My TV's Compatibility With New Apple TV

I had a similar problem -- the audio from the AppleTV through the HDMI port to my Marantz receiver mysteriously seemed to convey only peripheral sounds, not the main, spoken dialog. After 2 hours with tech support, we found that the Apple audio option was set to "best", which was too advanced for the Marantz 4002, though we discovered that the Marantz could be configured to hear proper audio in its "Virtual" surround audio mode (which I gather synthesizes an output from the available input from the HDMI port). The tech led me to the audio quality setting of the AppleTV to "downgrade" the audio output, which could be interpreted properly by the Marantz with its "5.1" mode setting. Not being an audiophile, I didn't know of new audio standards with which my Marantz was evidently unable to process correctly.

HDCP has always been a part of the HDMI spec. HDCP is a hardware handshake between two devices to prevent copying of content, an anti-pirating thing. Your current TV obviously supports it. The new ATV4 supports HDMI 1.4 which means it is in fact backwards compatible with previous specs. You should have no problem. The biggest issue people are complaining about is the removal of the optical audio output port. I don’t know how or if your current system is using the optical port. Owners of older amplifiers that don’t have HDMI ports typically use the optical port to get digital sound into their stereo systems. If your setup is like this then you will need an HDMI->Optical converter or some other path to your stereo.

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Joe Scanlon wrote:

Which leads to a follow-up question. Does the Apple TV have analog audio out?

No. Only the original 1st generation Apple TV had analog audio out. It also had component video out along with HDMI and optical audio out. The second and third generation products did away with everything but HDMI and optical audio out. ATV4 is HDMI only.