[Feature]: Advanced passthrough controls

[guyyagil]

Area (tag)

Audio

Problem statement

On some Android TV / streaming boxes, audio passthrough is handled as an all-or-nothing system setting.

This creates issues when a device supports passthrough for some codecs (for example Dolby formats) but cannot properly handle others like DTS / DTS-HD.

In these cases, unsupported codecs may fall back to stereo, fail to play correctly, or force users to completely disable passthrough even when they only need decoding for specific formats.

Proposed solution

Please add advanced per-codec passthrough controls in audio settings .

This would allow users to choose which codecs should:

Be passed directly to the audio system
Be decoded locally to multichannel PCM via FFmpeg

Example:

Pass through Dolby / Dolby Atmos
Decode DTS / DTS-HD locally to PCM

This would greatly improve compatibility across Android devices with limited or inconsistent system-level audio controls.

Thank you.

Are you planning to implement this yourself?

No, this is only a proposal

Alternatives considered (optional)

No response

Additional context (optional)

No response

[y-a13k]

Would love to see this. I have a receiver that supports all Dolby formats up to TrueHD but no DTS at all. That receiver decodes DTS internally to PCM 2.0 so there's no issue there.

However, I have another receiver which supports only lossy AC-3 and lossy DTS core. When DTS-HD MA is played on that receiver there's no audio output at all unless I manually go into Nuvio settings and change from prefer device decoders to prefer FFmpeg.

This is annoying though because when I want to watch other movies/ shows with different codecs on my lossless capable receiver and on the same profile, I have to manually change it back to prefer device decoders.

For some reason on my lossless receiver it doesn't matter what codec it is, FFmpeg always coverts it to PCM.

[mindgam3s]

Opened almost the same issue without seeing this in #2126

[kvnkim]

I noticed in my Android TV sound settings, it's able to determine which surround sound types it can decode (DTS is the only disabled format it on the Onn 4K Plus since it can't decode that format). Wondering if Nuvio can auto detect this automatically and fallback to ffmpeg without any user intervention which would truly be auto instead of user specifying exclude DTS passthrough only

[guyyagil]

I noticed in my Android TV sound settings, it's able to determine which surround sound types it can decode (DTS is the only disabled format it on the Onn 4K Plus since it can't decode that format). Wondering if Nuvio can auto detect this automatically and fallback to ffmpeg without any user intervention which would truly be auto instead of user specifying exclude DTS passthrough only

The problem is that if Android TV knows how to handle DTS itself, it may tell the Nuvio player that it can accept a DTS bitstream, even if the OS ultimately decodes it to stereo. So it's not a reliable solution.

[mindgam3s]

I noticed in my Android TV sound settings, it's able to determine which surround sound types it can decode (DTS is the only disabled format it on the Onn 4K Plus since it can't decode that format). Wondering if Nuvio can auto detect this automatically and fallback to ffmpeg without any user intervention which would truly be auto instead of user specifying exclude DTS passthrough only

The problem is that if Android TV knows how to handle DTS itself, it may tell the Nuvio player that it can accept a DTS bitstream, even if the OS ultimately decodes it to stereo. So it's not a reliable solution.

Then the "static" solution would be fine as well. Always "software decode DTS unsing ffmpeg"

[kvnkim]

I feel like an easy fix now would be to able to swap between hardware audio decode / ffmpeg in the internal player while the movie is playing instead of going back deep into the player settings and turning off an on every time you need it.

[gurabli]

This would be awsome to have. Especially as LG removed DTS from their new range TV's, and many other doesn't have at all.
One vote for DD/Atmos passthrough bit always decode DTS versions to multichannel pcm.
Is this possible at all?