WD Play audio passthrough issues

Hi
I know this issue has been brought up before and discussed a long time back but those threads are now locked so I had to start a new one. I have read through lots of them but still need clarification, so here goes:
I want to play DTS-HD files through a Panasonic surround system through the Toslink cable and understand that these should be converted to just the core stream as DTS-HD is not compatible with Toslink. The problem is I don’t even get 2.0 stereo I get no sound at all. I have used Toslink cables with my Sumvision Cyclone V2 before and the sound was just converted to stereo so it should work.

The SS system connects to the tv through HDMI and I have another Toslink cable from tv to SS system but can’t see a workaround and have tried all the passthrough sound settings. Should probably add I can’t see the ‘Manual Setup’ page on my WD Play I’ve seen in other threads, is that on a later version?
Thanks

The WD Play Media Player does not support DTS Audio. (DTS, DTS-HD, DTS Core Streams etc are not supported)

All the other WD TV Media Players support DTS

The WD Play was a cheap budget media player released by WD that ditched the licences for DTS & MPEG-2 (for DVD Playback) and support for the product was dropped after a short 12 Months.

The Product was a failure.

See Pages 145 on onwards from the WD Play User Manual of Supported Codecs.

Ok thanks for the info, seems odd that it supports DD Plus and DD TrueHD but not DTS-HD MA when it’s not actually decoding any of the codecs anyway when using passthrough

DD (Dolby Digital) and DTS (Digital Theater Systems) are 2 different companies with different licences

and i guess the DTS License stipulates that Decoding and Passthrough (even just the Core out of the DTS-HD MA Stream) falls within and under the License. (haven’t read the fine print, but likely does)

only other possible way is to use 3rd Party media server/streaming software to Transcode on the fly to a format the aging/obselete WD TV can handle.

or just re-encode the audio in a video file to AC3 Dolby Digital which is quick and easy and you don’t lose video quality.

I’m going to ditch the WD Play and use a Sumvision Micro 4 for now until I upgrade to something more modern. Need to look at my whole system as it’s all pretty old but trying to avoid spending serious money doing it all at once. Possibly looking at an Nvidia Shield or a NAS system, any suggestions appreciated