Dolby Atmos and ATV 4K

I have the same issue since early 2022. Bought a 2022 128 GB Apple TV and noticed that movies I bought within the AppleTV app were not displaying the Dolby Atmos indicator while playing when they should using two 2018 HomePods.

I proceeded by subscribing to AppleTV+ in March thinking it was a bug with movies but the same happened.

Note that this only happen with content playing through Apple TV app which is ironic.... Disney+ will play in Dolby Atmos and so will Apple Music.

Note that my TV speakers also do Dolby Atmos and when using those as output,Dolby Atmos is playing everywhere including with the Apple TV app so the issue is clearly a connection bug between Apple TV and HomePods

I have opened a ticket with Apple, also in March, provided logs, videos etc. you name it.Support called me back a few days after and their exact words were "this issue has been flagged and will be fixed in a future update"...since then there has been like three OS updates and the issue is still present.

Coming from a company like Apple which advertises Dolby Atmos a lot is not the level of service you would expect and I'm thinking of asking for a refund of my AppleTV+ subscription as Apple is simply not delivering something I'm paying for..

Don't get me wrong, I'm an Apple fanboy but in this case, I think that Apple is not handling this well at all

If you have set your Apple TV box to use Dolby Atmos where available, then it will use that if available in the content, for the given audio output.

The Apple TV app would display badges like this on the Details page for a movie or show:

Other apps may have other methods of showing what formats are used or available in the various streams.

However when I start to play the movie it will show the 4K and Dolby Vision symbol …

I think that is a function of your screen (your TV), not the Apple TV box.

… but not the Dolby Atmos symbol.

As you are using the HomePods, the TV is not involved in the audio, and wouldn’t know to display anything about it.