BT Pro Box surround sound

[AlyCath]

Tried that already but they say the Box is working as expected and sending sound and picture.

They told me to use an Optical Cable and that will solve the problem 😂. Couldn't quite get it across that its irrelevant as the problem lies with the sound source i.e BT Box.

Anyway, stuck with this now for 2 years...hopefully it can be fixed soon.

[ICTNO1]

I don’t think there’s any intention of resolving this issue. It has been ongoing for ages. I’m still using my old box instead as well.  Not sure there’s much difference in the boxes though to be honest apart from the remote is better shaped on the new one. I’m using the new one on another TV that’s not connected to a surround system and there’s very little difference. 

[SoupDragon57]

@ICTNO1 As @DarrenDev  said, it's with the equipment manufacturer for resolving as it is a problem with their base-level software. Hopefully, BT are putting pressure on them to resolve this long standing fault.

[Midnight_Voice]

Not having a Pro box, and so not having this issue, can I ask how the problem manifests itself when a stereo programme is played as if it were 5.1?

My LG GX soundbar has all sorts of settings for the rear speakers,  but I keep it normally set to Surround On, which means that even when my YouView box, set for 5.1, detects stereo and drops to stereo, the soundbar will still feed the rears (though with, I think, the front signal repeated rather than synthesised 5.1).

Which is OK by me. But presumably Pro boxes are doing something horrible, judging by the fuss - so what is that, exactly?

[SoupDragon57]

@Midnight_Voice The simplest way to support the issue is with the ITV channels, which we all know only broadcast in stereo/2.0. ITV2/3/4 all incorrectly tag the sound as 5.1. some channels appear to correctly tag the audio, but it never changes, regardless of the programme's actual audio. It would appear that it is unable to process the audio tagging correctly from broadcast TV. 

[DarrenDev]

The issue is that the box outputs ALL audio tagged as though it's 5.1 - regardless of source. When it's a surround sound source, that's OK - everything plays as it should. When it's only a stereo source, it's tagged as being 5.1 with only FL and FR active. This causes surround sound decoders to turn off all the other speakers, and prevents them from creating virtual surround from a stereo source.

Having said all that - I was looking at the wrong bug. They're saying it's still an issue on the IP Mini, however they're saying it's fixed on the Pro box. It was marked fixed as of manufacturer software version 0.7.18 which was released months ago.

@AlyCath - could you please describe the issue you're experiencing, just to confirm it's the same?

[AlyCath]

I have the box set to surround but when a non surround channel is being watched I.e stereo, it plays the stereo sound through all 5 speakers as apposed to only playing it through the Front Left and Front right.

When a surround sound channel is being watched then it’s fine.

So for me the box should automatically detect what sound the channel is and send that through or I will have to manually change this on the receiver based on the channel sound.

Hope that makes sense?

I can double check this later tonight again as have just left it as is and haven’t watched much Tely the past few weeks.

[DarrenDev]

OK, so that suggests that you're seeing the opposite of the original issue I believe? Could it be that your surround sound setup is configured with a mode that is repeating the channels on stereo source? Do you have any other way to test it? e.g. is your amp connected to your TV, so that you could test normal TV aerial playback through it?

[AlyCath]

The amp is set to automatically detect the sound source but if the sound source from the box is always coming through as 5.1 then it will be that.

 I can have a look later tonight and test this again and see what happens.

[DarrenDev]

They claim that the bug is fixed, so it should correctly switch depending on the source content.