Is anyone having the issue of Dynamic Range Control not working when using a soundbar? I have set the DRC options to RF for Dolby Digital and 100% for DTS.
It works absolutely fine when using the internal speakers of the TV. I tried Batman Begins (DTS-audio) and it levels out the audio perfectly but when I use the soundbar the effects are about to bring the house down while the dialogue is nowhere close to the rest. It's extremely annoying.
What's the issue here?
This is because your TV and soundbar have different audio capabilities. Most TVs only have basic stereo speakers and no decode capabilities, so the Dolby Digital or DTS audio from your movie is decoded and downmixed on the Android TV box and sent to the TV as uncompressed PCM audio. Thus the DRC options you set there will take effect. However, it is likely your soundbar takes a bitstream, which means the Android TV box simply passes through the Dolby Digital or DTS audio untouched in its compressed form. The soundbar will decode that stream for playback and thus the DRC options on your Android TV box don't do anything. If you want to do DRC, you need a soundbar with that capability built it, many of them have that option.
I'm no help, but I want to back acknowledge your issue as I've tried countless setting to overcome the same problems,. On my downstairs box I do use viper4 Android and let it process, although It seems to be a placebo effect on me