know it's not a problem with a specific disc. For example if I watch a DVD and press the [Display] button on the Sony remote control it shows a Dolby Digital 5.1 source, but 2-channel PCM output. If I watch a 4K blu-ray and press the [Display] button it shows Dolby TrueHD 7.1 as the source, but Dolby TrueHD 2-channel as the output.

If you do find time to test your Sony UBP-X800M2 with your Sky Glass display upstairs I'd be really greatful. My last step is do do a full reset of my Sony UBP-X800M2 in case there's another setting that's gotten "stuck" somewhere but obviously I'd like to avoid that unless absolutely necessary!

Thanks again for the detailed reply and for comparing your settings. Hopefully this reply of mine won't show up twice!

Best,

Fork.

[CoffeeDrinker · Accepted solution]

---

@Fork wrote:

Hi,

I've got a new Sky Glass 65" TV and I've connected my Sony UBP-X800M2 4K Blu-ray player to HDMI 1. I get a picture and sound, everything seems fine 🙂

However the Sony Blu-ray player is only outputting 2-channel PCM sound to the Sky Glass. I know this because if I press the "Display" button on my Sony remote control it shows that the source audio is (for example) Dolby TrueHD 7-channel, but it also shows that it's only outputting Dolby TrueHD 2-channel via HDMI.

I've double-checked my Sony Blu-ray player settings to make sure that it's correctly set to output bitstream audio, and it is. I've also checked that the Sony Blu-ray player is on the latest firmware, and it is.

Does anyone else in this forum have a Sony UBP-X800M2 blu-ray player connected to their Sky Glass TV, and if so are you getting more than 2-channel sound? If you are, can you share both your Sky Glass and Sony Blu-ray player settings please?

Thanks!

Fork.

---

Apologies for the late reply. Just hooked up my X800 M2 to my Glass TV via HDMI 3 using the sme HDMI cable used to connect it to my AV system downstairs. Sad to report, same result as yourself. The player outputs 2.0 stereo sound.

The Hobbit An Unepexted Jouney 4K UHD disc. Dolby Atmos/Dolby TrueHD soundtrack:

The Hobbit AUJ 4K UHD disc

Pink Floyd PULSE DVD 5.1 Dolby Digital:

Pink Floyd PULSE DVD 5.1 Dolby Digital

The Hobbit AUJ 4K Apple TV 4K Dolby Atmos:

The Hobbit AUJ iTunes 4K Dolby Atmos

From this, I'm inferring that the Glass TV is telling the Sony player it is capable of no more than a 2.0 stereo input and the player is downmixing accordingly,nwhether Dolby TrueHD all the weay down to a vanilla Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. The same TV is telling Apple TV 4K that it is fine with Dolby Atmos (via Dolby Atmos MAT/Dolby Digital Plus).

Would be interested to read just what HDMI & audio capabilities the Glass TV actually has.

[Fork]

Thanks @CoffeeDrinker - I really appreciate you taking the time to do that.

On the one hand it's good news because it means there's no fault with my Sony Blu-ray player. On the other hand it's bad news because it means this will never work.

So I think I will switch-up my 4K blu-ray player to something else. The Panasonic DP-UB820 is getting very good reviews although it seems to be out of stock everywhere! I'll wait for it to come back in stock and then give that a try.

Thanks again for taking the time to help and to perform those troubleshooting steps. I wish I could buy you either a beer or a coffee, but for the timing being I must simply ask you to accept a heartfelt "thank you"!

Best,

Fork.

[missraphie]

Hi @Fork 

I know I'm late to this thread, but I wanted to add some observations as well. I do not own a Sky Glass setup, but the symptons you are describing, such as sound outputting only as 2-channel sound on a media that should be Dolby TrueHD, is the only post I've seen on the web that I can actually relate to.

I've had this UBP-X800M2 player since 2020, and I've never updated the firmware version. I was probably running on the version it came with in the box. But a month ago, I updated the firmware to the latest (M45.R.0058) and didn't notice at first, because I'm French native and I watch a lot of children movies with my kids. Then lately, I was watching James Bond No time to die 4k and it struck me, the English audio version which is Dolby TrueHD was outputting as 2-channel sound. I watched this movie so many times, I know that this movie is a Dolby TrueHD 7.1 movie. I started to panic and tested other 4k movies, such as Spider-Man: Beyond the spider-verse and Stars Wars: Rise of Skywalkers. They all had the same issue: only outputting audio as 2-channel sound.

Odd thing is, whenever I switch to the French audio version, the sound outputs correctly as Dolby TrueHD 7-Channel!! So it is not a problem with my receiver, nor TV. It is actually coming from the blu ray player.

My receiver is an old Denon one, but I never got any issues with 7.1 channels before, it was able to handle it without any sound issues.

This leads me to think that this firmware update may have something to do with this 2-channel problem, like if it was purposely preveting the Dolby TrueHD output for the English audio version.

I searched this issue on the web several times, but you are the only one that is the closest to my current problem. My home theater did not change at all, no configurations were modified on both the receiver and the TV. The only thing that changed is the update I did on the UBP-X800M2 firmware. And thanks to Sony, it is impossible to rollback to a previous firmware version.

Just my 2 cents, maybe someone else will stumble on that post later on and explain how they fixed it. For now, I'm considering buying another blu ray player. Not Sony again.

Thanks