Apple tv4 7.1 surround not workin

I updated to tvOS 9.0.1 a couple of days ago and just started having a similar problem.

Sources with 5.1 tracks used to play through just fine. Now the atv4 is just sending a left/right stereo mix to my avr. I changed the setting in the atv4 to dolby surround, LOOKS like it's sending 5.1 to my avr (avr display shows all channels) but only plays left/right (surround speakers are silent).

These are sources that worked perfectly before. Not sure why it all just fell apart.

*copy of my reply to other thread": Just finished some testing after emailing with programmer of 'Theater Test' application. Finally (after update) this app seems to work and proofing evidence of 8 channel playback via ATV 4. With both ATV4 and receiver set to 'auto' for decoding mode, the receiver receives a 7.1 LPCM stream NOT a DD stream. With that setup I am able to test ALL 8 channels of my surround system accordingly.

Via some research I found that LPCM is sent by the ATV after decoding the stream. If ATV4 was able to pass-trough the DD+ signal it would show DD+ at my receiver. This IS the case when setting ATV audio to 'surround'. In that case however only DD 5.1 is sent to the receiver (shows in the display).

This proofs that ATV4 for now is not supporting DD+ in pass through mode. I guess (hope) this is a software issue.

II'll post my results which seem to be different. I'm using ATV4 fed into a Marantz 7009 Driving a Dolby Atmos compatible 7.2.4 setup. Test material was iTunes/Apple Music tracks for stereo music, iTunes movies; Terminator Genysis for a 7.1 source, Jurrasic World 5.1 and Avengers:Ultron 5.1. I'm using the Marantz on screen display to tell me what it sees. I usually use blu ray when I want the best possible experience for movies, I have separate stereo settings for listening to music, and then I'll stream iTunes movies for the kids/when I don't care about the 'best' experience.

ATV set to Auto;

music is sent as PCM 2.0. Perfect.

7.1 was sent as PCM 7.1, sound from all channels. Perfect.

Jurrasic World sent as PCM stereo. ??? Not sure why.

Avengers sent as PCM 5.1. Perfect. Marantz can process and output all channels.

I'll have to try other movies to see if JW was an anomaly.

ATV set to Dolby

music is still PCM 2.0 which works.

ALL movies are are sent as DD 5.1 which is weird. I was hoping Terminator would be 7.1. But at least my Marantz can 'upscale' and use all my speakers.

So neither is perfect but Dolby gets me close enough for casual viewing. When I want the full experience I'm using BluRay- which in the case of Terminator gives me a true Dolby Atmos track. ATV isn't there yet. I may move this one to our TV/sound bar setup and use my ATV3 with the home theater since I use my harmony universal remote which also doubles as a Bluetooth keyboard since Apple stripped that feature out (not to mention the remote app). I realize there are more folks with stereo setups than us HT geeks with surround sound. We're left out in the cold with ATV4.

"II'll post my results which seem to be different."

It seems to me that your results are the same as mine with some additions. The ATV set to "auto" causes the unit to decode incoming stream and send it decoded to the receiver in LPCM format. You proved the ATV in "auto" mode to recognize the difference between DD 5.1 and DD+ 7.1. It decodes to the appropriate number of PCM channels accordingly and sends it to the receiver that recognizes 6 of 8 channels.

What we want however is not the ATV to decode but have the receiver perform that job. For this the ATV needs to be set to "surround" mode. In this mode I'd expect the ATV to passtrough the original signal and let the receiver decide whether it receives a DD or DD+ encoded stream. The ATV however in all cases sends an DD 5.1 encoded stream to the receiver in that case. This is wrong.

@Meegwell ; You mentoined you converted the Dolby Sphere files (m2ts) into a m4v file. What convert programm did you use to keep the 7.1 sound?

Hi. I get Dolby digital 5.1 to my amp but when using Netflix the sound is far inferior than Netflix on the chromecast or my PS3. The sound seems muted and has hardly any impact. When watching on my other devices it's like being at the movies. for this reason I never use Netflix on my atv4. It is just stupid tha t I have to switch to different media players when atv should do it fine. I was also disappointed that it it supposed to bitstream Dolby digital plus and it doesn't. In auto mode when it sends is as PCM is no better. I am getting concerned now that something is definitely wrong with this product and we will never get bitstreamed audio with the current hardware.

Also im sure the trailers app used to be in dd 5.1 but since the update it's just stereo sound.

Have you tested any other streaming devices on the market? Do any of them decode properly to your knowledge? Roku 4? Fire TV? Some other product that’s not that well known by the average consumer?

If it would just pass the bitstream to my avr, and let it do it's job, all would be good.

Where does anyone get the idea that Terminator Genisis from iTunes has Dolby Digital Plus on it in the first place? Running it through Subler, I only see AAC 2-channel and AC-3 6-channel (i.e. 5.1). Now maybe Subler doesn't detect Dolby Digital Plus, but I find it unlikely that it would show nothing at all rather than "unknown" or something.

But therein lies the rub. Where do you even get Dolby Digital Plus test files? The "YouTube" trailer ones only contain 2-channel AAC as far as I can tell. Are there any movies out there on Blu-Ray that even have Dolby Digital Plus on them? Handbrake doesn't handle Dolby Digital Plus as far as I can tell (i.e. it would be nice if you could convert DTS 7.1 HD-Master Audio to Dolby Digital Plus 7.1 to save space (unless you really think lossless is audible on your system), but Handbrake doesn't even detect 7.1 as 7.1 yet (perhaps on a nightly?). It shows 5.1 and if you pass it through anyway, Subler shows it at DTS 2-channel (if you don't include it and let Subler itself add the 7.1 DTS from the MakeMKV file, then it shows 8-channel DTS as it should. Kodi Jarvis Betas don't seem to care either way on OS X (it will show either one as 7.1), but my FireTV has shown the "DTS 2-channel" Handbrake versions as 2-channel in the Android ARM Kodi Jarvis Beta for some reason (bad news as auto-select will pick Dolby Digital 5.1 over DTS 2-channel even though it's really 7.1 channel and should at least output 5.1 on a FireTV via SpDif from the Core DTS).

In other words, a lot of the programs out there don't recognize 7.1 correctly and Handbrake doesn't handle Dolby TrueHD period (you'll have to use something else to add it) and even though FFMpeg has been updated for 7.1, a lot of non-beta stuff and older software doesn't use it and so at best they show 5.1.

Now it's entirely possible that Terminator Genisis has an "invisible" Dolby Digital Plus soundtrack if none of these programs has ANY support for Dolby Digital Plus detection, but then what does? I couldn't even hope to test an ATV4 with Dolby Digital Plus if I had no test files that contain it.

As I recall, if you view Terminator Genisis on the AppleTV iTunes store screen, the details (language) show DD+ 7.1. However, if you go to the iTunes store on your mac or something else, it only shows 5.1 available. I have not bought it either way, but I did see this first hand.

I have a Dolby blu-ray that has DD+ 5.1 and 7.1 clips on it, but I have no way of getting it to an .mp4 file with that audio intact. Handbrake is what I use to convert from .mkv and someone at the hanbrake user forums said they did not anticipate it handling DD+ any time soon...or ever...or something to that effect.

I believe I have an answer on all of this. Let me state that I have a THX-high end Audiophile receiver that encodes just about all audio formats except a passthrough for Dolby Atmos and have calibrated it to work perfectly. I have also tried both Auto and Dolby setting on the 4th gen Apple TV. I took one of my BDs of Capitan America, The Winter Soldier and looked at the languages encoded. It states "English 7.1 DTS-HDMA, yet the 4th gen Apple TV which is spec out to encode Dolby 7.1 only shows under the movie category languages as Dolby 5.1. My guess is that the iTunes Store/Apple TV only have loaded the Dolby 5.1 versions of its movies, hence will only play at Dolby 5.1. If this is the case then Apple needs to update its own iTunes/Apple TV movie library to be able to play/stream and purchase the Dolby/DTS 7.1 versions.

Let's hope Apple gets the message on this and gets onboard the 7.1 train.

Is 7.1 surround sound working on ATV now? I am still using ATV 3, there is no reason to upgrade if it still plays DD 5.1 only. ATV 3 is already doing it.