Apple Joining the Atmos streaming game!

[duneman]

So I got an Apple TV 4K box and I cannot for the life of me get the surround feature working. I have updated to the latest OS and checked my settings and everything that I have read about in this forum that is supposed to be available in MC/quad plays in stereo.

I have an older non-Atmos (but 5.1 capable) AVR. I am connecting the Apple TV box via hdmi to a Denon AVR 1513.

I am in Canada. Is this a feature that is not available in Canada? The Apple Canada website makes it sound like it is available here.

Any help or advice is appreciated!

Have you checked the settings on the Apple TV?

 

[Cheezmo]

So I got an Apple TV 4K box and I cannot for the life of me get the surround feature working. I have updated to the latest OS and checked my settings and everything that I have read about in this forum that is supposed to be available in MC/quad plays in stereo.

I have an older non-Atmos (but 5.1 capable) AVR. I am connecting the Apple TV box via hdmi to a Denon AVR 1513.

I am in Canada. Is this a feature that is not available in Canada? The Apple Canada website makes it sound like it is available here.

Any help or advice is appreciated!

Check the AppleTV settings for Atmos. May have to turn the setting on or off, try both. It should work if you get the AppleTV settings right.

On my 5.1 setup, Change Format - Off, Dolby Atmos - On. And I get 5.1.

 

[Mistermono]

Check the AppleTV settings for Atmos. May have to turn the setting on or off, try both. It should work if you get the AppleTV settings right.

On my 5.1 setup, Change Format - Off, Dolby Atmos - On. And I get 5.1.

When I am in my Apple TV settings there is no option to turn Atmos on or off. Atmos isn’t even mentioned.

 

[Cheezmo]

W

When I am in my Apple TV settings there is no option to turn Atmos on or off. Atmos isn’t even mentioned.

What model AppleTV are you using and is the firmware up to date?

 

[Mistermono]

W


What model AppleTV are you using and is the firmware up to date?

Have you checked the settings on the Apple TV?

I updated the firmware. This is a first gen 32 GB Apple TV 4K.

Could this be because I have a 1080p AVR?

 

[Mistermono]

Edit: despite updating the OS as soon as I plugged it in I see now that my OS was 13-something. It’s now updating to 15.6. Maybe that will fix it!

 

[Cheezmo]

Edit: despite updating the OS as soon as I plugged it in I see now that my OS was 13-something. It’s now updating to 15.6. Maybe that will fix it!

13 didn't even know Atmos was coming.

 

[duneman]

Search Apple Support

 

[DuncanS]

That’s the thing. I don’t care about Atmos or downmixing. I can’t get anything to play in surround e.g. the quad mixes for Argent and The Byrds.

There are quite a few AVRs which won't play Quad via HDMI (they can't work out the channel allocation), may be the Denon is one. Can you play Quad via any other source, like SACD?

 

[adamschoales]

So I got an Apple TV 4K box and I cannot for the life of me get the surround feature working. I have updated to the latest OS and checked my settings and everything that I have read about in this forum that is supposed to be available in MC/quad plays in stereo.

I have an older non-Atmos (but 5.1 capable) AVR. I am connecting the Apple TV box via hdmi to a Denon AVR 1513.

I am in Canada. Is this a feature that is not available in Canada? The Apple Canada website makes it sound like it is available here.

Any help or advice is appreciated!

I have a pretty basic Vizio Soundbar that does 5.1 (it has actual satellite rears) but it's a bit finicky with the formats it supports. No Atmos but will down mix the Apple Music Atmos mixes to 5.1 surround which is lovely. One day it stopped working though so I had to double check my settings.

Settings > Video and Audio
Scroll down to the AUDIO section
Audio Format > Change Format Off, Dolby Atmos On

I believe in the past I had change format set to on so it would always make sure to output a 5.1 mix to my soundbar, but for whatever reason in an update that broke Atmos in Apple Music. With the settings set to this it works fine now, and I still get surround audio from my video content.

Things might be different for you but this is what worked for me.

 

[marcb]

There are quite a few AVRs which won't play Quad via HDMI (they can't work out the channel allocation), may be the Denon is one. Can you play Quad via any other source, like SACD?

Except Quad is not transmitted from the ATV4K to the AVR as quad. It‘s transmitted as 24/48 5.1 PCM.

The problem with Quad and some newer AVRs is when the data is sent as 4.0 (or sometimes just 4.1 or 5.0). That’s not an issue with Apple Music’s delivery of quad.

 

[marcb]

Edit: despite updating the OS as soon as I plugged it in I see now that my OS was 13-something. It’s now updating to 15.6. Maybe that will fix it!

That should fix the problem.

Make sure the ATV4K Audio Format is set to Dolby Atmos On (and Change Format - Off). This will send the audio to your AVR as 24/48 5.1 PCM. For quad, the center and sub will be silent (although I think some old quad mixes have been ”upgraded“ to include some sub and/or center info). For Atmos, the metadata embedded in the surround channels; your AVR will probably downmix this depending upon how you have your speaker setup in the AVR.