Dolby Atmos on MacOS

[barfle]

I've had setups that ran two Windows PCs (one because the Office had a better picture editor, and it's a laptop so I can use it to read my cars' computers) and one Linux Ubuntu OS. I just added a mac mini to the stack.

Full disclosure, the laptop won't run for more than 30 minutes without overheating, and the motherboard I bought to replace a dead one on the Ubuntu machine was DOA, but I was blaming everything else until the return date passed, so it hasn't been running for a couple of years. I have another MB on order, but it seems to be on a mule train getting here. I inherited my mother's laptop, and its battery is shot. They seem to be out of production, but I found a place that carries that model, and it's on another mule train. Once I salvage all the stuff my family might want out of that machine, I'll swap hard drives and see what happens.

When those ***** show up, I'll have a few more projects I can work on.

 

[Peeties]

Downloaded this day on my older Mac from 2018 Sequioa, I can in the named apps the setting changed to HDMI Passthrough, very strange that there is no control, but no luck get no Dolby Atmos

 

[Peeties]

I am searching for members who have a silicon Mac updated to Sequoia, and with a Dolby Atmos setup with more then eight speakers to have overlook the HDMI Passthrough feature of Sequioa. I want to ask to play lossless and lossy sweeps from this Mac with the three Mac apps: Apple TV app, Apple Music or QuickTime, these have now Passthrough options. Goal is to explore of measuring with this sweeps will possible now in REW with the new feature. Please send me a personal message if you will support. Thanks in advance.

 

[Mr. Afternoon]

Kids are on their phones with that now and they don't even know how to use computers.

There are kids getting computer science degrees who struggle to understand how file systems work.
It's madness.

 

[humprof]

I am searching for members who have a silicon Mac updated to Sequoia, and with a Dolby Atmos setup with more then eight speakers to have overlook the HDMI Passthrough feature of Sequioa. I want to ask to play lossless and lossy sweeps from this Mac with the three Mac apps: Apple TV app, Apple Music or QuickTime, these have now Passthrough options. Goal is to explore of measuring with this sweeps will possible now in REW with the new feature. Please send me a personal message if you will support. Thanks in advance.

Nothing has changed. As with the initial beta version of Sequoia (with the new passthrough setting checked in the OS sound settings), the QuickTime, Apple TV, and Apple Music apps for the latest Mac OS will stream lossy EAC+JOC Atmos (or, in the case of QuickTime, play a lossy .mp4/.m4a Atmos file) only. But unlike the Windows version of VLC, VLC 3.0.21 for MacOS still does not have an HDMI/SPDIF passthrough setting. So there's still no easy way to get lossless Atmos in an .MKV container from your MacBook to your AVR via HDMI.

 

[jimfisheye]

The beta of Sequoia from a month or so ago has a 'passthrough' setting in the Atmos controls. I still haven't followed through and signed up for an Apple Music subscription to test if it might work without an 'approved device' connected to the system. One posted above already suggested it did not. (I mean the normal output. I'm not interested in passthrough here. I just need it unlocked for standard output.) I will not be buying an AppleTV for anything and cancelling rogue subscriptions can be a PITA. Hoping someone else will experiment more first. But the Atmos controls are not being hidden in this version of Sequoia like they are in previous versions of MacOS when you have no official approved device connected. And yes, this is all restricted to the lossy streaming Atmos. (So I'm doubly not buying any hardware for a "dongle" for this!)

So... the released version now. Are the Atmos controls blanked out again now too? Was the beta lacking some of the lockouts and now they're back?

This really is some strong armed **** to try to goad people into buying hardware! Apple and Dolby, you are being about as obnoxious as possible to the customers who would have been your biggest cheerleaders for Atmos!

 

[sjcorne]

I still don’t understand where this “approved devices” line is coming from. Apple Music in all MacOS iterations since Monterey will give you 7.1.4 output so long as it’s feeding a virtual soundcard with at least 12 channels, like BlackHole or Loopback. I’m doing Apple Music -> Blackhole -> Reaper -> Speakers on a 2015 MBP updated to Monterey.

If Apple were really so keen to lock everything down as has been suggested, they wouldn’t allow this.

 

[mkt]

I still don’t understand where this “approved devices” line is coming from. Apple Music in all MacOS iterations since Monterey will give you 7.1.4 output so long as it’s feeding a virtual soundcard with at least 12 channels, like BlackHole or Loopback. I’m doing Apple Music -> Blackhole -> Reaper -> Speakers on a 2015 MBP updated to Monterey.

If Apple were really so keen to lock everything down as has been suggested, they wouldn’t allow this.

I'm doing 7.1.4 on a 2019 MBP with Sonoma through Loopback, though it also worked with just an aggregate device (Focusrite 4i4 + 8 channel DAC) but perhaps less reliably.

For me the gaps are something that plays mkv (movies w/ atmos?) and some way to play/decode auro3d.

 

[sjcorne]

For me the gaps are something that plays mkv (movies w/ atmos?)

Yes, and IAA's TrueHD/Atmos downloads. I'm hoping this void will be filled when VLC for Mac adds HDMI passthrough functionality.

 

[mkt]

Yes, and IAA's TrueHD/Atmos downloads. I'm hoping this void will be filled when VLC for Mac adds HDMI passthrough functionality.

I am a weirdo and have no AVR

 

[jimfisheye]

I don't have an AppleTV or any of the other hardware on the approved device list for Atmos. I do have 16 channel devices available for output. (More channels than that if I needed it too.) MacOS up to and including Senoma shows the Atmos control blanked out in the Music app. The spot in the GUI where you see the controls people posted in screen shots online is blank.

Now, some of their newest models of computers are designated as approved Atmos devices. Even though they don't have discrete output capability built in. If you have one of those - that's your approved device. Hence looking for a way to edit the whitelist and add the computer itself for older capable models that still run the newest MacOS like the Mac Pro.

Try it! If you have an older Apple computer, disconnect the AppleTV or other approved device. Launch the Music app and open preferences. Still see the Atmos controls?

Their lockout has been effective. I don't see anyone cracking the approved device list yet either. This probably dovetails into Apple's planned obsolescence model. Then they can say "Your computer (that runs the latest OS and the hardware is still fully compatible) is too old! You have to buy this one now!"

 

[sjcorne]

I'm not following what the Apple TV has to do with it. That's a standalone device that connects to an AVR via HDMI. There are no computers involved in that signal chain.

I thought I made it clear in my previous post that I do have an older Apple computer: 2015 MBP that originally came with El Capitan OS, but was updated to Monterey in 2021. If I send the output of Apple Music to a virtual soundcard with 12+ inputs/outputs (could be BlackHole 16ch, Loopback, or even the Dolby Audio Bridge), I get 12 discrete channels of audio feeding my DAW session. So I'm struggling to understand where this supposed lockout is happening.

 

[humprof]

Yes, and IAA's TrueHD/Atmos downloads. I'm hoping this void will be filled when VLC for Mac adds HDMI passthrough functionality.

Wondering what the holdup is. The Windows version seems to be dependent on WASAPI--maybe that's it? (Or maybe somebody needs to write code for a new audio output device? Above my pay grade....)

 

[jimfisheye]

I thought I made it clear in my previous post that I do have an older Apple computer: 2015 MBP that originally came with El Capitan OS, but was updated to Monterey in 2021. If I send the output of Apple Music to a virtual soundcard with 12+ inputs/outputs (could be BlackHole 16ch, Loopback, or even the Dolby Audio Bridge), I get 12 discrete channels of audio feeding my DAW session. So I'm struggling to understand where this supposed lockout is happening.

The 2015 MBP is an approved Atmos device. That's actually the right up to the cutoff. Older than 2015 are not on the list. And you get blanked out Atmos controls in the Music app. Yes with Monterey thru Sonoma and with multiple 16 channel, etc devices to choose from.

I only know I see the AppleTV mentioned as an approved device. Not sure the signal path involved. I connect displays and plug in graphics cards to a computer. I don't think I want one. I don't want an expensive "dongle" for lossy Atmos that only ends up doing that. Figuring out how to edit the approved list would be cool though! Then I'd have what you have just like that. The other pieces are in place. Lossless Atmos is full featured. Again, I do get the Atmos controls in Sequoia! (The beta from a month ago anyway.)

 

[Peeties]

Nice discussion but i am searching only for members who have upgrade to sequioa and if they can play lossy dolby atmos or maybe more and hoping not hearing that apple is blocking a virtual soundcard when is upgraded to seqiuoa

 

[sjcorne]

Older than 2015 are not on the list.

So the issue is that Atmos support (Monterey OS onward) on Apple computers "only" goes back a decade? That's a pretty long list of supported models.

 

[humprof]

Nice discussion but i am searching only for members who have upgrade to sequioa and if they can play lossy dolby atmos or maybe more and hoping not hearing that apple is blocking a virtual soundcard when is upgraded to seqiuoa

I can't answer your latter concern, since I don't use a virtual soundcard--although I believe that's part of the workaround that @sjcorne, among others, has been using for more than a year now.

But I thought my post #185 above addressed your fundamental question. (And in case you missed it, when I said "nothing has changed," I was implicitly referencing the discussion we had on this thread back in July, after the initial public beta version of macOS Sequoia was released and HDMI passthrough support was added.)

To be clear: I have a MacBook Pro with an M1 Pro chip. I upgraded to Sequoia 15.0 in July and I am now running 15.1 beta 6. With the Apple Music, TV, and/or QuickTime Player apps, I can still pass through lossy Atmos to an AVR over HDMI. I assume Sequoia is also capable, in theory, of passing through lossless Atmos over HDMI. But the problem is that I haven't found any media player for Mac that will play Atmos in a lossless file format such as .MKV--yet. (Like others, I'm hoping that VLC for Mac will add that capability soon.)

So again: with regard to passthrough of lossless Atmos over HDMI, nothing has changed with the latest beta release of Sequoia.

 

[pat bateman]

I can't answer your latter concern, since I don't use a virtual soundcard--although I believe that's part of the workaround that @sjcorne, among others, has been using for more than a year now.

But I thought my post #185 above addressed your fundamental question. (And in case you missed it, when I said "nothing has changed," I was implicitly referencing the discussion we had on this thread back in July, after the initial public beta version of macOS Sequoia was released and HDMI passthrough support was added.)

To be clear: I have a MacBook Pro with an M1 Pro chip. I upgraded to Sequoia 15.0 in July and I am now running 15.1 beta 6. With the Apple Music, TV, and/or QuickTime Player apps, I can still pass through lossy Atmos to an AVR over HDMI. I assume Sequoia is also capable, in theory, of passing through lossless Atmos over HDMI. But the problem is that I haven't found any media player for Mac that will play Atmos in a lossless file format such as .MKV--yet. (Like others, I'm hoping that VLC for Mac will add that capability soon.)

So again: with regard to passthrough of lossless Atmos over HDMI, nothing has changed with the latest beta release of Sequoia.

@Peeties If this reply is not enough confirmation , although I don't use this method, I was in the middle of moving a bunch stuff around and decided to check for myself. It works.

 

[Peeties]

Ok lossy can play i understand lossless we have to wait. Have you an idea why Apple makes a difference? Is it not possible with the hardware of the Mac? Or is it maybe because of the arrangement between Apple and Dolby Labs? And we are hoping on a solution for VLC, so there will be no hardware or arrangement limitations only to improved the software? And how about Kodi? The same as VLC, for windows passthrough but not for the mac? And who have an idea how Apple now in Sequioa makes it possible to let Dolby Atmos passthrough working for the three apps without changing the audio/ midi configuration?

 

[Peeties]

Digging more
On the Firecore Forum talking about Infuse streaming app for Apple TV is mentioned very clear that dolby truehd and Dts hma because of the very high quality will cause problems for Siri and therefore if Apple finds not a solution, Siri is first priority, we will never get lossless on a Mac or Apple TV