Losing Sound From Apple TV 4K

I am experiencing the same issue which everyone else has described. AppleTV 4K attached to 2021 Samsung Q80 with Samsung Sound Bar and sound drops out when viewing.

I contacted Apple Support today and they informed me that this is a known issue and Apple Engineers are working on the problem and it will be rectified in a future software update.

The temporary workaround (as has been suggested earlier) is to Change Audio Format to Digital 5.1 on the AppleTV 4K.

I tried this solution, and my sound drop out issues have been resolved. I guess it is just a matter of waiting for the fix to be implemented.

Based on my experience with a Samsung QLED TV and Samsung Dolby Atmos supportive soundbar, I'd recommend using HDMI 2.1 (sometimes known as Ultra High Speed) cables. The 2.0b cables on my system, when used with the Apple TV 4K as a source, had lots of sound drops. These issues completely resolved with HDMI 2.1 cables. Apple TV apparently uses a special Dolby Atmos signal that does not play well with others. The link provided by CTLoadie has a sublink: <Set up Dolby Atmos or surround sound on Apple TV with a sound bar or AV receiver - Apple Support> that explains some of this and how to cable up the system. Note the reference to Apple TV 4K's "high bandwidth form of Dolby Atmos..." The webpage doesn't mention the need for high speed cables but they did work for me, and have for others, so it may be worth a try. I found some relatively cheap ones (~ $20 US for three 6.6 ft cables) on Amazon that worked fine. I agree that if you have a setup that supports Dolby Atmos, accepting stereo as a substitute "defeats the purpose."

Ok, my 2 cents worth. Just putting it out there in case…. HDMI cables? Has anyone/everyone tried replacing with HDMI 2.1 cables. My problem is (was) Apple TV 4K (2021 model) when using Plex to stream shows via a Samsung Q900A soundbar I get audio dropouts. If I put the Apple TV direct into the TV and use the ARC back to the soundbar then it’s fine. Also if I changed the Apple TV to output in 1080P everything would be fine. No one should have to do that though :-). Anyway after a while I decided to replace my HDMI 2.0 cables with HDMI 2.1 and problem is completely gone. It always felt like an issue with the soundbar pushing through 4K content but I never thought about the cables. Anyway, might be worth a try for your guys problems if you haven’t tried already. Cheers 👍🏻

For all those still having issues, I am curious. Do the sound issues go away if you step it down to 1080p? Keep all sound options at their best, ie Atmos etc and see. If so, I’m confident of a bandwidth issue. For the person that said they have high speed HDMI cables, so did I but the issue only went away when replacing with 2.1 HDMI cables. Mad but true!!! Crazy to need to replace HDMI cables but worked a treat for me.

I made a change a few days ago that seems to have been a fix. I didn’t want to go to stereo and lose some quality but discovered the option to turn off the ‘Change format’, so it sends uncompressed. For me it was defaulted to Dolby 5.1 but now with the option off, sound is steady.

My setup is Apple TV 4K to TCL 4K, optical audio to Samsung soundbar (no HDMI Arc).

I went from 24 bit to 16 bit. I’ve had zero issues now.

I found the option to turn off the ‘Change format’, so it sends uncompressed. For me it defaulted to Dolby 5.1 but now with the option off completely, sound is steady.

I was having that same problem so I ran HDMI from Apple TV to sound bar and sound bar to TV with an HDMI not optical. For right now it has fixed my problem. Not sure if it will continue to fix my problem but may be worth a shot.

Can you confirm that you've tried the following?

set your video format [ 4K HDR ]

go to setting Video and Audio > Format >

4K HDR

set your Audio setting > Video and Audio >

Audio Format > Change Format > New Format [ Dolby Digital 5.1

This downgrades the audio but the dropouts seem to stop.

For my Q80A with the Q800wa sound bar, the issue goes away when I connect the Apple TV to the sound bar and then the sound bar to the eArc connector on the TV. This means however you can’t use the Q Symphony which is unfortunate.

Yeah that’s my issue, we paid for All the features of Apple TV including Dolby Audio and we have to reduce our audio format just to get sound.

Why pay the premium price tag?

i got the sound to continuously work with reducing it to stereo but Apple needs to patch this otherwise a $50 Roku device is kicking their *** currently. I love Apples UI and it’s simplicity but it’s hard to look over these faults.

I ended up resolving this issue, unfortunately, it was a $500 solution ($550 now). The HDFury VRROOM fixed this situation for me with a QN90A + Apple TV + Q900A sound bar. The additional upside is I can use multiple 4k120 devices, I have a lot more visibility on the audio/video formats, and also the TV no longer shows that giant volume +/- overlay when I change the volume. Not for everyone, but maybe some cheaper options will come soon.

I had the same issue with Samsung TV and sound bar, I notice that it happen due to the video output input 4:2:2 start to occurring the problem. Changing it back to 4:2:0 issue disappear. It maybe the free hdmi cable is not good enough to carry sound and video traffic

I’ve been having the same problem with the Samsung Q60. I changed from Dolby to stereo today and so far that has fixed the problem for me too.

Lower bit rate under audio settings to 16 from 24.