No sound on Apple TV when playing an iTunes movie.

@Alley_Cat I seriously spent an hour on the phone with Apple support today and they didn't suggest turning surround off. I returned the *new version* of the Apple TV I bought less than a week ago today and had the same issue with the new one. Changing this setting to stereo was the key. THANK YOU!

Actually not getting ANY audio at all. Try to select Apple TV as the audio output device, and OSX Mavericks won't let me.

MAJOR bug in the ATV update... MAJOR.

Same for me guys, just this week sound for movies has gone south. No changes to settings. Possible software updates to itunes or appleTV (don't know, I wasn't watching) - I've tried the same content from two different macbooks running iTunes. The sound plays on the macbooks

I can get audio from Music and audio plays from airplay'd videos. It does not play from apple iTunes video or video that I have created on the macBook

I did some googling and found this.

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS5150?viewlocale=en_US

When I turned off Dolby Digital, sound came back... so what's up (iTV) guys? Sounds like a bit of a bug, no?

/jos

<E-mail Edited by Host>

Many TVs can't decode Dolby Digital 5.1 surround - if the setting is set to On, the TV won't know how to process the audio.

iTunes movies generally have 2 soundtracks - stereo and 5.1 DD surround - older ones may be stereo only or dual mono.

Having the setting set correcly is not a bug, but it is possible an update might alter the default option for the setting making it incorrect for you.

Some Netflix movies are in 5.1 surround too so I would expect people to see the issue with Netflix too.\

Trailers for iTunes movies are stereo only and don't show the issue.

Also, I've asked the forum hosts to edit your email out - not wise to post it publicly in the text unless you want a lot of spam. Repost it if you really don't mind.

AC

mollybryson wrote:

My Apple TV works perfectly with Netflix, Hulu Plus and iTunes Radio, but there is no sound for iTunes movies that I have purchased through the store. I have attempted to restart the ATV as well as changed all the audio settings to Auto as suggested in several other forums but nothing has worked. I attempted to get support directly from Apple, and they are telling me it's not a covered device so I get no support, despite buying it with my MacBook Pro from an authorized retailer.

Have you unpowered the unit, restarted and set Dolby Digital to Off?

If Auto is not working for people it's possible there is a bug of some kind with AppleTV thinking the HDMI connection can accept surround sound when the TV can't.

AC

Hey Alley_Cat

All of this has worked fine for years, I have a Denon 4306 which does a fine job handling Dolby.

And, Netflix works fine and Airplay works fine with Dolby, just movies played through iTunes

just stopped working this week. The setting has always been on Auto, now it has to be on off.

I vote "Bug" it's not like Apple TV features haven't just broken for a while before. 🙂

I just want ATV guys to fix it so I can have my Dolby back

/jos

more details for those with same issue

my audio is conducted through SPDIF

Only video throught HDMI

(hmm... PCM bug on the ATV side encoding Dolby starts to seem likely)

Movie is being sourced through iTunes 11.3.3 (8) on Mavericks 10.9.1

(both the latest versions)

Tried sourcing from two separate macbooks (connected wirelessly)

if you turn off Dolby on the ATV, sound comes back...

Lastly, prior to this incident, the ATV / Denon 4306 are great together, when playing

stereo (music content) the 4306 will fall back to stereo mode and when playing movies

flip back. The Denon knows the ATV is trying to feed it a stereo signal or a Dolby signal

Restart, changing (in settings) from 'auto' sound to 16 bit and turning Dolby off worked for me.

[Apple TV original, HDMI only hook up, and Panasonic Plasma 55" is my set-up}

Thanks for tips.

Did not even have to restart. Simply turned off Dolby and switched to 16bit.

I had the same issue, basically you just have to go to your AppleTV > Settings and under > Audio & Video make sure you have turned "off" the Dolby Digital option because probably you don't have a tv supporting this option or simply you don't a system that supports this...

The following support doc is outdated with the current User interface but still applies:

http://help.apple.com/appletv/#/atvba773c3c9

Actually I had the same problem where it would play fine on my mac in itunes, quicktime, even preview, BUT... i found out SOME mp4 files are set to "6" channels of audio and wouldnt play on my AppleTV's or to the Apple TV from the itunes on my computer... until I converted the files with "HANDBRAKE" and set the audio channels to "2".

OR you can convert and set the MP4 or MkV files to have BOTH "Stereo (2)" and "Dolby Digital (5.1 aka 6)" settings to play on multiple platforms... it worked perfectly fine from then on out!!!

I have a 5.1 system and on my APPLE TV, I went to the settings and made sure the AUDIO was set to "auto" too.

Hope this helps!? 🙂

Thank you for this! I went to Settings>Audio&Video and had to change the Dolby Digital to OFF and change the Audio to "Auto" instead of 16bit.

Indeed, the browsing 'click' sounds worked and so did the previews, but none of my iTunes movies or Netflix when I pushed play. I have a kind of older TV that I connected to the ATV, so no DD. SO HAPPY this was all that was needed!

I had checked on my iMac and Air, worked fine.... knew it had to be related to an issue with that TV and the sound settings. Woohoo!

Yes you are right! Thanks for this, fixed my issue :)