So I have a fancy OLED TV (2020 LG CX) and a good soundbar (Vizio m512a-h6) I did a lot of research on before I bought it, because I wanted good audio and also I had already done enough reading to know currently HD audio is a fucking nightmare of proprietary codecs. So I found a reasonably priced mid tier soundbar with good audio with all the codecs currently being used. And to my credit, I haven't run into too many issues with it since I bought it!

But today I was like 'I have downloaded this 4k HDR rip of this movie with lossless audio, I think I will watch it'

Only the codec it uses is fucking "DTS HD-7.1"

And APPARENTLY the generation of TV I have (the 2020/2021 LG cx/c1 oleds) specifically DO NOT have DTS codec support if you use the tv's native apps to play it, even if you're passing the audio through to a soundbar or receiver directly and the soundbar or receiver you use DOES support DTS, which mine does.

So I spent 30 fucking minutes going through the settings menu on the TV like 'is my soundbar fucking broken, why is there no audio, I know it has this codec support,' when it turns out it was the fucking TV telling me I'm not allowed because LG refused to license it those 2 years.

So, of course, there's 2 workarounds for this issue.

You can buy an external streaming box which will have its own supported codecs (the top tier of which is a 200 dollar android based Nvidia Shield Pro that supports more or less everything)

Or, if like me you are using Plex, you can hit a toggle in your LG TV Plex client that disables playback of DTS audio (why is this even there to be turned on if it doesn't work?), which then forces your server to convert the DTS format audio in real time to a different format the TV can play. Simple, right!

But then you're reliant on your server being capable of transcoding that audio in real time. Which is doable, for most modern PCs. Mine can do it, but transcoding audio is done on the CPU and is sped up significantly if your CPU has integrated graphics, and AMD CPUs didn't have IGPUs until this year.

Plex relies on the IGPU of your CPU for quick conversions, basically meaning if you have an AMD CPU it has to brute force the conversion, which AMD CPUs are bad at.

I COULD KEEP GOING DOWN THIS RABBIT HOLE, BUT THIS IS ALL A LONG WAY OF SAYING HIFI A/V AINT WORTH IT, IT'S AN ENDLESS RABBIT HOLE OF PETTY LICENSING DISPUTES, TINKERING AND SPENDING TOO MUCH MONEY

All of this just to watch fucking Puss In Boots

You're nuts, but anyway, if you have like none of this gear and are thinking 'i would like to be a sicko and i have too much money,' baseline, here is what you want:

1. a computer with a hard drive from which you can run Plex, preferably it will have an intel CPU from the last 3-5 years, but that's not strictly required.

2. you buy your fancy 4k tv, preferably an OLED or MiniLED of some kind, and you make sure it has an HDMI 2.1 port with E-ARC

3. you need to commit to good audio. you do not rely on the built in speakers, they are the devil. do research and find a soundbar that has all these codec, at least, and make sure it has E-Arc. E-Arc is how it sends the audio to your tv, through the HDMI cable.

4. you do not EVER let the tv handle audio. you google whatever settings your tv purchased uses, and you set it up to use E-ARC and passthrough.

5. you might consider an Nvidia Shield Pro, which you will hook up via HDMI cable to your soundbar's passthrough input, so it goes [Shield > HDMI cable > soundbar > HDMI cable > tv]. this is basically gonna be your front end for your tv if you decide to commit to this. don't bother using your tv's native apps.

If you want to do this stupid bullshit, you need:

1. A computer and it should have an intel cpu from the last 3-5 years. ($400+, you can make this as expensive as you want and can afford, but bare minimum you're gonna want a recent intel cpu and a hard drive or two for storage in it.)

2. an expensive tv ($800, depending on size and model)

3. a moderately expensive soundbar or even more expensive receiver and satellite speakers for said receiver. I would say the soundbar I went with, at the time, was probably the cheapest this runs ime ($350+)

4. and possibly a set top box to control it all ($200)

I do not recommend getting into this shit, I am an insane person who likes to tinker with shit and pieced my shit together over time, so if you're also insane there you go.

anyway if you just wanna watch fuckin' 1080p rips with stereo audio and decent sound quality, like a normal functioning human being, you don't have to do any of this, just get an alright 4k tv and a reasonably cheap soundbar (or cheap receiver and satellite stereo speakers, which is frankly the best financial investment here) and run Plex on whatever dinky box you might have, it'll be fine.

this kind of nonsense has happened to me while in the presence of other people and I just look like a psycho either trying to fix everything or by watching the movie while being visibly anxious about the thing that's not working as it should

"Yeah no wait the nvidia shield is frozen and not responding to the remote, let me just hard reboot it by pulling the power cord."

"Oh weird, my soundbar desynced itself from the tv and my tv defaulted to the internal speakers, let me just restart both and we can play the movie."

"Oh goddamnit, radarr downloaded the wrong release of this movie, give me like 20 minutes and I'll have it redownload a remux."

These are the words of insane people. They have played us for absolute fools.