I noticed something interesting on the spec sheet:



I'm wondering if this is going to solve the issue people have with older home theater receivers that can't decode DD+. Dolby itself says that DD+ when output over S/PDIF (optical, in this case) is down-converted to standard DD 5.1.

Excerpt from DD+ page:

Is Dolby Digital Plus content backward-compatible?

Because Dolby Digital Plus is built on core Dolby Digital technologies, content that is encoded with Dolby Digital Plus is fully compatible with the millions of existing home theaters and playback systems worldwide equipped for Dolby Digital playback.

Dolby Digital Plus soundtracks are easily converted to a 640 kbps Dolby Digital signal without decoding and reencoding, for output via S/PDIF.

The 640 kbps bit rate, which is higher than the standard 448 kbps used on DVDs, is fully compatible with all existing Dolby Digital decoding products such as A/V receivers, and can provide higher-than-DVD quality from Dolby Digital Plus soundtracks when played back through existing systems.

Thoughts?

This makes me happy. I don't want to change out my great receiver just because it is older and does not have HDMI inputs. Who wants to leave their TV on to listen to music? Good move Roku. Now, about those RCA outputs for audio..

Is this the same as TrueHD? What about DTS-HD? will Roku 4 pass that as well thru HDMI?

BoloMKXXVIII wrote:

This makes me happy. I don't want to change out my great receiver just because it is older and does not have HDMI inputs. Who wants to leave their TV on to listen to music? Good move Roku. Now, about those RCA outputs for audio..

Well, I'm not sure this is THE fix, but it does make sense. I guess we'll have to wait for someone to get a box with an older home theater unit and try the optical out for Netflix, for example.

MikeyC wrote:

Is this the same as TrueHD? What about DTS-HD? will Roku 4 pass that as well thru HDMI?

It is not the same as TrueHD or DTS-HD. DD+ is more streaming friendly.

I asked if anyone has seen pass through support for TrueHD or DTS-HD, we shall see. I highly doubt it will be possible.

I'm confused. Is this saying that with the R4 in loop DD+ can now be read through an optical output? Couldn't before.

david0406 wrote:

I'm confused. Is this saying that with the R4 in loop DD+ can now be read through an optical output? Couldn't before.

Presumably, it means they licensed DD for it, so they can downconvert DD+ to DD over optical.

^ which could account for at least part of the price increase.

TheEndless wrote:

david0406 wrote:

I'm confused. Is this saying that with the R4 in loop DD+ can now be read through an optical output? Couldn't before.

Presumably, it means they licensed DD for it, so they can downconvert DD+ to DD over optical.

Oh well it's just a licensing thing? I thought maybe it was more a technical thing. I don't mean technically Dolby wanting more money.

david0406 wrote:

TheEndless wrote:

david0406 wrote:

I'm confused. Is this saying that with the R4 in loop DD+ can now be read through an optical output? Couldn't before.

Presumably, it means they licensed DD for it, so they can downconvert DD+ to DD over optical.

Oh well it's just a licensing thing? I thought maybe it was more a technical thing. I don't mean technically Dolby wanting more money.

Well my understanding is it is a physical thing as well, as in there must physically be a Dolby chip in the Roku to convert DD+ to DD for optical output. However, the physical chip is likely not expensive, it is the associated license fee with the chip.

It doesn't seem to make any sense for Roku to offer optical at this stage unless it was to give down conversion of DD+ to standard Dolby 5.1.

Note: This is what the Amazon Fire TV already does over optical, from what I've read. In that case, there's a setting in the audio output section to choose 5.1 Dolby vs. DD+.

It remains to be seen whether Roku will do it this way, or will just automatically do it for you when you choose "Auto" from the menu. It is interesting to note that they aren't touting this as a feature, though.

The more forums threads you read... The More You Know ★

The Roku 3 already supports DTS-HD MA pass-through, it however does not support Dolby TrueHD. If your Roku 3 isn't passing through the DTS-HD MA properly, get Serviio and make sure the video is in a MKV container.

I do not care about the 4K hype-train, I only care if the Roku 4 will properly pass-through Dolby TrueHD, if it does, I'll buy it. That is the only thing that will make me buy it. The H265 support though is making me THINK about it, but the Roku 4 is such a disappointment.

To clarify. The website is technically correct. The Roku 4 is able to send DD+ out the optical connector without transcoding to DD. But since the bitrate on the optical connector is not much more than 1.5Mbps, DD+ streams that exceed that bitrate will not work. Also, not all audio receivers are capable of decoding DD+ coming over optical connector even though they can decode it coming in over hdmi. The main channels on the Roku that use DD+ have DD+ bitrates that are much lower than 1.5Mbps. To answer the question about converting DD+ to DD, the Roku 4 does not convert DD+ to DD before transmitting out the optical connector. In order to enable transmitting DD+ out the optical connector you need to make sure the Audio Modes and the Digital Audio Out setting show that DD+ is allowed whether through the Auto setting, or the manual setting.

roku dale
Not been in forums in 10 years since roku hd1000 photo bridge.
Planning to buy Roku 4 when it comes out if things work on my system

My audio system is gently aged sony DA7ES and will do dolby 5.1 ONLY
( sony TV is a 4K 65X900A ( where ONE HDMI port is supposed to be HDMI 2.0 and HDCP compliant but I am not sure
and
my sony handycam is a 4K sony FXR-AX1)

If I connect the audio optical out of Roku 4 to the Optical in of the Sony receiver will there be any audio problems?
Can I connect my 4K camcorder to Roku 4 as pass through ?