Apple Joining the Atmos streaming game!

[humprof]

Was excited this morning to see that the latest 15.2 beta was being reported as fixing the 'left channel only' problem for Dolby Atmos and Dolby Audio that has been around for the last two odd months on Apple Music on Apple TV 4K. With some trepidation, I decided to update this morning, only to also find the 'Get Beta Updates' option was missing, as others had reported. I was still on 15.0, so I decided to update to 15.1.1 hoping the Beta option would appear. No luck. As before the 'left channel' issue was still there and no Beta option. The scrollback 'fix?' still worked, so no worse off.

This afternoon the Beta option reappeared, so I took the plunge. It seemed to take a long time compared to this mornings updates, but eventually, the main screen reappeared. There was a moment of panic, when, after a bit of testing, the 'left channel issue' was still there and no amount of back or forward scrolling made any difference and the other speakers stayed dead. After googling 'How to remove the beta?' and 'How to throw your Apple TV out the window', I rebooted the box by removing the power cable for a few minutes (which was the solution on earlier Apple TV's, after Steve Jobs had insisted on no power button) and then restarting it. Since then, everything I've tested is playing correctly and it will play without complaint between Dolby Atmos, Dolby Audio and Lossless. I guess it's possible some sort of restart might upset it but for the moment all seems stable.

Now we can wait for the Hi-Res update that I understood was due late in the year and see if that can really stuff it up. For the moment I'm happy, although I will leave the unaffected 14.7 units alone, till the final version of 15.2 becomes available. I would suggest doing the same if you still have 14.7. Its not unknown for a later Beta to mess something up. If you have 15.0 or up and want to consider the beta, thats my experience so far.

Thanks for the news of the 'working' beta this morning. Made my day.

Thanks for that detailed report!

 

[EricKalet]

Beta 15.2 (19k5043b) seems to have done the trick. No more left channel only playback errors. Dolby Audio plays flawlessly.

 

[Toto4Ever]

Anyone in the U.K. got 15.2 yet ?

 

[olgitnorm]

Yes via beta update and like others have said so far the Apple Music bugs have perished.

 

[Sal1950]

Seems as if they're working hard to get things right.
Things that no one else is offering.
Maybe a bit of patience is a good idea.
Don't kill the goose, and all that jazz.

 

[Toto4Ever]

Yes via beta update and like others have said so far the Apple Music bugs have perished.

Yes we know that, as you explained yesterday, but as anyone got 15.2 without having to do Beta update ??

 

[Toto4Ever]

Seems as if they're working hard to get things right.
Things that no one else is offering.
Maybe a bit of patience is a good idea.
Don't kill the goose, and all that jazz.

How long have we had this problem now ? Over 2 months at least…..I certainly don’t think they deserve any kind of praise !

 

[olgitnorm]

Yes we know that, as you explained yesterday, but as anyone got 15.2 without having to do Beta update ??

They won’t have it’s not been released yet.

 

[Toto4Ever]

They won’t have it’s not been released yet.

Thanks. I think I might hang on & wait, rather than risking any problems with my iPad ??

( The latest thing in Brexit Britain…..we have a crisps shortage ! - Crazy country - Crazy Johnson. ) Perhaps Liz Truss can do a deal with Apple ?? She’d probably come back with half a dozen of Granny Smith’s !

 

[mrcond]

New music Friday on Apple Music - I see the Robert Plant / Alison Krauss album is out there in Atmos but not the Kiss Destroyer.

 

[fredblue]

Anyone in the U.K. got 15.2 yet ?

did the 15.2 Beta yesterday, the Dolby Audio bug appears to be gone and so far everything else works fine

 

[fredblue]

Thanks. I think I might hang on & wait, rather than risking any problems with my iPad ??

( The latest thing in Brexit Britain…..we have a crisps shortage ! - Crazy country - Crazy Johnson. ) Perhaps Liz Truss can do a deal with Apple ?? She’d probably come back with half a dozen of Granny Smith’s !

if you are in any doubt, wait, the update will come soon enough.

 

[Toto4Ever]

if you are in any doubt, wait, the update will come soon enough.

I’ve been without this so long now, so I’ll give it a bit longer. I’ve barely used it because of this issue. I know I can listen to other stuff, but Dolby Atmos is why I subscribed, like the majority of us.

 

[Tornado Red]

did the 15.2 Beta yesterday, the Dolby Audio bug appears to be gone and so far everything else works fine

Me as well, the Dolby Audio issue is gone. Still having trouble with no screen saver when using Apple Music, but a small gripe at this point.

 

[marcb]

That would be a shame. Unless it's a technical limitation, I don't see a reason for them to limit Atoms use for only the Apple TV 4k.
We are a small community anyway, so why make it smaller?

I’m just the messenger.

I suspect it is presently a technical thing (due to the DD+ being upconverted to 24/48 PCM) as well as a money and control thing.

Honestly, the cost of an Apple box is about the cost of 2 super deluxe box sets with a surround mix on a BD-A only available via the deluxe box. Sure there is a cost of admission, but frankly in the overall scheme of things, it’s relatively small IMO compared to many of the hoops folks jump through to get surround sound.

 

[olgitnorm]

For those of you who enabled beta updates just to get 15.2 don’t forget to switch it off under settings afterwards (the next beta update might not be so friendly)

 

[Strilo]

For someone professionally in software development, it's almost painful reading all of the whinging in here about the software bugs. Bugs like this have to be identified, investigated, understood, prioritized, fixed, tested, user accepted, beta tested and released. It's far from an instant or quick process for most bugs. unless they're show stoppers or major security issues. Honestly, getting to this bug by the .2 release is pretty impressive, considering that this bug probably didn't affect a huge percentage of users. The whole thing is about prioritization of all the features, stories and bugs that these teams have in their backlogs to work on. Even Apple does not have Infinite (no pun) resources.

 

[sbrom]

I have several Apple Music playlists containing only spatial audio/Atmos tracks. These sound great on my multichannel system.

If I use these same playlists on a stereo-only system, does Apple Music down-convert the Atmos track to 2-channel, or does it fall back to the true original stereo mix like it (to my way of thinking) should?

Background: both systems use an Apple TV 4K device. I can enable Atmos one one, disable on the other. Just not sure how that works behind the scenes.

 

[gwlbe]

Sting’s new record.
https://music.apple.com/us/album/the-bridge-deluxe/1582913323

 

[Cheezmo]

https://music.apple.com/us/album/destroyer-45th-anniversary-super-deluxe/1587374522
Just the main album tracks in Atmos. Should be the Steven Wilson mix. Another $200 box set avoided.