Can't use 5.1 surround sound on my soundbar with Sky Stream

[Ma123]

I have an LG surround soundbar, but whenever I try and use Sky Stream with surround sound enabled  I get weird pop noises in the soundbar's rear speakers. 

This happens on Netflix, Disney+ and the Sky Streaming channels from the Sky Stream box, but doesn't when I use Netflix or other apps directly installed on my smart TV.

I can set the stream box to PCM Stereo but then I don't get surround sound from all the speakers. 

Are Sky going to fix this?

[Nigelb1972]

What model LG soundbar do you have and how is it connected? 

The issues you're having are most likely down how it's set up but if it's an older model, it could be a compatibility issue. 

[Ma123]

The soundbar model is LG SQC4R connected from the TV via an optical lead.

[Nigelb1972]

Change audio output on the Puck and TV to Pass through. This will force both components to send pure Audio through. If it's still doing it, change the optical cable in case it been damaged. 

I'm very confident that it isn't an issue with the Puck because there's no direct connection between the Puck and your soundbar, so it's either a set-up issue or an technical issue with your soundbar. 

The reason I say the latter is because we had a Majority soundbar and it occasionally would blast through white noise when trying to sync.

[CoffeeDrinker]

Looking up the specs for the LG SQC4R soundbar and it looks to support Dolby Digital, (which uses the AC3 codec for up to 5.1 channels) but not Dolby Digital Plus (which uses the newer e-AC3 codec for Atmos and up to 7.1 channels).

It may be worth setting the sound output of the puck to Dolby Digital. The Auto and Dolby Digital Plus settings may be causing your TV & soundbar to keep negotiating mutually compatible settings with your puck, and passthrough cause your TV & soundbar to keep doing a similar negotiation between them. Any attempt to negotiate Dolby Digital Plus with your soundbar, which doesn't understand DD+, could be causing the audio chirps you are hearing before your device chain settles on vanilla Dolby Digital.

[Ma123]

Tried setting Sky Stream box to basic  Dolby Digital only, but still have the problem. It seems to happen the most when I change stations or apps a lot in a short space of time, as if the soundbar processor is getting overloaded or something like that.

[Chrisee]

@Ma123 check your TVs audio settings to ensure they are eithercalso set to output Dolby Digital over the optical connection or are set to "pass through". Many TVs decode and then reencode audio received over HDMI so are also part of the chain.

[Ma123]

My TV is a Samsung, in the settings for Digital Output Audio Format there are 3 settings: PCM, Auto and Pass-through, but Pass-through is greyed out, when I try to select it I get the message: 'The current audio format input cannot be passed through with an ARC connection.'

[Ma123]

I don't think there is a setting for Passthrough via optical out on my TV,  Just Passthrough via HDMI ARC.

[Padam_Padam]

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@Ma123 wrote:

My TV is a Samsung, in the settings for Digital Output Audio Format there are 3 settings: PCM, Auto and Pass-through, but Pass-through is greyed out, when I try to select it I get the message: 'The current audio format input cannot be passed through with an ARC connection.'

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On the settings for your Samsung TV do you also have a settings for HDMI input audio format? This may need to be set to bitstream, then you can set the Digital Optical Output format to Dolby Digital. This should allow 5.1 audio to be received from the puck and output via optical to your soundbar. 

[Nigelb1972]

@Ma123 it's a pulse of white noise which is a control signal sent from the source to the recieving device. These are supposed to be inaudible but depending on the receiver, they sometimes can be heard. We used to have a Manhattan soundbar that did the same thing. Unfortunately I don't think there's a lot you can do about it other than upgrade the soundbar to one that supports ARC or even better, eARC...