Netflix Dolby Atmos problems with new Apple TV 4k

[TLDR] try changing your ATV4K Settings > Video and Audio > VIDEO: Match Content = Off to see if it reduces or eliminates this Dolby Atmos issue (even though such a video setting seems unrelated to an Atmos audio problem). Read on to learn the genesis of my theory.

So I just participated in a thread where the OP's issue was Dolby Vision-related, and the fix/workaround was to set the ATV4K's default Video Format to 4K Dolby Vision, and to set the Match Content Range and Frame Rate settings to Off. Doing so prevented the OP's LG TV from switching video modes in the middle of a Dolby Vision-encoded program.

I was reminded of this thread and it occurred to me that when dynamic range shifts between [Dolby Vision-encoded] scene changes cause the ATV4K (with the Match Content settings switched On) to make a TV switch video modes in the middle of a program, these same video stream events could easily cause burps in the [Atmos-encoded] audio stream playback (with varying effects depending on the AV components in use).

That's the theory. Perhaps this ATV4K Match Content behavior during Dolby Vision-encoded content playback might be the aggravating factor/trigger for [some of] the Atmos-related problems described in this thread.

Anyway, I scanned this thread and didn't find references to the ATV4K's Match Content settings, so I made this post to see if it makes any difference for all y'all :-).

PS - I have the older Apple TV 4K, an Atmos-capable Sony soundbar, and a cheaper LG TV that's merely 4K HDR10-capable (without Dolby Vision - so I couldn't test my own theory :-). FWIW, I've never had Atmos-related issues, so that sort of supports my theory because I've never experienced these Dolby Vision-induced video mode changes that might trigger them.

I have a Denon AVR8500HA but don't yet have Atmos overheads, so it's a 5.0 configuration (the mains have 15" woofers driven by a separate Parasound A21+ amp so no sub needed). I get the Netflix dropouts within the first few minutes of watching "Drive to Survive" when Atmos is enabled in the 2021 AppleTV+ app; if I disable Atmos or set the AppleTV to re-encode as 5.1 (maybe the same thing, but two different settings), there's never a problem.

I found that, with Atmos enabled, the sound is better even in the 5.0 configuration. The image is less localized to the front, and there are phantom sounds coming from between the fronts and the sides, which is really stunning at times. That doesn't happen with 5.0.

The other new datapoint: we watched 3 "Drive to Survive Episodes" during New Years's Eve: the first with the 2021 AppleTV with Atmos enabled. Dropouts every 3-4 minutes, power cycled the AppleTV without improvement. I finally couldn't stand it anymore and switched to 5.1. Then I went into the AV closet and replaced the 2021 AppleTV 4K with my original AppleTV 4k. I made sure Atmos was enabled and there was not a single droppout or chopping sounds during the next two episodes. Not one, and Atmos sounded terrific.

This definitively points to a hardware issue in the AppleTV 4K 2021 version or a software issue specific to that version.

My Atmos overheads are being installed in a month or two (speakers are backordered ) and I really want this to work by then.

Http://getsupport.Apple.com

then chose Apple TV and you can chat or talk;

they call you back if you choose to talk very fast.

But I don’t think this is a Netflix app problem since for me it happened on 3 different apps.

They seemed quite resistant to admitting this is an issue with their device in my case and want to push it over to Denon. That’s why I think more people need to open cases. I feel this is a firmware problem or a problem with TV OS because I also noticed that on the audio out page the Apple TV one time shows it is using “tv speakers “ and the next day will show “receiver speakers” as the default device., even though nothing changed.

I am having the same problem. Apple TV 4K Gen 2. LG C9 connected via eARC to an LG SN11RG Sound Bar system. It only cuts out on Dolby Atmos content on apps like Netflix, Disney+, etc. The problem is fixed when I go into the ATV settings and adjust the audio setting to be Dolby 5.1. If you leave it on Dolby Atmos, it acts up. This is an Apple problem. My Xbox Series X can game over this audio setup with zero hiccups in Atmos settings. They need to fix this.

If you fear for the safety of your speakers, I highly recommend you disable the Atmos capability of the ATV in Settings. This seems to completely eliminate the popping/clicking behavior from my experience. I will take the loss of Atmos over a blown speaker any day.

FWIW, when I get the popping/clicking noises in a Dolby Atmos sound track, it emanates from ALL speakers in use by the AVR, not just the Atmos/height speakers. It's most easily heard in my center channel, but I suspect because that channel is normally the highest profile speaker in a surround sound configuration, at least to my ears.

I have also switched to using my LG TV's built-in apps temporarily until this is resolved with the ATV 4k Gen2. The bonus there is that the built-in apps don't use HDMI, so there is no delay when changing dynamic range/frame rate. The Dolby Atmos audio seemed to be more "lively" going to my Denon AVR via eARC than it was with my ATV, but that could just be individual bias.

The hardest part of the switchover to the TV was the WAF - "Wife Acceptance Factor". She loves the interface of the ATV over the LG WebOS (who can blame her?), but I cannot abide possible damage to my speakers from this issue.

With my Vrroom I had 3 sound dropouts after I enabled Dolby Vision with Dolby Atmos. After that, I changed my 0.25 m cable with a longer cable from another manufacturer, and the dropouts gone. I also moved my HDMI cable away from power cables and sources (First of all, make sure that the Apple TV power cable does not touch the HDMI cable.) . Almost 2 1/2 weeks without dropouts so far. I watched movies on Disney+ and Netflix and almost every day Ted Lasso on TV+

Here is a recommendation from HDFury:

"It seems there is distortion or surround channel cutting in and out, what could it be?

If anything weird is happening with your video or audio, your FIRST step should be to make sure the

HDMI cables between your source and the VRROOM and between the VRROOM and your TV/PJ are

known to be good at full speed (We recommend Zeskit, Kabeldirekt or Cable Matters from Amazon).

Even if you sent FRL5 video with Atmos over the cables and the VRROOM showed the full 1200MHz

speed, and even if they pass the built-in Apple TV 4K Dolby Vision tests, there may still be intermittent

errors, like distortion or surround channels cutting in and out. Many users finally determined the

problem to be caused by a 1-foot cable between VRROOM and their displays. Use only cables that are at

least 6 feet/2 meters and max 12 feet/4 meters for copper. We recommend using SONOS supplied cable

from VRROOM eARC output to SONOS Arc."

Maybe there's some truth in it?

It SHOULDN'T sit right with you.

The new Apple TV 4k was released in April 2021: Apple unveils the next generation of Apple TV 4K - Apple

I got it on release day and did NOT experience this behavior with Atmos content until tvOS 15 was released in July 2021.

As far as I can tell, this is purely a software issue that was introduced with combination of the Apple TV 4k (gen2) and the spatial audio feature brought about by tvOS15: What’s new in tvOS 15 for Apple TV - Apple Support

The ONLY way to get Apple to move on this is to open support cases. Apple Support does not monitor these threads and the number of people reporting issues in here anecdotally. Apple Support will flat out tell you that this a community for end users to help themselves.

All evidence points to a software issue, and the ONLY way to get this resolved is all the people reporting this issue need to open support cases to get traction in their engineering department.

So please go through the trouble to open a case, and when it is suggested to you to get your device replaced or repaired, as it was suggested to me, refuse that option and tell them that it has not worked for others reporting the same issue and they need to get development/engineering involved.

As an update to my posts above…

… i.e. with typical film viewing volume, and for me only with Netflix, I get a high burst of painful pops & clicks - for my ears and my speakers.

I will update if anything turns up from an Apple Support case I raised, if anyone wants to reference my case number, probably the more that complain the better, it’s Case ID: 101629769644. I said I’d help in any way, using real low volume if any testing is involved. For me I can use the Netflix and Apple TV+ Apps in my TV, however, I prefer the picture and sound of the Apple TV. It worked fine for me from June 2021 until around October 2021 with s/w 14.1/2 so seems unlikely to be a hardware design issue?

I used the product support chat feature, which turned into a booked phone call back, within minutes of speaking to them they wanted to hand me over to a specialist… just waiting now…

The above ‘waiting‘ led to a call back from Apple Support, who then connected me to an Apple TV Engineer - the phone call was recorded and I did get access to this as a sound file, which anyone speaking to Apple can request.

So, the significant point was that he agreed Apple were aware of issues with Dolby Atmos specifically intermitted sound drop outs and clicks/pops, also that Netflix was more common than other Apps. I’d already given the details that for me all was working fine for many months with a new 2nd gen Apple TV until an iOS TV update. They have all the details of my kit and HDMI leads and all the tests I’d made, swapping cables booting etc…

A couple of weeks back I received an email confirming the above was being progressed, with a link to book a call back or I could send an email that would get to him.

I’d agreed to let him have a while as 15.4 iOS TV was due…

… as my pop/click/bang! issue is too painful I’ve only had the time to do limited low volume tests with the new s/w. As others have mentioned, before watching a film on Netflix I reset/boot the Apple TV which seems to help. I’ll refrain from this and do some more testing…

I’ll report back when if/when I get more feedback from the engineer…

… as Apple folk don‘t seem to be allowed to look at any forums including discussions.apple I suggest anyone with issues use there support, persisting you need to speak to an Apple TV Engineer.

If this is too much bother use the following link, which I’m assured is read by Apple…

… apparently, even more so.

Feedback - Apple TV - Apple

If you read through this lengthy thread, you'll find it's not just Netflix, but also AppleTV+, Disney+ and HBO Max that have this problem with the AppleTV 4k 2021 version. Apple has not been forthcoming with when a fix will be available, if ever. If you can return your 2021 box, I'd do that because you can always buy it again when the problem is fixed and use your previous box in the meantime. That's what I initially did, but to avoid the hassle of switching, I use the 2021 AppleTV 4k for non-Atmos programming and the TV's GoogleTV app for Atmos. It's a nuisance, but no more difficult than having both AppleTVs hooked up and trying to remember which one I'm currently using.

Also, I found Atmos over either AppleTV doesn't sound nearly as good as Atmos in GoogleTV over eARC, probably because the AppleTV is doing the decoding and sending multi-channel PCM to the receiver so it can't apply as much magic and room optimization as it could if it was doing the decoding. AppleTV needs a passthrough mode.

I agree and have been saying different receivers/decoders handle errors in the MAT 2.0 Atmos metadata, which is created in the ATV4K and where I believe the problem is introduced, differently. Some may simply blank the audio to protect the speakers from potentially damaging pops/static, while others may replace that gap with the last good adjacent audio, like what CD players did to address errors due to dirt and scratches. Others may just blank the errant Atmos track, leaving the LPCM 5.1. There is also going to be variation in how far outside the MAT 2.0 Atmos specification the Atmos decoder/processor will accept before it detects an error. It seems that most mainstream receivers and soundbars will not cover up the Atmos dropouts, though.

I have found that the Atmos errors are more frequent in high video bandwidth streams. I sent an email to Ara Derderian, cohost of “HT Guys”, one of the few podcasts I listen to. I remembered that last year Ara said he was going to upgrade his ATV4K’s to the just released Gen 2. So, I thought I would ask Ara if he had experienced the Atmos problem. Ara replied to my email and said that he had never noticed any issues with ATMOS. He then tried Drive to Survive, which I had said was the most problematic for me, always cutting out within the first 10 minutes. Well, within 10 minutes, Ara said he heard the Atmos problems I was talking about.

Ara noticed that Drive to Survive was 50Hz. I had to go into my Denon app to confirm, as there is no display of the video frame rate on my Denon AVR or Sony TV. I had been speculating that higher bandwidth video and perhaps a busier Atmos track were factors in the Atmos dropouts, and the reason I have found Drive to Survive to be a most problematic program with its fast action and cuts. Now we have proof.

As further proof, I performed an experiment setting my ATV4K to 1080p, with both match Frame Rate and Dynamic Range ON. I played an entire episode of Drive to Survive at 1080p 50Hz, and the Atmos was flawless. This proves that higher bandwidth video, independent of Frame Rate, is the catalyst for the Atmos problem. This isn’t much of a surprise, except when you consider that the faster ATV4K Gen 2 is supposed to support 4K video at up to 120Hz due to having HDMI 2.1, an upgrade over the Gen 1 with HDMI 2.0. We also know that DV is not a factor, as Drive to Survive S01E01 that I used for this test, is not available to stream in DV. It is video bandwidth alone -- not Frame Rate or DV. It is also not just the 4K resolution, since 24Hz 4K is far less problematic than Drive to Survive. The same episode plays flawlessly on my Gen 1 ATV4K.

Thanks for that data point. Some reports were specific to the start of the songs, while most were non-specific me-too reports. I suspect this is a different issue, as in my experience, lower bandwidth videos can go many hours without the Atmos dropouts, so it doesn't seem possible that the same problem should affect Apple Music at all. I tested Drive to Survive forced to 1080p 50Hz and there were absolutely no dropouts. That indicates to me that the Atmos dropouts only occur with high bandwidth sources.

I suggest to everyone with the Atmos dropouts to switch to a Wi-Fi connection. Drive to Survive is a great test source as it is 4K 50Hz (season 2 and up are also DV), and in my limited testing Wi-Fi had only 1 dropout 26 minutes into the episode, while on Ethernet I had too many dropouts to count starting within the first minute.

It shouldn't matter which episode/season of Drive to Survive is used, except Season 2 up are DV, and I don't know if all the seasons/episodes have the same video bandwidth. What does matter is that the show is 4K 50Hz, and in my experience that causes the Atmos issues to occur far more frequently than all other content that is only 4K 24Hz.

I did get the dropouts on ATV+, so it isn't a Netflix only problem. I am sure different streaming providers allocated different bitrates to their video streams, and even between different programs on the same service. Also, the source material itself plays a factor in how much bandwidth is required to encode it. There are many variables in play.

I do believe the problem is in the Atmos MAT 2.0 encoding, but have no idea if it is encoding or timing errors, or if the MAT 2.0 stream randomly cuts out, but my guess is that is the latter is less likely. How the AVR/Atmos decoder handles the corrupted MAT 2.0 will have an affect on how the problem presents itself. The latest version of Netflix is using the native Apple player, so I see no reason it would be a Netflix problem, since Netflix stream fine on other streamers, including the Gen 1 ATV4K.

I look forward to your forced 1080p 50Hz results. I expect you will not hear any issues. I believe this is pretty solid evidence that video B/W is a significant contributing factor to the problem. If you are getting pretty consistent dropouts, I suggest you also try switching to a Wi-Fi connection. For whatever reason, Wi-Fi seems to significantly reduce the frequency of the dropouts, and I recommend Wi-Fi to everyone who has the Atmos issue.

Like mostly everyone here I’m having the same issues with the AppleTV4K 2nd generation in a 5.1.2 setup and Yamaha 2060 trying to stream drive to survive with atmos. I have no other problems with atmos on other streaming apps.

I swapped my 2nd gen with my first gen appleTV 4K into my setup and I haven’t had a single issue yet so it’s clearly a 2nd gen issue.

For what it’s worth , my 2nd gen was still under warranty so I swapped it and I’m waiting for the replacement. I’ll report back if it fixed anything.

Well, I am having this issue as well. I had no problems with Netflix until I updated to 15.5.1. Now I am watching season four of stranger things and the audio dropouts happen every few minutes. The only way I can fix the issue is to let it run and maybe the audio will come back or is to rewind 10 seconds and let it play and it will play with sound. But it is super annoying and I have not had this issue until updating to 15.5.1.I guess there is no way to revert back to the prior version of the operating system but this is truly annoying.

Turning off Dolby audio in settings solves the issue. My cabling and all else is fine. This didn’t start until I updated to 15.5.1. I’ve only tried watching Netflix and Stranger Things 4, pt. 1 and only through the ATV 4K 2021.

Also, does this happen with the Netflix apps built into a TV or just through the Apple TV 4K? I have a Sony A80J I purchased in November.

And by the way, does Apple know about this issue? I have no idea how to report it to them.