Delay with Dolby Digital

[m-koptev]

Thanks for the guide! I found that after all manipulations, there occurs a significant delay of 500ms if the dolby digital is active. I tried reducing the sound quality for the virtual sound recorder, no result. Do you experience the same? Is there any workaround?

[GingerAdonis]

For me personally the delay varied a lot per open game or app.

I've switched to hacked Realtek audio drivers in order to enable Dolby Digital encoding from optical out on any motherboard. Then I use the optical out to HDMI converter, which is included with the Sonos Beam, to be able to connect quite a long HDMI cable (about 20m.) to the Sonos Beam directly (and circumvent the TV for audio).
The downsides of this method are:

• No HDMI-CEC when using the HDMI audio cable from the PC.
• Manually switching HDMI cables whenever I want to game or watch TV.

However! The benefit of using this method is that there's literally no delay in audio as Realtek chips have hardware encoding.

If you'd like to give this method a shot as well I can write up a new guide. Just let me know. :)

[nilsbyte]

@GingerAdonis I would like to know how it works with Realtek drivers. I have a Asrock X300 Mini board (HTPC) with a Realtek Onboard sound solution.

[GingerAdonis]

Here's a link to the hacked Realtek drivers that can enable Dolby Digital 5.1 on optical output for any motherboard. https://github.com/AlanFinotty/AAFDCHDriverMod/releases

Make sure to remove the original Realtek drivers beforehand. :)

[nilsbyte]

I use the ASRock X300 Mini which only has HDMI output and no dedicated sound or graphics card. I am using the iGPU from the AMD Ryzen CPU.

This means I have to use HDMI for video and audio output. I don't understand the inner workings of HDMI audio on PC. Which part handles/should handle Dolby Digital encoding? It needs to be Dolby Digital as it's the only format Sonos accepts.

[GingerAdonis]

This means I have to use HDMI for video and audio output. I don't understand the inner workings of HDMI audio on PC. Which part handles/should handle Dolby Digital encoding? It needs to be Dolby Digital as it's the only format Sonos accepts.
The following guide should also work for your situation: https://github.com/GingerAdonis/SonosTricks/blob/master/surroundSoundOnWindows/README.md

[nilsbyte]

Yes @GingerAdonis but in this solution I have audio delay of some hundred milliseconds. I guess it’s because it’s a software encoder?

[GingerAdonis]

Yes @GingerAdonis but in this solution I have audio delay of some hundred milliseconds. I guess it’s because it’s a software encoder?

You're correct. I'm not aware of a work-around, unfortunately. Please note that regular stereo sound doesn't have this delay.