Hi,
I am not sure if this is even possible but here is my idea/proposal:
my setup consists of Tannix TX8 android box (running Android 6.0) and Kodi 16.1. Box is connected via optical SPDIF to the Rotel surround sound processor which supports DTS and DD but not DTS HD-MA and Dolby TrueHD. As Kodi re-encodes DTS HD-MA to DTS and Dolby TrueHD to DD everything works just fine even with those formats. When playing some DTS HD-MA and Dolby TrueHD files designed to check if all speakers are running correctly I have noticed that both surround channels (side and rear) from 7.1 format are sent to the rear surround channel during re-encoding process. My question/idea/proposal is to handle side surround channel in a same manner that sound processors are handling missing center speakers, so instead of sending 7.1 side surround channel to the rear surround 5.1 channel I would prefer (if possible) that the sound is sent to both front and rear channel of that side thus trying to recreate the “missing” side channel in 5.1 format. I’m pretty sure that 7.1 surround processors do the same thing when you’re playing 7.1 material but you don’t actually have side speakers in your room, so why not doing the same when re-encoding 7.1 material to 5.1 format as in 5.1 format side channel is always absent. 🙂
Br
Kruno