Q: Why is Apple TV 4 movie audio quality so bad?

Nothing is wrong with my audio equipment. All other inputs are just fine...blu-ray, dvd, television, amazon fire tv volumes are ok. Its just audio in movies and most tv shows on the Apple TV, and I have tried switching up inputs and cables, so I know the those are not at fault.

What is your setup exactly?

There is really nothing to adjust, though. I have the audio quality set to best quality available. What else can I do?

Is the other user using a 4th gen Apple TV? What is there setup?

When I watch movies on my Amazon FireTV, I see Dolby Digital or Dolby Digital Plus on the receiver and the volume is much better, not blu-ray quality, but not as bad as the Apple TV. On the Apple TV, it shows only PCM. I feel like I have a lot of experience with home theaters, over 25 years, and so I'm 100% positive my equipment is not at fault. There has to be something wrong with the way the movies are encoded, or with the way the Apple TV deals with the audio.

This is so frustrating. The difference between audio in watching a blu-ray movie and watching and iTunes movie is night and day. I now wish I had stuck with blu-ray instead of wasting thousands of dollars on iTunes movies.

It looks like the ATV is determining that your system can only handle stereo, due to some problem in the HDMI-CEC communication. There may be a setting on your receiver that will make this work.

Actually, when I play a movie with Apple TV audio settings at either "Best Quality Available" or "Dolby Digital 5.1", I'm getting sound through all my speakers, surround sound, not stereo. My receiver says PCM for "Best Quality Available" and Dolby Digital for "Dolby Digital 5.1".

Otherwise, you could switch ATV to 5.1, and that should work better.

The volume is the same for both surround settings, "Best Quality Available" or "Dolby Digital 5.1".

Volume Examples. When watching television through my Xfinity X1 cable box, I normally set the volume at 40, and thats pretty loud. If I play a blu-ray of a movie, and I have the volume set at 35 (loud for a movie), and then I play the iTunes version of that movie through my Apple TV, I have to set the volume to around 20 (lower number is higher volume on my receiver) to get the same volume as the blu-ray. Thats a huge difference on my receiver.

Otherwise, you could switch ATV to 5.1, and that should work better. Incidentally, on my older Yamaha receiver, I only get surround if a decoder is enabled. Is it possible that you haven't enabled an appropriate mode for this input?

No, I'm pretty sure the settings on the receiver are right. I don't remember having this issue with my Apple TV 3rd generation.

One last thought. You don't have an attenuator on that input that's holding it down?

No, no attenuator holding that input down.

Also, is the low level only with iTunes movies? How about YouTube, music AirPlayed from a phone, etc.

I am only testing with the apps I have installed.

The volume is very low with my iTunes movies and tv shows using the iTunes "Movies" and "TV Shows" apps, and also the "HBO-GO" app. I have about 600 HD iTunes movies, and I have watched hundreds of them over the past 6-12 months, and volume on all of them has been extremely low on my Apple TV 4, worse on some movies more than others. Newer movies seem to sound just a little better than older movies, but not by much.

Volume with the YouTube, SCI-GO, and CNN-GO apps are normal. Volume with Music app is fantastic, really loud. When I airplay music to the Apple TV from my iPhone 6, iPad Pro, or rMBP, the volume is also really good, considerably louder than movies and tv shows played on the Apple TV.

By the way, I wanted to say that I do very much appreciate your trying to help me here :-)

You can download an amusing Surround Speaker Check app (free) from the tv app store, which lets you exercise the system independent of content. When I use it, the levels on my system are reasonable. My setup is different, using optical output from the TV, but I have also tested it with HDMI through the AVR. I cannot set it up that way because old receiver only has 2 HDMI inputs.

Pioneer receivers come with built-in utilities for this, and my levels are perfect.

By the way, I don't think that app you suggested is available anymore. I get an error when I try to select it in the App Store via iTunes...."The item you've requested is not currently available in the U.S. store."

Again, all other devices and inputs work great through my receiver, so I'm quite positive there is nothing wrong with my equipment. More and more it looks like an issue with the way the Apple TV 4 handles audio. I wish the Apple TV team at apple would setup a basic 2.1 or 5.1 home theater and test an iTunes movie played via Apple TV 4 vs the same blu-ray movie in a blu-ray player so they could hear the difference for themselves.

I regret that I did not stick with my blu-ray movies, and that I invested so much money into iTunes movies. Blu-rays just sound so much louder and so much more alive, so much more dynamic and crisp than iTunes movies played through my Apple TV. Such a disappointment, oh well :-(

Thanks again for trying to help.

Regarding the surround check app, it's a TV app in the TV app store. You said you looked for it via iTunes, but you need to use ATV to find it.

Got it, my mistake, wasn't thinking. I just downloaded the app on my Apple TV and tested. The volume was quite low.

Do you not think that the fact that other peoples audio volumes are fine should be an important consideration in your assessment, I'm not really sure how you can conclude it has to be down to the way movies are encoded, do you think you get

your own versions of the movies.

i have no idea if other peoples audio volumes are fine.  and no, i don't think i get my own version of movies. now your being insulting and rude.

Sorry if this comes across the wrong way but it seems kind of obvious to me that something is astray at your end of things.

its not obvious to me that something is wrong at my end of things.