Ripping in surround for Apple TV

[SeeMoreDigital]

My AppleTV is directly connected to a Denon AVR-X4800H via HDMI. The TV shouldn't be relevant (not in the chain, as in it would play with it off) but it is a Sony XBR-75X940D, also connected to the Denon via HDMI.

Indeed, the make and model of the TV would only become relevant if the Apple TV 4K box was directly connected to it and was passing audio via HDMI ARC or preferably HDMI eARC to an AVR.

Given that ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec) is an Apple development, it's more than a little bonkers that an Apple TV 4K is unable to transcode multi-channel ALAC.m4a (.mp4 contained) files to multi-channel Dolby MAT.

Apart from multi-channel ALAC, Dolby Digital (AC-3) and FLAC, what other multi-channel audio formats have you (and others) tried?

 

[twosheds]

There is an easy way to rip audio from video (BluRay/DVDs) using MakeMKV and Foobar2000.
I can play the results on my AppleTV

 

[woody]

I use this:

 

[Cheezmo]

Given that ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec) is an Apple development, it's more than a little bonkers that an Apple TV 4K is unable to transcode multi-channel ALAC.m4a (.mp4 contained) files to multi-channel Dolby MAT.

No need for Dolby MAT, just multichannel PCM. And the gist of this thread is that it WILL play back a multichannel ALAC audio file (with the extension .mp4 or .m4v) but only if you tease it into multichannel mode by playing a video with a multichannel AC3 soundtrack immediately beforehand in the playlist.

It used to work just fine no matter what but broke several releases back and it took me some detective work to figure out out to get it to work again. I now have AppleScripts that generate playlists inserting the "5.1 Primer" appropriately throughout so that my 5.1 .mp4 files will actually play multichannel.

 

[Cheezmo]

I use this:

That is fine, but I need play counts and last played dates to be updated and I'm not aware of any 3rd party software that does that.

 

[zdjh22]

I’ve used PLEX for a long time for stereo music FLACs, but just now tested for MCH. I use a PLEX server on a ARM Linux ZFS NAS that I built, and the PLEX app on a 4K AppleTV. Multichannel SACDs converted to MCH PCM in FLAC files (via foobar2000) play correctly. Multichannel DTS in a FLAC file from a DTS-CD (Poco ”Crazy Eyes”) does not work (just hiss, although I should go back to the server logs later to make sure it’s not trying to transcode).

Edit: My Oppo clone can play the Poco DTS-in-FLAC files. When I re-ripped into .wav files (using EAC) and renamed the files to .dts, the AppleTV (and the Oppo clone) can play the resulting files. So just FLAC containers holding DTS data cause troubles for the AppleTV.

MCH movies ripped to MKV and converted to H.264 or H.265 work correctly (multichannel sound) via PLEX on the AppleTV.

For all of my MCH music I use an Oppo clone (M9702). I haven’t found a format that does not work correctly, and since this route allows native bitstreams to the Denon (DSD, DTS, Atmos, DD, etc) simple rips (e.g., to ISO images) are sufficient. FWIW both AppleTV and Oppo clone are connected to a Denon AVR.

 

[SeeMoreDigital]

So... What happened to Geoff in Belfast (the original poster)?

 

[twosheds]

Indeed, the make and model of the TV would only become relevant if the Apple TV 4K box was directly connected to it and was passing audio via HDMI ARC or preferably HDMI eARC to an AVR.

Given that ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec) is an Apple development, it's more than a little bonkers that an Apple TV 4K is unable to transcode multi-channel ALAC.m4a (.mp4 contained) files to multi-channel Dolby MAT.

Apart from multi-channel ALAC, Dolby Digital (AC-3) and FLAC, what other multi-channel audio formats have you (and others) tried?

I'm puzzled why you want to rip the audio out of video files if you're using an Apple TV box?
Apart from DVD-AUDIO, most, if not all video discs can be ripped to MKV using MakeMKV, which is free.
MKV files can be played via an Apple TV box.
OK so not all DVDs/BluRays have much video content but it's just so much easier to extract to MKV.

 

[Cheezmo]

I'm puzzled why you want to rip the audio out of video files if you're using an Apple TV box?
Apart from DVD-AUDIO, most, if not all video discs can be ripped to MKV using MakeMKV, which is free.
MKV files can be played via an Apple TV box.
OK so not all DVDs/BluRays have much video content but it's just so much easier to extract to MKV.

I rip the entire videos. I can then shuffle my library using the Computers App on the AppleTV. I have a mix of regular stereo music, DVD-Audio/SACD 5.1 rips, music video rips (from Tivo when I was into do that a while back) and DVD/Bluray with multichannel. I love listening to/watching my collection that way and tracking play counts and last played dates in the Apple Music library so that I can keep things fresh and not listen to the same things over and over again. I have very extensive playlists designed to play things more frequently based on their rating, etc. Kind of like my own personal radio station from my collection with higher/lower rotation based on rating.

 

[SeeMoreDigital]

I'm puzzled why you want to rip the audio out of video files if you're using an Apple TV box?

The original poster was referring to playing 'audio only' surround sound music files...

 

[FLX]

When you say immediately after, are they in a playlist or are you manually playing one then the other?

Hey thanks man!
You're really a genius.
It works!

I didn't have a solution for this for more than a year.
And ended up disabling updates via fw for my ATV: No surround sound in movies since tvOS 15 - Apple Community

It's a bit messy workaround to create a playlist with all movies in it x2 to have a 5 sec silent multichannel AC3 for every movie.
But it's better than stereo xD

 

[Cheezmo]

I've never used ALAC for movie rips (just AC3) so never encountered this, but glad it works. Good luck getting Apple to care, I tried several times over the last few years since they broke ALAC music playback and my bug reports just sit open with "no similar reports" on them.

 

[FLX]

Good luck getting Apple to care, I tried several times over the last few years since they broke ALAC music playback and my bug reports just sit open with "no similar reports" on them.

Yes, listening to ALAC is so rare, they don't care. Movies with ALAC audio stream is even more unusual ...

Maybe you or someone else in this nice thread can help me with another problem I have with ALAC:

Some info:
5.1: FL+FR+FC+LFE+BL+BR
7.1: FL+FR+FC+LFE+BL+BR+SL+SR
7.1 (SDDS or wide): FL+FR+FC+LFE+BL+BR+FLC+FRC
https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/AudioChannelManipulation#Listchannelnamesandstandardchannellayouts

ALAC with 8 channels (7.1) is only compliant with SDDS layout (Table 6, p. 19): Wayback Machine

But it is not playing on my 8 speakers with ATV. It's only playing back with 6 (5.1) channels/speakers.
Also with weird downmix: ALAC 7.1(wide) --> PCM 5.1: FL:FL FR:FR FC:FC LFE:LFE BL:BL BR:BR FLC:FL+C FRC:FR+C ...

AAC with 8 channels (7.1) is compliant with standard 7.1 layout and is playing fine on 8 speakers.

So one of those solutions would be fine for my ALAC 7.1 (wide) problem:

• Play FLC channel on SL speaker and FRC channel on SR speaker
• Get 7.1(wide) to 5.1 downmix like this: FL:FL FR:FR FC:FC LFE:LFE BL:BL BR:BR FLC:BL FRC:BR

 

[SeeMoreDigital]

I've never used ALAC for movie rips (just AC3) so never encountered this, but glad it works. Good luck getting Apple to care, I tried several times over the last few years since they broke ALAC music playback and my bug reports just sit open with "no similar reports" on them.

Yes, listening to ALAC is so rare, they don't care. Movies with ALAC audio stream is even more unusual ...

Yep... It's much like muxing FLAC audio with your movie back-ups...

Bizarrely, many smart TV's actually support FLAC decoding - Including ones that don't mention FLAC support in their specifications!

 

[chescowx]

Hey guys, I was asked to post over here as I have successfully uploaded almost all of my surround sound discs and files up to Apple 4k TV played through my 7.1 Atmos Marantz 6015.
So what has worked is simply ripping the files from the CD using Foobar and doing a quick convert with Foobar to AAC Apple (M4a files). I place these files into a new folder and then use Itunes to add folder to library and voila. Surround Sound albums added to my library and plays in surround sound. Let me know if anyone else is doing this successfully....or other ways to do.
Thanks!
Paul

Edited by Moderator: Please do not request sharing music files

 

[chescowx]

I also was successful doing this with released blu ray's (The Beatles White Album) and DVD (The Beatles Love) they now work perfectly in surround sound on the Apple Music app on Apple TV. Slightly different process as I use MKV to rip tracks. Let me know if others are looking to do this also

 

[Cheezmo]

Hey guys, I was asked to post over here as I have successfully uploaded almost all of my surround sound discs and files up to Apple 4k TV played through my 7.1 Atmos Marantz 6015.
So what has worked is simply ripping the files from the CD using Foobar and doing a quick convert with Foobar to AAC Apple (M4a files). I place these files into a new folder and then use Itunes to add folder to library and voila. Surround Sound albums added to my library and plays in surround sound. Let me know if anyone else is doing this successfully....or other ways to do so? Also the one CD I have not successfully able to bring over has been The Eagles Hotel California DTS CD - does anyone have these files that they could send me or upload to mega etc.? Thanks in advance for the help and let me know if this works for others.
Thanks!
Paul

Sounds like you are talking about DTS CD's. The only way I can imagine what you are talking about working is if you transcoded them to DTS 16/48 and used the Computers App to play them from a Music Library via home sharing. The 16/48 DTS signal would get decoded as DTS by your receiver and you would get 5.1 I've done this in the past. But a 16/44.1 DTS-CD would not work as the AppleTV converts everything to 16/48 which would muck things up. So, still not understanding what you are doing here.

 

[Cheezmo]

I also was successful doing this with released blu ray's (The Beatles White Album) and DVD (The Beatles Love) they now work perfectly in surround sound on the Apple Music app on Apple TV. Slightly different process as I use MKV to rip tracks. Let me know if others are looking to do this also

Now you are talking about using the Music app? If you rip something and it gets "uploaded" that upload will be lossy AAC 256kpbs. No way it is multichannel. If it gets "matched" then you may get the Dolby Atmos version when you play it on your AppleTV if there is an Atmos version of that song in Apple Music (which would be the case for the white album, but not Beatles Love), again, really curious what you are saying you are doing here because it doesn't match my experience.

 

[chescowx]

Sounds like you are talking about DTS CD's. The only way I can imagine what you are talking about working is if you transcoded them to DTS 16/48 and used the Computers App to play them from a Music Library via home sharing. The 16/48 DTS signal would get decoded as DTS by your receiver and you would get 5.1 I've done this in the past. But a 16/44.1 DTS-CD would not work as the AppleTV converts everything to 16/48 which would muck things up. So, still not understanding what you are doing here.

No I do not use any computer. It is simply added to my Library as a surround sound album. It is clearly playing 5.1 and the Marantz AVR clearly shows it is a multi-channel in mix. When you play at Atmos track it does not show multi-channel it shows Atmos. See the attached below for a screen shot of the file and details of the Beatles Love Album surround sound mix that is compatible with Apple Music and play in surround sound.

 

[Cheezmo]

No I do not use any computer. It is simply added to my Library as a surround sound album. It is clearly playing 5.1 and the Marantz AVR clearly shows it is a multi-channel in mix. When you play at Atmos track it does not show multi-channel it shows Atmos. See the attached below for a screen shot of the file and details of the Beatles Love Album surround sound mix that is compatible with Apple Music and play in surround sound. View attachment 92176

Interesting, it looks like your files are lossy .m4a, I've only really only been using lossless ALAC files. I will play with converting some of my 5.1 flacs to lossy .m4a files and see what I get.