AppleTV 4 surround sound issue

Airsculpture wrote:

Just avoiding the differences between versions for the moment. The article would suggest that if you want the AVR to 'break out' the 2 additional rear channels, then having the ATV4 re-encode to DD 5.1 would be the way to go. Correct ?

Yes if "when your TV or receiver has compatibility issues with multichannel LPCM audio" means your AVR needs a bitstream to trigger signal processing. I don't think Apple considers this to be an "audiophile" device. It's the "future" of television so a decoded/re-encoded signal is considered acceptable. There are other issues but assuming you just want to watch a tv show or movie with an AC-3 soundtrack and you'd like to do some up-mixing I suspect Apple's position is not without merit.

Aactually just tested it when I got home and the AVR seems to be able to do it with PCM or DD streams, but must admit the auto decode PCM sounds better, but then I don't have the rears set up anymore

GIves me the option anyway

Added my rears back in so now back to 7.1 set up and my AVR automatically adds DPRIIx encoding to the 5.1 PCM signal, it actually appears on the AVR as PCM DPLIIx and am unable to tell it to not do it, I guess it thinks you have the speakers so i'm going to apply it. This is not just on the THX modes but on ALC ( auto mode ). I will investigate Auto Surround mode tonight and see what happens

Have the same problem but think is found the problem, this is the the situation at home.

• Philips LCD tv (from 2009)
• Onkyo NR-TX535 5.2 reciever
• JBL Cinema 610 5.1 speakers
• TV4
• Infuse Pro

I have my complete DVD collection on a NAS and i'm be able to watch it with InFuse Pro, everything works just great.

Everything is connected through the Onkyo receiver with a HDMI cable, i ripped all my DVD's with the best sound option. Most DD5.1 but some DTS 5.1, is have problems with some music DVD's (for example Greatest Video Hits 1 & 2). The problem is that Infuse won't be able to play any audiotrack with 96KHz and 192KHz, it supports only at a max of 48KHz.

I just bought my Apple TV 4th Gen. and was freaked when there was no optical out! I have a newer Vizio surround sound system and it works great. Anyway, cutting to the chase...if your surround sound system has Bluetooth capability, or you have Bluetooth headphones, you can connect your system using that (instruction link below). Perfect!

Use Bluetooth accessories with your Apple TV (4th generation) - Apple Support

First, thanks to everyone who contributed to unravelling what the ATV4 was doing.

I always suspected something weird was going on when my AVR display was not matching what I was hearing and the weird audio levels I was getting when comparing my Blu-ray vs digital copy versions (from Apple that was included in the Blu-ray). I was going to dive in it myself today but searching Google found all your sleuthing. It's great that early posters/sleuths have basically confirmed what Dolby (http://developer.dolby.com/News/Dolby_Audio_Support_on_Apple_TV.aspx) and Apple (Sep 16, 2016 updated https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT204069) later documented. If only they had documented this from the start!

I think Apple's implementation was purely so it could integrate system sounds into the audio stream. This isn't unique as I believe the Playstation 3 and 4 does this too when you enable the system sounds option in the settings. Otherwise I don't think current audio standards allow this kind of integration.

Thanks again for all your hard work. It saved me tons of time.