Arc & Arc Ultra Sound Decoding Using AppleTV on YouTube TV App

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Wondering from the community if you’re experiencing the same problem. My setup is using an AppleTV direct to a TV, Arc or Arc Ultra connected to the ARC HDMI on the TV. Starting the YouTube TV from the AppleTV and having a channel that has 5.1 audio, the Arc and Arc Ultra decode 2.0 even though 5.1 is being sent (verified by using stats for nerds on the YouTube TV App). Changing the channel on YouTube TV, the Arc and Arc Ultra decode 5.1 and even changing back to the original channel, it now decodes 5.1. I’ve verified this behavior on two different brands of TVs and the 3rd and 2nd generation AppleTV 4k.

Spend 1.5 hours with Sonos support that confirmed this issue yesterday and wondering how many other people have noticed or solved this.

Appreciate your insight!

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Corry PAnswer

Sonos Staff

Hi @mattob

Welcome to the Sonos Community!

Sorry to hear of this issue you are having with receiving stereo audio when playing YouTube content through your Apple TV to your Arc Ultra.

We were able to reproduce this issue in our own testing and it seems that the Arc Ultra is just playing what is handed to it - the cause of the issue lies elsewhere, as the TV is outputting stereo audio.

I recommend you contact Apple for further support.

I hope this helps.

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein

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Airgetlam

I don’t have any experience with YouTube TV, but all of my experience with YouTube directly is that they reduce the uploaded content to stereo, and strip any 5.1 content along the way. Contrary to what a lot of the videos claim. So anything that I ‘watch’ from YouTube is assumed to be stereo (and I’ve not looked at what Sonos gets from my TV anymore..if it’s from YouTube, it is always stereo). Apple TV is my source, for what it’s worth. Apple TV does not ‘upscale’ the content to 5.1 or Atmos.

Bruce

Corry P

Sonos Staff

Hi @Airgetlam

With a YouTube Premium account, you can get videos that have 5.1 surround sound. I don’t know if YT support anything better than plain old Dolby Digital, however.

While it is mostly pay-per-view movies that have surround sound, some of the channel testing videos do have surround - not that we recommend using them to test with, of course.

With unpaid-for YouTube, I think it is indeed all in stereo.

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein

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