No Dolby Digital Apple TV 3 firmware 6.1 (6698.99.16)

Really? Phew ... glad we sorted that out.

Rolling my eyes as I type this ..........

I am also having same issue. I also downgraded to firmware 5.3 (6105 to resolve the issue.

Are Apple guys reading these forums? If they are then they should resolve this issue ASAP...

Stereo can be fun Tony!

Based on the evidence, it is an incompatibility of the current Netflix ATV app with iOS 7.1 (code base for the recent 6.1 ATV update), given that all other DD in Apple apps works and that AirPlay from the latest Netflix app on iOS 7 device, not not iOS 6, also works.

The best action is for everyone to bug Netflix support about it, rather than continuing to complain on this thread. Contacting Apple may help motivate what appears to be a collaborative effort at a fix, but Netflix has the primary responsibility for the compatibility of their app with the ATV OS.

Here is Netflix's latest response to me about the problem, which suggests more people bugging them may motivate a faster fix:

I am disappointed this has not been fixed. ATV Netflix was the only way for me to get 5.1. I also have a Roku 3 but my receiver does not decode Dolby Digital Plus over HDMI so I can only get stereo sound on Roku. They only use DD+ for their app. My Samsung blu-ray player is old and does not support 5.1 on the Smart Hub app. So ATV was my only option and it worked up until the end of last month. Fix this, Netflix and Apple.

And yes, I have contacted Apple AND Netflix about this.

I called Netflix Support last night and reported the issue with them.

Same here, most funny/strange is that when i play a movie in the Netflix App on my Ipad and start airplay to my apple TV i have 5.1 sound. So it must be some issue with the netflix app on the apple TV.

Until Netflix gets their act together, in situations where I care for more than stereo, I'm just starting movies on an iPad and AirPlaying to the Apple TV attached to the entertainment system. For me, there seems to be very little noticeable loss of quality. As the connection is transferred from the iPad to the Apple TV, the iPad becomes out-of-the-loop and can be put to sleep without interrupting the playback. The movie can be paused and rewound via the Apple TV remote, if desired.

5|=vv wrote:

Until Netflix gets their act together, in situations where I care for more than stereo, I'm just starting movies on an iPad and AirPlaying to the Apple TV attached to the entertainment system. For me, there seems to be very little noticeable loss of quality. As the connection is transferred from the iPad to the Apple TV, the iPad becomes out-of-the-loop and can be put to sleep without interrupting the playback. The movie can be paused and rewound via the Apple TV remote, if desired.

While the DD works via the iPad, the picture quality seems degrated to me. I tested this viewing the same movie via the iPad and via the ATV Netflix app. Have no way of quantifying this -- just a visual observation.

I have been doing this too and I can't tell whether it is degraded or not. The example short shows me running 43000kbps using Airplay (which is the max on the iPad, I understand) but runs 58000kbps when I stream right on the ATV. 4300kbps still says it is 1920x1080....so I don't know. It still looks **** good via Airplay but I just can't tell which is better. Until DD is resorted, I will continue with Airplay.

Contacted Netflix yesterday (via Swedish site) and they confirmed the bug and asked me to be patient for a little will longer.

Noticed the lack of 5.1 a while back but assumed it might be a bandwidth issue and Netflix scaling back as they can do with video. Looked into it more closely today and found this thread. I think the only thing "new" I might have to say is that Hulu Plus is having the same problem. As others have said, streaming of iTunes video works fime as does streaming from iTunes.

This is a long thread so maybe I missed it but NO comments from Apple!

To me the Apple where it just worked is gone... Any testing what so ever would have caught this.

Same issue here. Reached out to Netflix who are stating that yes it appears there is an issue but no there is nothing they can do about it as Apple handles the FW. Hopefully the engineers at Apple & Netflix are working on this.

Great I though my kids did something to my AV. Hope the fix it ASAP

If Netflix finally admitted that there's nothing they can do (after several weeks, duh), I'm afraid we'll have to wait for Apple to release the 6.1.1 update. And I'm not sure they're gonna roll it out just because the Netflix app is buggy. For comparison: 6.0 was released on September 23, 2013. The 6.0.1 update arrived on Oct 25, followed by 6.0.2 on Nov 14.

The good thing about the Netflix app that came with ATV firmware 6.1 is that it is much better at playing 720p and 1080p, at least in my case. I downgraded to 5.3 as suggested earlier in this thread. That brought back Dolby Digital alright, but I was stuck at 480p most of the time. As I'd rather lose 3 channels of audio than HD video, I immediately upgraded back to 6.1.

And again: I don't think the missing SuperHD logo has anything to do with the upgrade itself. That it vanished at the same time must be a coincidence (it was gone in my restored 5.3 firmware, too). Fact is, I have way better video quality in 6.1 than I had in earlier versions. So I'm sticking with it.