Netflix Dolby Atmos problems with new Apple TV 4k

So I received my HDFury Vrroom and reinstalled all my hardware. Vrrom now splits the HDMI video and audio signal to different HDMI ports with arc/earc HDMI 2.1 functionality. But the Vrrom is very expensive.

Before I had sound dropouts with TV+. I watched Palmer and a show in 4k and Dolby Atmos, yesterday. Without any dropouts, so far. It looks like it handles the handshakes very well.

Maybe the new setup fixed it. I tested only TV+.

Can someone suggest a good movie in 4K and Dolby Atmos on Netflix?

I too am experiencing the same audio drop outs after swapping out my AT4k Gen 1 for a Gen 2 about a week or so ago. I’ve noticed the dropouts in Netflix and Atmos audio content so far. I haven’t had my device long enough to try out much on Disney+ or Apple TV+ etc.

My Anthem Receiver will say “Dolby Atmos” on the display when the audio is working correctly and then says “No Signal” when the audio drops. If I pause what we’re watching and wait for the audio to come back (4 or 5 seconds), and then press play, the audio comes through okay again. My Gen 1 ATV4K didn’t have this problem using the same HDMI, Ethernet cables etc. Pretty much did a straight swap.

I just got off the phone with Apple support and a Sr. Advisor and they don’t have any fixes as of yet. Looking at his internal support database, he didn’t see anything specific to this issue. We need to keep this thread going to get more engineer attention for them to generate a fix.

As others have said, it’s such a pain that you upgrade to the latest and greatest and you get a worse experience.

Hope you have better luck than I did…sounds like you are following the exact same path I was on LOL. I also had to call back and reopen my case after I had the same issues with a replacement unit. They then shipped me an approved HDMI cable (Belkin).

When the new Belkin cable didnt help, I called back and was told to bring in my AVR so they could test it :-)

Thats when I gave up and returned the 2nd ATV4K to BestBuy. I think I must have talked to 3 or 4 different “Senior Advisors” in the several months i spent trying to fix the dropouts trying to get them to look at this discussion :-(

Yes, the AppleTV 4K decodes the bitstream and then sends a Dolby MAT overlay. Since it's linear PCM over HDMI out of the AppleTV, that's far more bandwidth than the compressed Dolby Digital Plus bitstream that's used to deliver Atmos from Netflix, HBO Max, Disney+, and even AppleTV+ plus. However, with the "Apple TV 4K uses a high bandwidth form of Dolby Atmos that doesn’t work over ARC connections." quote, I wonder if it would work over eARC, since that supposedly support uncompressed multi-channel Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD. I have not tried connecting the AppleTV directly to my TV to see if the Atmos problem occurs over eARC, but it might be an interesting experiment. Assuming it can deliver Atmos over eARC at all.

A passthrough option is the way to go -- I'd rather have my top-of-the-line Denon AVR decoding the signal than the AppleTV.

Same problems continue for me. I posted here (Choppy Dolby Atmos Continues from New App… - Apple Community) about my setup and issues. Have tried a few restarts and other things since then, but the only thing that “works” for sure is disabling Dolby Atmos in the atv4k menu.

Tim, please fix this!!!

All brand new equipment for my setup, including individually certified hdmi 2.1 48 gbps cables for all connections. I’ve run the ATV cable test multiple times as well with passing results. I do not suspect the cables.

This is one thread that is up to 24 pages that’s been documenting the same issue for multiple people over the course of several months!! There have been a few TV OS updates over the same time period, and no improvement. It just sucks.

I think the issue with broader recognition of the problem by Apple an all of the “Apple-focused” websites (e.g., Mac Rumors, Apple Insider) is that most people using the new atv4k didn’t set it up as the brains of a +$7k home theater system! Therefore the problem cases are relatively small compared to the larger population of users.

Still this is one well established thread out of several I have found on other Apple focused forums and home theater focused ones. I hope they listen at some point.

I have a problem with mine, got a new model Apple TV 4K 64GB for Christmas, it is plugged directly into my 2019 Sony AG9 4K OLED TV and is set to Dolby Atmos, the TV can accept and process this signal fine, but on my Apple TV I keep on getting incidents of no sound, I can be watching something in Amazon Prime or Netflix or even in the Apple TV app, and if I fast forward through the film or programme and start playing from a random position I can have no sound, but the sound was working fine when I started playing what I was watching.

Other times I can start watching something and click to skip the recap of previous episodes and / or the start credits, and when it goes to play the rest of the programme again I can have no sound but it was fine before clicking the skip option, again this is across different apps. I have to exit all the way back to the Home Screen and sometimes have to restart the Apple TV to get the sound to work again, and then it can play perfectly fine through the entire programme. It’s been like it pretty much since I got it.

Would be nice if Apple could fix this bug as it’s very annoying, I also use an expensive high grade HDMI 2,1 8K certified HDMI cable not a cheap one.

from my experience it doesn't any matter which season or episode you play. Yesterday I tested with latest beta (RC) S4 E4 and it happened within the first 5min. Didn't check yet with forced 1080p, maybe I can do later today.

iirc the reports of the issue started, when netflix started to provide AV1 codec for non mobile devices, posibly it's related to that.

While dropout the AVR shows "decoder off" for about 5 seconds, same behaviour when I switch manually audio format, e.g. german 5.1 to english Atmos. Seems to me that either there's a format change happen in the stream or the audio encoding task crashes and has to recover.

Have to add, that for a lot of weeks this issue happened only with Netflix, not ATV+ for example, and that provides a clearly higher data rate than NF

Interesting. In my limited testing, about 2 episodes of DtS, a WiFi connection resulted in significantly fewer dropouts. I know of others who had similar results. I was surprised that WiFi made a difference. Try restarting your ATV4K and testing on WiFi again.

i updated to 15.6 today, and I watched the entire Season 1 ep 1 of drive to survive without a single drop out! Also tried 6 Underground and a few others.. no drop outs! Really hoping this is fixed now.

Well…. Just now i watched for 3 hours straight to netflix atmos content over a wifi connection…. To my surprise hardly any dropouts.. just 2-3 small ones…. Was watching drive to survive last episode and few eposodes of the lincoln lawyer…

before watching these over wifi i watched the final episode of drive to survive over cabled internet… completely full with dropouts until the point it was not funny anymore…

so wifi or cable internet makes a difference

Why don't you perform this simple test for yourself and report back with your results?

I suggested a possible explanation for this in my last reply to you. Pity you didn't read it.

That explanation is consistent with my finding that higher bandwidth video triggers the Atmos dropouts, since both could result in insufficient processing power to support creation of the MAT 2.0 Atmos stream without timing or other errors.

I have also speculated that the Gen 2 hardware has a subtle difference from the Gen 1 that the S/W didn't take into account. Perhaps tvOS 15.6 finally addresses this. The first 15.6 report from roque98 seems very promising.

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It’s crazy, I haven’t had a single drop out since updating. For context, I’m running my ATV into a Denon 4500H. I have my ATV set to 4K SDR with match frame rate and dynamic range on, using a 48gb hdmi cable(not that this really matters).

Sounds like your Wi-Fi and Ethernet speeds are going to be very close, so it would be an interesting test. You can install Speedtest right on your ATV4K if you want to check. When I tested DtS on Wi-Fi versus Ethernet, I measured 300/30mbps on Wi-Fi and only got one dropout, and 700/30mbps on wired and got lots of dropouts. I had no dropouts at 1080p, but I would only recommend that if your seating distance is too far for 4k to be of benefit. If you do any testing, DtS produces the most consistent and frequent dropouts due to it being 4k 50Hz.

I cannot believe people are just starting to have this issue after the latest update. I've been having it since the TVOs went from 14 to 15

I was watching everything in 5.1 for a while but recently converted from Ethernet to Wifi and I can't believe the huge difference with Atmos.

I watched Northman on Apple TV+ and 1 1sec dropout for a 2 hr movie and watched some stuff on Netflix with no dropouts.

Still, Apple needs to fix the problem