Crackling/popping noise in movies since tvOS 14.5

I have the same issue with 14.5 on all of my mp4 collection that uses AAC audio. Not seeing this with anything encoded with AC3. My AppleTV 4K was under warranty so Apple support had me take it in for repair and they ended up just replacing it with a new one. Luckily the new one has 14.4 installed. I am happy it works again but very annoyed at the constant prompts to upgrade every time I pause what I am watching.

I missed the downgrade window on my iPad and iPhone though. Will have to wait until Apple has a fix for this to use my devices with my video collection.

I am over the moon excited to be able to report that I jut updated my Apple TV (A1625) 32GB to TV OS 14.7 and connecting to my TV Library still on Catalina 10.15.7 - and the popping/cackling sound on an offending movie is GONE. I was simmering in terror thinking this problem wasn't going to go away.

I can airplay a file that pops crackles on iPad to the TV and the popping is not present. Hope the update works for all and this doesn't happen again. :-)

I have spoken with support who went through the details and could find nothing in their documentation regarding this issue. Because the content isn't provided by apple or encoded using apple software it is something that they could not help further with. If I had any content purchased through iTunes Store and could replicate then they would be able to look further into it. (Unfortunately the purchased content I have is only 2 channel from source) However he did say that from what I have described it sounds as though something has changed in the latest software updates. Am now filling out multiple feedback forms on apple.com/feedback

I really hope they take this seriously as it happens on every video I have converted from DVD to MP4 and even some bought off the apple store itself. all have AAC audio and worked fine before 14.5 not the sound pops and goes out of sync before dying completely. I am having to use usb keys and the playstation to watch movies homesharing should cover. These videos work fine on my computer but any device on os 14.5+ cannot maintain audio.

So seeing that some devices have updates stating bug fixes I have done the updates and the results are as follows

updated iPad to iPadOS 14.5.1 home sharing now says that there is a problem playing back the content. iPhone updated to iOS 14.5.1 still plays but crackle still exists. macOS updated to 11.3.1 still plays but again the crackle is still there.

tvOS didn’t receive an update so we still wait for a fix from Apple

I have 2.5k+ movies and over 100 full tv series.

Having just checked what you were saying and downloaded media info I can also see that audio that is missing Duration_LastFrame do indeed have the crackle.

Good news that it has been replaced.

Bad news on the tvOS version though.

Unfortunately my understanding is the 4k versions have to use the current ota version of tvOS and there isn't a way to choose which version installs. The other issue is if it were possible to choose which version installs Apple have stopped signing 14.4 and is only signing 14.5, 13.4.8 & 10.2.2

Thanks for posting and thanks to FLX90 for raising this problem with Apple. I've only just noticed it, but it affects a number of mp4 files on all my Apple devices that played perfectly until now.

It's a small consolation to discover I'm not the only one affected. Hopefully a fix will be forthcoming now that the problem has been identified.

I still have the cracking issue, but only when watching movies and having dolby atmos enabled (Samsung soundbar does support dolby atmos) and after around 20-30 min the crackling starts and never stops. It is frustrating to say the least, because there is a huge difference between dolby atmos enabled and disabled.

I have the same issue. Support via twitter couldn't resolve it. I have a call book from a Senior Advisor booked for later today.

Hopefully so. Lets hope there are more people raise the issue and the software engineering team get looking into it. it is very strange to change suddenly like that in these releases.