Forum Discussion

Aceman57's avatar
Aceman57
New Contributor
4 years ago

Should my HDMI and Digital Audio be set Dolby Digital?

So I lost my English audio (switched to Spanish on its own somehow) and when I was trying to fix it I think I changed Device Settings Audio.  It is now set as follows:

HDMI Audio Output:  Auto Detect (Dolby Digital 5.1)

Digital Audio Output:  Auto Detect (Dolby Digital 5.1)

I do have a Receiver and center, left/right speakers and subwoofer.  I THINK the DAO was originally set to Stereo.

What is the default on these and what should they be set on?

  • Bruce's avatar
    Bruce
    Honored Contributor III
    4 years ago

    According to other posts, the English-Spanish seems like a roving glitch.  I'm not sure what's happening.

    The Audio setting is your choice of which device to process encoded audio data:  the cable-box, A/V receiver, soundbar, TV, etc.

    HDMI Audio Output

    3 settings:  Stereo, Auto Detect (Stereo) and Expert.

    Stereo is low-level processing.  The cable-box will just decode the audio as 2-channel stereo sound.  TV sets normally only have 2 speakers so it's good enough.

    Auto Detect (Stereo) is negotiations.  The cable-box will negotiate will an external device for its capabilities.  "I have Stereo, Dolby Surround, Dolby Digital and Dolby Digital 5.1.  Which format do you want?"  After negotiating, the cable-box will decode the audio data.

    Expert removes the cable-box from the decoding process altogether because...you know...it's a cheap cable-box.  The keyword in the description for Expert is "...passed through..."  Meaning, the cable-box will just pass the raw data to your external device and not process it.

    Digital Audio Output

    This setting is if you're not using an HDMI cable for audio.  If you're using an HDMI cable for audio, it wouldn't affect your setup.

    What other cable is there for audio?  It depends on your cable-box.  If your cable-box has an optical connector (SPDIF (Sony/Philips Digital InterFace))…which is an RCA or TOSLINK plug...this setting instructs your cable-box to decode the audio data as either Stereo or DD 5.1 before transmitting from the optical or SPDIF port.