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Stereo - no surround sound

Hi gang,

Setup of my 2nd Gen ATV has gone very smoothly. Only one problem. All movies play as stereo, even when there is a 5.1 surround track. When I go into the Audio settings, if I turn Dolby Digital from Auto to On and then play a movie, my receiver say "Stereo Downmix". My ATV and receiver are connected by an HDMI cable.

Any ideas?

Cheers!

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.1)

Posted on Sep 30, 2010 5:30 PM

Reply
77 replies

Sep 30, 2010 8:42 PM in response to Phil McFarlane

I had the same issue tonight but it magically corrected itself after I played an iTunes-purchased video with 5.1 audio -- in this case, the free series premiere of LAW & ORDER: LOS ANGELES. After trying that one and getting 5.1 sound, I went back to my own Handbrake-encoded movies and TV shows and lo & behold, suddenly the 5.1 audio is working on everything!

Anyone else have any luck with that?

JRB

Oct 1, 2010 11:09 AM in response to TRado

Interesting that this thread isn't getting more posts... I find it hard to believe that only a few of us aren't getting 5.1 audio playback!

For those of you my earlier tip didn't work for: You might also try the following tip to enable 5.1 passthrough on your Mac via iTunes... I had actually done that first but it didn't change anything on ATV until I played an iTunes-purchased video and then suddenly all of my Handbrake videos also started playing 5.1, so I think one or the other must have jarred something awake on the ATV. (I should note that I am using only HDMI so I can't vouch for the optical audio out.)

http://www.macworld.com/article/150554/2010/04/itunes_surround.html

In any event, it seems that Apple may have some work to do in the next ATV update to correct this situation, but the above worked for me and it's continued to work even after unplugging the ATV and booting it back up, so it's worth a try...

JRB

Oct 1, 2010 11:12 AM in response to Phil McFarlane

OK,

I think I've made some progress. Turned Dolby Digital ON. When my receiver came up saying "Stereo Downmix", I scrolled through my receiver's surround sound options until it came up Dolby Digital. Now when the Apple TV is in menu mode, my receiver says "Stereo", when a movie plays it says Dolby Digital. Maybe the Apple TV doesn't tell the receiver what type of surround sound it is sending?

Anyways, seems to work now, but more testing is required.

Cheers!

Oct 1, 2010 12:41 PM in response to Phil McFarlane

Yup, that seems to have fixed it.
Usually my receiver can detect what kind of surround sound is being fed to it (Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS, etc). In the case of the new Apple TV, the receiver defaulted to Downmix Stereo, but was happy for me to change it manually to Dolby Digital. Now the receiver switches to Dolby Digital on its own when the Apple TV feeds it a surround sound signal.

It's like the new Apple TV has forgotten to send a signal to the receiver describing the type of surround sound that it is sending, and the receiver has to make a guess. For those with the same problem, try feeding a 5.1 Dolby Digital signal from the Apple TV to your receiver, and then manually change your surround mode to Dolby Digital on the receiver, and see if that works.

Cheers!

Stereo - no surround sound

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