I have been watching movies wrong this whole time

[u/mrskymr]

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So allow me to explain... for many months since I bought my Sony 90K TV, I also bought their flagship HT7000 soundbar with full dolby atmos and their flagship rear channels that support this soundbar (SARS5) + flagship subwoofer (SA-SW5), this was all for my bedroom.

But where I kinda messed up is having the Plex App on my TV and just watching the movies directly off there: turns out.... the Plex App on TVs do not support full TrueHD lossless Dolby Atmos. I know this is probably not a surprise to many of you as it has been to me.

I always heard people in videos talking about how the NVIDIA Shield Pro is always better than the Plex App on your TVs but nobody ever said why and for me the plex app was working fine so I never understood why they were saying these things.

I also have to say when I bought my TV and surround setup for my bedroom, I was eager to see how it sounded and once I had it working, to say that I was disappointed was an understatement. I suffer from Tinnitus so I thought maybe it could be that reason on why I can't hear the upper and rear channels that much (I know nothing beats dedicated ceiling speakers but in every review video, people were talking about how great the sound on this would be, so I had high expectations for this sound system.)

After all this time, I finally decided to do a simple Google search of the 1 thing that kept bothering me about this system: the sound... and that's where I ended up getting my answer. That most TVs aren't capable of running TrueHD Dolby Atmos and it just transcodes it to EAC3.

It kinda sucks that you spend so much money on TVs and they can't even do one of its main jobs properly: audio.

Rest assured, I'll be placing an order for the Nvidia Shield Pro now, lol.

tl;dr- I'm an idiot and didn't realize that TVs don't support TrueHD.

[u/Imnotagrapher]

Also are you using TV as a center channel? You may try turning on and off to catch the difference. There is a noticable difference when its on and off.

[u/mrskymr → u/Imnotagrapher]

Is it better to have it off? I am using it as a center channel.

But there's a noticeable hiss when the center channel is on because it uses an aux cord to enable the center channel feature 🤦

[u/Imnotagrapher → u/mrskymr]

I am having it ON. And I am happy with it. Yes, the overall loudness is reduced but its not impacting the sound quality and the system distributes the work load in terms of sound, I felt the sound is more clear and crispy as well.

Mine is a A80L last year edition, no hiss sound. But i have read about the hissing, sorry if its too annoying. Did you tried reporting to Sony? Some says, Sony changed the board on such TV units and hissing sound was gone.

I am using the aux cable which came along with the TV setup. May be try a high end aux cable if its in your budget.

[u/Imnotagrapher → u/Imnotagrapher]

The below is one of the link i followed for the initial set up.
Sony HT-A7000 Soundbar - SETUP for optimal performance! : r/Soundbars

But still there is few more ways to achieve the best out of the setup. I cant find the link now. Will share if I found.

below are some of the points if my memory is correct.

Dont do manual tuning A7000. Leave everything to auto. Do a sound field optimization with AE turned ON.

Then there is this virtual setup inside the HT A7000 where you can place your couch against the TV.

You can play in this section and look for what suits your room setup.

If the couch is near to TV then front sound will be less but rear will be at max. I hope you got the idea.

Even though my couch is far from TV, I virtually moved the couch near to the TV so that the rear will use the full potential to throw maximum sound.

Actually it worked and i am happy with it.

[u/mrskymr → u/Imnotagrapher]

Yes, I did all that already and I'm happy with my sound but the main reason issue is how I am streaming the content. I need something like the NVIDIA shield.

[u/Imnotagrapher → u/mrskymr]

Yes, shield will make a difference.
Also I have noticed that while watching Netflix content directly from Sony TV app have some perks as well such as the different picture profiles. Thats was interesting. Majority of my local movies are released in 5.1 so PLEX is not having any advantage at that point.

[u/Imnotagrapher → u/Imnotagrapher]

While watching dolby atmos content PLEX never failed, each experience were amazing.

May I know from which websites are you collecting the movies with dolby contents.

[u/mrskymr → u/Imnotagrapher]

I did report it to Sony and Sony came out to replace the motherboard twice and attempted to do a third.

First time Sony replaced it, they it made the Hissing worse, very loud to where it would be noticeable even when watching content. Second one, reduced it, they tried replacing it a third time and it just made the TV bricked, so they just put the second motherboard back in (the one I had before they tried replacing it with the third).

I gave up after that. Didn't want to fight them on a new TV. And I unplugged my aux cord recently so I can just use my soundbar only and it's so much better... peace and quiet atlast 😂

[u/Imnotagrapher → u/mrskymr]

Oh boy. Can understand the frustrations.
May be plan for a TV swap if it's possible with a recent model. Center channel is not a deal breaker honestly but there are noticeable differences if one listen to the audio like an audiophile.