Can not get Apple TV 2 to output 5.1 Dolby audio

Thanks Ivan 5 atv's and just suffered with the sound. I have older 5.1 receivers with the f/o cables pluged into each one , I was at the oh well point and delt with it . Did what you sudjested and the 5.1 blue lights came on , I almost fainted.

Thanks for your info.

Tim

Too much Apple stuff to list .

So far nothing on the Internet I found was able to help me, including speaking with Netflix; however, I have found the solution (for me anyway). It is as such:

Login to Netflix on a computer and change your video quality settings to the Best Quality option, then sign out of Netflix (I did this just to be sure the quality change took affect), sign back in, and VOILA I now have Dolby Digital running from my ATV2 to my Yamaha HTR-6295 receiver.

The person I spoke to at Netflix said it was an issue with my receiver and I had to do some adjustments internally with the settings. He said that normally people hook up directly to a TV, but I disagree. Nowadays people are using their receiver as a media hub of sorts (hence the multiple HDMI inputs and the 1-2 HDMI outputs to a single HDMI input on a TV).

Hope this helps someone else out there who's having the same problem as me.

Cheers,

Aaron

Thanks Aaron! Just wanted to let you know that this worked for me as well!

Appreciate the tip!

Brian

This worked for me too.

I changed the quality by logging into Netflix and VOILA!!

It's now 5.1 DD on ATV!!

Didn't work for me...

I have,

HDMI going from ATV to my HDTV

TOSlink going from ATV to my A/V Receiver

I logged into NetFlix and changed the quality to High.

I get better quality video and 5.1 Dolby audio through my TOSlink.

Just changed Dolby settings in ATV to on and now we get 5.1 surround, as long as the source/movie was recoreded in 5.1 to begin with:)

I remember when I had this issue some time ago and was almost at the point of pulling my hair thinking what the heck is going on? Well, here's what happend...

Situation 1: Apple TV has only certain movies in Dolby Digital, you gotta look for the Dolby Digital symbol. Even the ones that should be in Surround Sound, Apple doesn't provide them. Then on top of that they have the nerve to charge you full price as a Blu-Ray, but that's a discussion for another post. So, now that I had a movie in front of me showing the Dolby Digital symbol, I hit the Preview button and surprise-surprise, no Surround Sound. FYI, DO NOT expect the previews to play in Surround Sound. I found this out after talking to one of the Apple staff members. So taking a risk, I decided to spend $5.99 on renting a movie which had the Dolby Digital symbol on it. The rented version of the movie played IN Surround Sound!!! 😁

Situation 2 - Netflix: I specifically remembered a while back I used to get Surround Sound on Netflix while watching the show Heroes on my PS3. Then one day it just suddenly stopped playing the movies in Surround Sound that were marked Dolby Digital Plus. Now similar thing was going on on the Apple TV and I figured it can't be related to the device. After a couple of attempts on talking to the Netflix agents and finally speaking to someone who knew what they were doing, I explained to them that I used to get Surround Sound before and I don't anymore. The agent looked at my account and mentioned to me that they had downgraded my account due to protection against going overboard bandwidth limitations. The agent then offered to UPGRADE my account to a one with higher bandwidth profile (No charge for this afcourse, it's just something they do on their side) and once I gave him the go ahead, I had Surround Sound again on Netflix!!! 😁

I'm not sure if you may be experiencing similar issues. But this resolved the problems for me. Whatever Apple TV is supposed to play in Surround Sound, it's playing in Surround Sound for me. No 3rd Party Software required for stripping off whatever it is you got a recommendation for stripping off! 😝

Hope this works for ya! Enjoy! 🙂

Oh yeah! Forgot to mention! All of what I described above worked in, and is still working in HDMI 🙂

Found the fix. Just go into your Apple TV setting and turn on Dolby Digital there. 5.1 surround sound works then:)

Ok,

First off, I'm an idiot.

Second, I couldn't for the life of me figure this out and grew frustrated because none of the suggestions were working for me.

That's when I realized how dumb my mistake was. Hopefully this helps anyone else out there who is in over their heads.

My receiver has an HDMI input for Media Players. I plugged my Apple TV into figuring that is what it is for.

NOPE! Video went through the TV like I wanted, but audio would only go through the TV speakers no matter what I tried, never the nice, louder, expensive speakers attached to my receiver. This has been going on for two months.

For the **** of it I thought I would try plugging the Apple TV directly into my TV and seeing what would happen.

That was all I needed.

For all you novices out there like me I hope this helps. For everyone else, please smile upon my ignorance with benelovence and pity.

Thanks. This answer solved my problem. You need to change the dolby audio setting from "Auto" to "on" in order to get 5.1 sound out of the optical output to your receiver. I agree that it is totally deceptive of Apple for the "Auto" setting to only allow stereo output. Everyone would assume that Auto easily provides the optimal output - that's what is implied by "Auto".

Finally got 5.1 to airplay!!!

For some reason when I include an AAC Dolby pro logic II track and an AC3 passthru track, it just defaults to the pro logic II track.

With ATV 3 and a really old Panasonic receiver (ht-390) I was able to get to these to work with 5.1 surround using Handbrake:

OR

• mixdown: [ 5.1 channels ]

any other codec-mixdown combination would either default to pro logic II, freeze, or result in sound at all but this may vary on receiver.

*Im not sure if these made a difference but I also had Enable Digital IO on my default device, DTS and Dolby Digital other digital playback devices and Dolby Digital [ON] / [16-bit] on apple tv audio settings.