Help get (more) Dolby Atmos on Apple TV

Anything in there relating to wider Atmos support?

Since Apple requires an NDA I doubt if people will risk loosing their developer status by disclosing beta features. Just a guess. :wink:

Not only that but Apple isn’t very forthcoming in their release notes so even devs don’t know much.

No. Pretty sure for tvOS it’s “just bug fixes and improvements” but iOS it’s group FaceTime back in beta.

It’s definitely odd, but at least you’re not the only one it’s happened to.

To clarify, the Atmos documentation provided by Apple only refers to HLS streams for VOD services (HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) authoring specification for Apple devices | Apple Developer Documentation). We’ve also found there is support when using the native AVPlayer framework, though this is limited to MP4 containers with lossy E-AC3 audio tracks.

In order to get “real” Atmos (TrueHD + Atmos) what we need is more flexibility around the audio pipeline which would allow us to provide our own PCM audio instead of relying on the native complements to do so. This is something we’ve already requested from Apple, and in theory would fit with their current implementation as they are already sending PCM + Atmos.

We may need to put together another campaign, like we did with refresh rate switching in 2016.

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So, James, how should we address this to Apple? What and how should we ask?

Allow third part apps to stream PCM + Atmos?

Yes, let’s start a petition to make Apple make the required changes! :slight_smile:

Dream on. As said before, the solution is probably for Apple to let actual Passthrough on the ATV.
Passthrough if I understand well doesnt allow Siri functions.
So… dream on…

I would be already happy if E-AC3 could be muxed on the fly into an MP4 container.

Until then I guess we have to create these containers manually. Are there working examples around? The ones from https://download.dolby.com/us/en/test-tones/DolbyTestToneAndTrailerDownloader.dmg do not work for me.

Way I see this, APTV is a streaming box, not a media player.

When it comes to movies, Apple wants you to focus on iTunes and the rest of the apps.

The more functions Apple allows outside that, such as passthrough, the more the users will distance themselves from what Apple wants them to do with the APTV 4K.

I’m not expecting anything different than we have now.

I’ve created a petition, please sign it! James, maybe it’s better to create a sticky thread containing this link?

No offense intended but change.org carries about zero weight with issues like this. If you look at what James posted in the previous “campaign” it was directly to Apple and was using the channels that they as a company answer to. It will carry a greater impact and be viewed by people that are directly affected by the change or lack there of.

If a person is motivated to make their voice heard it’d be better to do it where Apple is most likely to react.

My apologies. I thought this was the right way. So can you create this maybe?

No apology necessary, that’s just my opinion based on one old curmudgeon’s experiences. :wink: James may feel it’s a great idea and make a sticky for it. I just went through his post that he referenced above and it was all targeted at Apple centric points where they’d more likely react.

All right. Is it possible for you to point me in the right direction? I’ve already submitted a feature request to Apple.

I’d start with the apple links that are in the thread that James referenced in his post above Help get (more) Dolby Atmos on Apple TV - #516 by james that are in his other thread Help get 24p on Apple TV (Update: Now Available!)

Maybe James can provide a boilerplate message so it’s tailored to Infuse.

Thanks for the guidance, so I went to the Apple TV Feedback page:

And submitted the following “Feature request or enhancement”

I was very excited that Apple has introduced support for Atmos to the ATV 4K.

However when I tried to play Atmos files streamed from my NAS over my local network, these do not play properly and only the standard 7.1 core plays.

Please allow tvOS applications (e.g., Infuse, Plex, DS Video, etc.) to play native Atmos files, even if that means having them re-encode to the Dolby MAT encoder if true bitstreaming is not feasible.

Even the most basic on of android style media player boxes allow playback of native Atmos files from a local network - the AppleTV 4K should too for it to remain cutting edge.

I hope I got it right?

Yeah that’s right. I just did the same! Cheers

Isn’t the real wish for them to just passthrough all HD-audio formats, like DTS-HD and TrueHD (with Atmos) for starters? :slight_smile: This thread seems to be focused on Atmos alone. (i appreciate your efforts by the way!)