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I have a Sony X930E attached to the beam via HDMI Arc, Two sonos ones as rear surrounds, and an Apple TV connected to the TV via HDMI. ATV is my only source of content. I can't get 5.1. When I look at about my sonos it shows only stereo. The ATV is set for DD 5.1.

If I play Netflix 5.1 from the TV's built in app I get dolby digital 5.1 in about my sonos . But I don't want to use the built in TV app, only ATV.

Thoughts?
Solution: set your Apple TV to output Dolby Digital 5.1. See here:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204069



Long version: When your apple TV outputs "Best Quality Available" Sound, it does so using LPCM. The TV passes this to the Beam as stereo. When Apple TV is set to Dolby Digital 5.1, it outputs a compressed Dolby format that the TV passes through to Beam.
Yes I said the ATV is set to 5.1. Still only getting stereo to the beam.
You could try optical out from your tv straight to beam, as an experiment to see if it is a problem with tv passing through DD5.1 from HDMI.
Unfortunately there was no adapter in the box. Yay.

I’m close to returning the beam at this point but I also bought two Sonos ones that I have no use for. They were $338 for two on one of the recent eBay sales.

Here I thought hdmi would finally solve all the issues people have with Sonos and their TVs.
Ok it’s working now. 🆒

I switched back and forth between Dolby 5.1 and best quality a few times on the Apple TV and it started working on 5.1
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