Hollow sound on EAC3 JOC movie

[new93]

So I was watching a movie on Netflix with DD+ Atmos on my Sony Smart TV + BDVE3200 HTS, the sound was coming very hollow, there was no Crispy Bass and even the surround was weak.

After that I even downloaded the Untouched version and tried to play it via inbuilt Media player, result was same.
I tried using Avidemux and converted it to normal AC3 but no change, infact it messed up whole audio.

Here is the media info -

Audio
ID : 2
Format : E-AC-3 JOC
Format/Info : Enhanced AC-3 with Joint Object Coding
Commercial name : Dolby Digital Plus with Dolby Atmos
Codec ID : A_EAC3
Duration : 3 h 5 min
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 768 kb/s
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel layout : L R C LFE Ls Rs
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate : 31.250 FPS (1536 SPF)
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 1 017 MiB (12%)
Title : Hindi
Language : Hindi
Service kind : Complete Main
Default : No
Forced : No
Complexity index : 16
Number of dynamic objects : 15
Bed channel count : 1 channel
Bed channel configuration : LFE


What could be the reason?
Is it the receiver which is not able to recognize it or the media player ?
I even used VLC on TV but the output was stereo.

Any way to convert this to AC3 and remove the remaining metadata ?

Or the only way is to buy an ATMOS enabled receiver ?

[Ennio]

If other EAC3-JOC movies sound fine, obviously first reason would be that the specific movie simply has crap audio.
An 'untouched' version sounding the same is suspicious of course, however would not theoretically confirm. You are comparing two different sources. The MediaInfo data seems allright. Of course this says nothing about the audioquality itself.

If you experience this problem generally with EAC3-JOC, chances are that the TV (or other connected equipment) would not properly handle the format. You could read the manual(s) about supported codecs and containers. I don't know your SONY tv behaviour by heart.

EAC3-JOC from streaming services does not carry an AC3 core like on (uhd)bluray disk. Therefor you need at least an EAC3 decoder in your chain. This would be for the "flatbed" EAC3 part.
On itself there's no need for an Atmos decoder. A "non-atmos" EAC3 decoder would simply ignore the extra Atmos audiopackets and metadata and will only process the EAC3 part.

[new93]

If other EAC3-JOC movies sound fine, obviously first reason would be that the specific movie simply has crap audio.
An 'untouched' version sounding the same is suspicious of course, however would not theoretically confirm. You are comparing two different sources. The MediaInfo data seems allright. Of course this says nothing about the audioquality itself.

If you experience this problem generally with EAC3-JOC, chances are that the TV (or other connected equipment) would not properly handle the format. You could read the manual(s) about supported codecs and containers. I don't know your SONY tv behaviour by heart.

EAC3-JOC from streaming services does not carry an AC3 core like on (uhd)bluray disk. Therefor you need at least an EAC3 decoder in your chain. This would be for the "flatbed" EAC3 part.
On itself there's no need for an Atmos decoder. A "non-atmos" EAC3 decoder would simply ignore the extra Atmos audiopackets and metadata and will only process the EAC3 part.

Thanks for the reply, I am not sure whether its the TV or the HTS which is not able to decode the format properly. I am trying one more Movie tomorrow with EAC3 JOC audio, I will let you know about the result.
Apart from this, can you suggest any Android App/Media Player which supports DD/DD+ pass through ? VLC doesn't work.

[Ennio]

Other than your HTS EAC3 decoding ability, another concern is if EAC3 can be offered at any of its available inputs. AFAIK EAC3 bitstream transfer only works on HDMI, but IIRC ARC protocol doesn't support it. SPDIF doesn't too. More recent E-ARC should be able.

Another thing that I didn't think of earlier: is the sound via your tv speakers ok? Surely (if not mandatory) a tv with Netflix app is able to decode EAC3. If so, maybe the tv has a setting that can convert audio to stereo pcm or even "better" AC3 5.1, which both are compatible with SPDIF and ARC.

I am not familiar with mediaplayer apps and software in conjunction to HTS usage. I have HW UHDBD- and mediaplayers connected via HDMI to my AVR.