If a video plays with sound on your computer and goes completely silent on your TV, the file is almost certainly fine. What has happened is that the soundtrack is encoded in a format your television cannot decode, and DTS is the format this happens to most often. Dolby Digital is decoded by effectively every TV sold. DTS is not: several major manufacturers stopped including DTS decoding in their televisions, and Samsung publishes a support article specifically for customers hitting this. The fix is not to convert the file. It is to move the decoding to a device that can do it.
Why this happens to DTS and not to Dolby
Dolby Digital is built into the broadcast standards televisions have to support. In the United States, the ATSC standard used for over-the-air digital television carries Dolby Digital audio, so a set that could not decode it could not do its primary job. That requirement is a large part of why Dolby Digital support is effectively universal on TVs and why you almost never see this symptom with it.
DTS has no equivalent mandate. It arrived as a cinema and disc format rather than a broadcast one, and a television manufacturer can ship a perfectly compliant TV without it. The reason usually given across the industry is licensing cost: every codec a manufacturer includes is paid for, and a format that most of a TV's own content never uses is a candidate for removal. Treat that as the widely reported explanation rather than something any manufacturer states in those terms. What is directly verifiable is the outcome: manufacturer support pages now exist to explain to customers that their television does not support DTS, which is not something a company writes unless the situation is common.
This site already covers what these formats are in their own right, in what is Dolby D. This article is about the symptom, not the definitions.
The question that actually solves it: where is the decoding happening?
Silence means some device in the chain received a bitstream it could not turn into sound and did not have a fallback. So the useful question is not "does my TV support DTS" in the abstract. It is "is my TV the thing that has to decode this?"
There are three common chains, and your TV's capability only matters in two of them.
| Chain | Who decodes | Does the TV's DTS support matter? |
|---|---|---|
| File on USB stick, played by the TV's own media player | The TV | Yes, entirely |
| Streaming app running on the TV | The TV | Yes |
| Source device into the TV, audio back to a soundbar over ARC | The TV, then it re-sends | Yes, the TV is in the path |
| Source device into an AV receiver, receiver passes video to the TV | The receiver | No, the TV is out of the audio path |
That last row is the one that resolves this problem outright for people who own a receiver. If your Blu-ray player, console or media box connects to the receiver, and the receiver sends the picture onward to the television, the audio never passes through the TV at all. The TV's missing DTS decoder becomes irrelevant. If you are not sure how your own chain is wired, the TV sound chain walks through it in order.
Four ways to fix it
1. Let the source device decode instead of the TV.
This is the simplest fix and it works with equipment you already own. Almost every source (a Blu-ray player, a games console, a computer, a media streamer) has an audio output setting that chooses between sending an undecoded bitstream and decoding first. Set it to decode, usually shown as PCM, and the source hands the TV finished audio it does not have to understand. You keep the sound. What you give up depends on the device: many will downmix to two channels in the process. The full tradeoff is in bitstream vs PCM.
2. Rewire so a receiver or soundbar does the decoding.
If you own an AV receiver that handles DTS, connect sources to it rather than to the television. This is the fix that costs nothing and loses nothing, because a capable receiver decodes the original soundtrack in full.
3. Check whether the receiver route is being blocked by the return path.
A soundbar that supports DTS still has to receive it. If audio is traveling backwards from the TV to the bar over the audio return channel, the TV is in the path and can strip or refuse what it cannot handle. What each version of the return channel can carry is set out in HDMI ARC vs eARC.
4. Accept stereo, deliberately.
If none of the above is available, having the source downmix to two-channel PCM gives you sound, just not surround. That is a legitimate answer for a lot of casual viewing, and it is better than silence.
What will not fix it
A firmware update, usually. Decoding a format requires a license and, in most sets, the decoder to be present in the software image. A television that shipped without DTS support is very unlikely to gain it later. Update the firmware for other reasons, but do not wait on it for this.
Converting the file, usually. Re-encoding a DTS track to Dolby Digital does work technically, but it re-compresses already-compressed audio and costs you quality, and it is a lot of effort per file. Changing one output setting on a source device achieves the same end result without touching your library.
Changing the cable. This symptom is a format negotiation failure, not a signal integrity failure. A different HDMI or optical cable does not add a decoder to anything. Cable quality matters for other problems, not this one.
Turning the volume up. Worth saying because it is the instinct. Complete silence on one file while everything else plays normally is diagnostic in itself: a level problem affects everything, a decode problem affects only the content in that format.
How to confirm it is a format problem in two minutes
- Play a different file from a different source on the same input. If that one has sound, the input, cable and speakers are all fine.
- Play the silent file on a phone or computer. If it has sound there, the file is fine.
- Look at what the TV or soundbar reports on its display or in its information panel while the silent file is playing. Many devices name the incoming format, and seeing DTS named while hearing nothing is the confirmation.
- Change the source device's audio output to PCM and play the same file again. If sound appears, you have both confirmed the diagnosis and found your fix.
If you want the background on what a multichannel soundtrack actually contains and why a downmix loses something, the site covers it in what is 5.1 audio.
FAQ
Does my TV support DTS?
Many recent televisions from major manufacturers do not, and several publish support articles explaining that. The reliable way to check yours is the specifications page for your exact model on the manufacturer's own site, under supported audio formats. Do not rely on the fact that an older set in the same house handles it.
Why does a video have sound on my laptop but not on my TV?
Because your laptop's software can decode formats your television's hardware cannot. Silence on the TV with sound elsewhere is the signature of a missing decoder rather than a damaged file.
Is DTS better than Dolby Digital?
They are different lossy compression systems and the comparison depends heavily on the specific version and bitrate involved rather than on the brand. For the problem in this article it does not matter: the format you can actually decode is the better one for you.
Will setting my player to PCM lose surround sound?
Often yes. Many devices downmix to two channels when asked to output PCM. Some can output multichannel PCM over HDMI, which keeps the channels. Check what your specific source offers before assuming you must give up surround.
My soundbar says it supports DTS, so why is there still no sound?
Probably because the audio is passing through the television on its way to the bar. If the TV cannot handle the format, it does not reach the bar intact. Connecting the source directly to the bar or receiver, where possible, takes the TV out of the path.
