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We are looking for a new TV ( 4K) soon and want to ensure I can use it successfully with the Playbar . I know that BT Sport (UK) will / are now supporting Dolby Atmos and I know there has been some discussion on this Forum but it is unclear to me what the true situation is. I know that when I choose my Tv I must ensure it produces Dolby 5.1. If I get BT Sport in 4K the sound will be Atmos. How will this play on a Playbar? Will i simply get a reduced ( compared to full Atmos) quality sound or will it not produce sound at all? Is it likely that Sonos could add that functionality with an update or have I bought into a dead end.
The stream carried through the optical input on the Playbar can't be a higher format than Dolby Digital. If it is DTS, or Atmos, nothing will be decoded by the Playbar, and you'll have silence.



If your TV can translate an Atmos input and alter it to Dolby Digital, you should be good to go. Conversely, you could set whatever input device to adjust the audio to Dolby Digital, as many of us have done with various items connected to our TVs such as cable boxes, Blu-ray players, or game consoles.



Many of us are hoping that at some point Sonos will support a larger number of speakers for surround sound, but so far, there's been no indication that they are working on it. Of course, they don't usually tell us in advance what they're working on. And I have to wonder what the bandwidth issues might be with that number of disparate sound streams being carried, but I'm not an engineer, and just don't have enough knowledge to hazard a guess as to whether that's an issue or not.



Sounds like you've got the beginnings of a very nice system. Good luck!