yes, if it is what some hope (and i have my doubts), then there will definitely not be any TrueHD or DTS support, so require additional licensing and there are no legitimate streaming platforms that offer those.
as best it would be DD/DD+ passthru, if at all.
How can an open source free software get license (CoreElec) but Apple cant
I’m sure they can but why would they? They don’t offer it with their content and no other streamers do.
A codec license is only needed if the device itself performs audio decoding. For example, an audio receiver, or an infuse player. Both receiver manufacturers have had these licenses for a long time, and the infuse player itself has these licenses.
If AppleTV is taught to transmit a bitsream. In this case, neither the console itself nor the infuse player itself will need any codecs for this. Since they will not perform any actions with a audio codecs and TrueHD/DTS. And sound devices will perform these actions with sound. The same audio receiver. But the receiver will already need support for Dolby/DTS codecs. That’s the whole point of audio streaming.
I don’t know how all this works in details but I bet infuse can pay license fee if needed. And it would be better if it is not needed and can just pass through.
not entirely true.
LG TVs famously dropped DTS support due to no licensing, and you can’t even pass it thru to the a device that does support it. the hardware in the TVs is still capable, but passthru is not permitted as the TV has no DTS licence.
besides, as there is no legitimate service that offers TrueHD or DTS via streaming services, as with macOS all you could hope for is DD/DD+ passthru, assuming the guesswork is true, which i suspect is not true.
This is LG’s solution. It has nothing to do with the beatstream of sound.
i gave an example of where you statement was not correct.
as said, if you are expecting the see TrueHD and DTS passthru on an ATV then you will be waiting a very long time.
No. Your example is incorrect. Your example concerns a decision that was made at LG. No more, no less.
ok you have the last word 
Maybe. I don’t deny it. So far, everything is at the level of assumptions. Which may not come true.
Disney supports DTS:X so that could be a plausible reason for apple to implement audio passthrough.
Just because you have passthrough audio for one format, doesn’t mean every format you encounter will be passed through. Apple would have to specifically decide to passthrough DTS:X Profile 2. For example, both the Fire TV Cube 3rd Gen and the Nvidia Shield will passthrough DTS:X. However, they will not passthrough DTS:X Profile 2 which is required for Disney+ DTS:X.
I am skeptical of the predictions made in the article. Several audio features on Apple TV, such as AirPlay 2 and multi-room audio, require the device to decode audio internally rather than using HDMI passthrough. This issue became evident during the beta testing of tvOS 11.3, which introduced multi-room audio support for AirPlay 2. Before tvOS 11.3, apps could use HDMI passthrough to deliver certain audio formats directly to external devices. However, during the beta, users reported that multi-room audio failed when apps bypassed the standard tvOS audio pipeline. For AirPlay 2 and multi-room audio to function, tvOS must control the audio stream. HDMI passthrough circumvents this control, disrupting these features and others. Consequently, Apple blocked HDMI passthrough in tvOS 11.3 and delayed the AirPlay 2 multi-room audio feature to tvOS 11.4.
Given these constraints, I question the feasibility of reintroducing passthrough audio. One potential approach could mirror the implementation in macOS, where passthrough was introduced last fall as a per-app preference rather than a guaranteed feature. On macOS, passthrough works until a conflicting feature, such as multi-room audio, is enabled, at which point the system reverts to LPCM (Linear Pulse Code Modulation). If tvOS 26 adopts a similar model, apps using passthrough would need to switch to LPCM when features like multi-room audio are activated. However, this raises further questions: How would this affect Siri, accessibility features, or other functions requiring real-time audio mixing or volume control? The complexity of managing these interactions makes passthrough audio challenging to implement reliably.
We shall see.
Who says Apple “cant”. Apple doesnt WANT to. They only want to support streaming media, and TrueHD isnt a streaming service options, Im confused why people keep crying over this lol. Physical media is dying off, TrueHD wont even be a thing.
Absolutely agree with you on that. But I keep giving myself false hope that one day Apple will have a change of heart and finally do something for the benefit of the users for once.
The Apple TV is so close to being the perfect device. I have it connected to a small bedroom TV in the guest room. I sometimes occasionally turn it on and go into Infuse to see what has changed. The Ugoos AM6B+ is connected to my main unit. As good as it is I know that if the Apple TV were to offer those features I’d switch to it.
What’s interesting to me is how no other large corporation dares to directly challenge Apple. If a competitor were able to offer a device that integrates all the key advantages of the Apple TV along with the niche features the Ugoos AM6B+ offers then I would switch and never look back. I have a huge physical media collection that I spent hours fully backing up. DV P7 FEL, lossless audio, and the ability to playback Java based disc menus are absolutely crucial for me.
The Apple TV is already the top choice for most people, from the perspective of quality, performance, and reliability. People will buy the Apple TV regardless if it has passthrough or not (the same people that listen to content on their tv speakers). But I hope Apple gives us this feature because of how bad the Apple intelligence rollout is. I’d forgive them for that lol
There’s a lot of negativity about this potential for passthrough and I can’t help thinking, lets just see what happens? we had no passthrough before so if it doesn’t come off, we’re no worse off. but it might come off and I’m more than happy for the infuse team to keep an eye on it and let us know what happens. it doesn’t hurt to wait and see what will happen and frankly we’re going to be doing that anyway so lets be optimisitic eh?
I think the negativity is because we have been up this trail before. With each tvOS release, someone does a search in the beta documentation and finds anything with the word “passthrough” in it and uses that to “confirm” passthrough audio is coming to tvOS. Then they issue a press release only to find out something different later. So far, all of the press releases I have seen are based on the same Apple Insider article. There has been no mention of this directly from Apple or in any of the WWDC sessions I have seen so far.
DTSX is growing driven by Disney+
I wonder if Apple, after doing their special DolbyMat API, and now under pressure from Disney+ for DTSX…