MetalDave wrote:

Hello, Roku team!

I am a mid-to-high end home theater buff.  I take this moniker to mean that I enjoy using products and solutions in my home theater setup that will provide maximum quality without breaking the bank.  To put it another way: will my family see a difference for the investment in the gear?  The intended audience of fellow users will understand this measure of quality versus cost.

To that end, 7.1 lossless audio (including the TrueHD and DTS-MA formats and the burgeoning of ATMOS and other advanced formats) in the home theater is important to me. Even the casual viewer can appreciate the effect of the rear channels and high fidelity in the home theater experience.  as a result, investing in the capability to play these formats has been a worthwhile investment. 

Therefore, I am compelled to ask: why has the Roku platform yet to support the pass through of lossless audio formats via HDMI to the AV receiver?

As I understand it, this has been a top feature request for a few years now.  I would feel better recommending and considering the Roku platform with just a little more understanding of the reasoning behind this feature omission.  Is this a licensing issue (which the passthrough concept would seem to imply a bypass)? Is this a technical issue with the hardware?  Is this a software issue (wherein Roku has yet to dedicate the resources to make this a reality)?

In my mind, it has to be one of those three.  I've seen much speculation from other users throughout the web (so, please, no need to add further conjecture in this thread fellow users).  One the same token, there is a commensurate amount of demand for the feature from customers willing to pay for it (if there is, indeed, additional cost involved). 

As many others have already said, the Roku interface is wonderful and my preferred method to access content.  I believe it is the most universally open and accepted platform. That said, this is a shortcoming that, ultimately, leads customers to invest in another platform to address this long-standing issue.  Like many others, I feel this is a less than desirable option for a variety of reasons.

Roku Team, please give us some insight as to the perceived and actual challenges providing this much requested feature.  Is there a development roadmap where this feature exists?  Is it completely off the table (as recent releases would seem to imply)?

To my fellow users: no need to second the motion. I believe the good folks already know we want this feature.  I'd like to see this thread used for a dialogue from the development team to the user community, so let's give them a chance to respond (before letting this degrade into a tirade of, "me, too.").  Likewise, if someone has already received an official response to this same question, please feel free to share.

Thank you in advance!

- Dave

RokuDale wrote:

The current Roku firmware will directly decode multichannel flac, however it will mix it down to stereo 16 bit 48khz before sending it out the digital ports.

chadwick404 wrote:

Hmmmm - now, I knew that Rokus didn't do everything - but wasn't aware that they didn't pass through hires, no matter the codec or format.  Very disappointing...so, everything in audio gets down converted to something no better than Cd quality?  Every audio format?  If so, any suggestions for alternative streamers?