Apple TV and HDMI audio extractors

Question

Apple TV and HDMI audio extractors

Is Support for HDMI audio extractors removed from tvOS?

I use an Apple TV HD connected through HDMI to an audio extractor, in turn connected through Toslink to a DAC and through HDMI to a projector.

This setup has worked flawlessly for a long time. But recently (I believe as of tvOS 15 but can’t really confirm this) there is no audio output through HDMI with the audio extractor connected. There is no longer an option to output audio from the Apple TV in the audio options of Control center.

No variety of settings or options that I am aware of affect this.

I have tried multiple factory resets and verified that the issue exists even with a clean install of tvOS 15.1.1.

Same Apple TV connected through HDMI to a screen with built in speakers works just fine, the option in control center is back.

All components in the signal path are tested separately and work as expected.

Other HDMI sources connected in place of the Apple TV get normal audio output through the audio extractor.

Tested with another audio extractor - same thing.

The projector does not have an audio output of its own so I can’t simply get rid of the audio extractor, it’s essential to my setup.

This seems like the same issue as described in https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252767299 which is not solved. The user in that thread mentions tvOS 14.5. I can not confirm or deny that this version is where the issue appears but my Apple TV was set to auto update and I have had the issue for a couple of weeks.

So, this is getting lengthy and I am sincerely grateful for anyone reading along this far. Now for what works:

Any kind of AirPlay output works fine as well as AirPods. This has been my work around so far but I’m not happy with it as a permanent solution.

I have now downgraded to tvOS 13.4.8 - the most recent, signed, pre 15, ipsw I was able to download - and the audio output is back! With auto-updates disabled my setup again works as I expect it to. But I would not be too happy about staying at 13.4.8 forever.

So. Any info on this would be greatly appreciated. Is this behaviour by design or to be viewed as a bug? Can someone confirm if this works with more recent Apple TV hardware or even another audio extractor?

Again, my sincere thanks for staying with me this far!

Posted on Nov 16, 2021 9:46 AM

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Answer 1

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momarorcocusos Author

Level 1

5 points

Nov 26, 2021 12:37 AM in response to momarorcocusos

Solved!

I got a new HDMI switch + audio extractor and everything works the way I want it to again.

I wasn’t aware of HDCP 2.2 and it not being backwards compatible. Never gave it much thought as I don’t use a 4K screen. Turns out with tvOS 15 your gear needs to be HDCP 2.2 compatible, 4K or not.

Finding an HDCP 2.2 compatible switch with audio extractor at a reasonable price was a bit tricky but I took my chances with the cheapest one I could find (still €80, many others costing five times of that).

Let’s hope this works for a good while. And that others are helped by this as well.

That’ll be all!

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