Collaborator II

Answered

LG 60UH6035 > Apple TV 4K > Arc : No Atmos

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I have the Sonos Arc plugged into the HDMI(ARC) port on the tv, Simple-CEC enabled and ARC is working, no trouble reported in the S2 app.

After I ran the TruePlay setup I started Disney+ and tried some Marvel movies. They show up in the HD report as Atmos movies, but the summary cards only show DolbyVision and 5.1 - no Atmos anywhere.

I then found that I could add Disney + to the Apple TV app, did that, and then the movies show up as Atmos in that. I started up a couple of movies and I still get 5.1 sound.

I’m about to order a new TV, but before I do that I read a few threads here on the forum and found that lots of people are having trouble with aTV4k. What should I do to check things out prior to spending even more money on this sound debacle?

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GuitarSuperstarAnswer

Lead Maestro

The Apple TV 4K outputs Dolby Atmos using Dolby MAT 2.0 not Dolby Digital Plus.

“Certain content devices, such as Xbox One X/S and Apple TV 4K, come with a Dolby Atmos MAT encoder, which is designed to encode, decode and incorporate Dolby Atmos metadata into lossless pulse-code modulation (PCM) audio, allowing listeners to experience Dolby Atmos even in PCM audio.”

Quote from Apple website:

“Apple TV 4K uses a high bandwidth form of Dolby Atmos that doesn’t work over ARC connections.”

More than likely, your TV cannot pass through the multichannel PCM audio containing the Dolby Atmos data the Apple TV 4K is sending because your TV is only equipped with HDMI ARC, not HDMI eARC. That’s probably the reason why you don’t see the “Immersive Audio” option on your Apple TV 4K settings.

So you either have to purchase a new TV with HDMI eARC or get the HDFury Arcana.

"Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you." - Rashi

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ForstalAuthor

Collaborator II

Sorry but that goes against everything I’ve read on the subject including Apple’s product pages. Apple TV 4K uses Dolby Digital Plus (compressed Atmos), not TrueHD (capable of carrying uncompressed Atmos). If Apple had uncompressed Atmos, that would mean they now have TrueHD on the aTV4k.

If you have any supporting docs that show Apple now has Dolby TrueHD on the aTV 4k please post the link so we can clear this up.

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GuitarSuperstar

Lead Maestro

@forstal Read my message above.

"Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you." - Rashi

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ForstalAuthor

Collaborator II

Wow, I read that doc about 20 times and didn’t notice that line in the page. I really don’t understand why they’d offer a sub-service of Dolby that uses high bandwidth but not offer the standard carrier for that, which would be TrueHD.

FWIW, Apple has never updated their product specs to indicate that they had “Dolby MAT 2.0”, which I’ve never heard of until just now. I really wish Sonos had put some kind of disclaimer up that shows this won’t work with ARC and AppleTV. They’re probably hoping most people will just accept it and move on.

I guess this is going back. I’m not about to replace my TV over this, and I’m not going to spend almost as much as a TV to resolve it.

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GuitarSuperstar

Lead Maestro

This is from the FAQ on the Sonos Arc product page:

Do I need a TV that supports HDMI eARC?
Sonos Arc can connect to TVs with eARC, ARC, or optical outputs. For greatest compatibility, eARC is recommended.
If you connect to a TV with eARC, the Dolby audio formats supported include Dolby Atmos, TrueHD, MAT, Dolby Digital Plus, and Dolby Digital.
If you connect to a TV using ARC, the Dolby audio formats supported are dependent on your TV model and manufacturer. The TV may be capable of sending Dolby Atmos, Dolby Digital Plus, and Dolby Digital. An ARC connection cannot support TrueHD or MAT.
If you connect to a TV using the optical adapter, the Dolby audio formats supported are dependent on your TV model and manufacturer. The TV may be capable of sending Dolby Digital. An optical connection cannot support Dolby Atmos, TrueHD, MAT, or Dolby Digital Plus.

"Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you." - Rashi

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ForstalAuthor

Collaborator II

Thats nice, thanks. Where does it say that it won’t work with Apple TV over ARC?

You bolded two lines in there to call my attention to them. The first one says nothing about Apple TV. I’m still trying to find where Apple says the aTV4k has “Dolby MAT”, never mind the Sonos docs.

The second line you bolded has nothing to do with what we’re talking about. I never once said I was using optical.

BMF

Prodigy III

I guess it would be far too difficult to accommodate and test all combinations of set top devices, TV’s, streaming services, firmware settings app versions etc and to keep it all up to date to categorically say what does and does not work.

Frustrating, I know…. but I can see the problem

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ForstalAuthor

Collaborator II

I guess it would be far too difficult to accommodate and test all combinations of set top devices, TV’s, streaming services, firmware settings app versions etc and to keep it all up to date to categorically say what does and does not work.

Frustrating, I know…. but I can see the problem

Right… but this is the 2nd most popular device after the Roku. Distant third is some Android thing I can’t remember the name of. Regardless, there’s maybe 5 different top sellers, and I would think that they used those devices when they were testing Arc prior to launch. They should at least publish their aggregated results from the testing phase, if they don’t want to do us the tremendous favor of actually trying the Arc out with current equipment.

And it just occurs to me - in order for them to do tech support for the Arc, they should at least have basic experience with the devices, otherwise those would be pretty short support calls:

“So you have the Arc hooked up, the light is on, it shows up in the app, but there’s no sound?”

“Yep.”

“Thats a device issue. You’ll have to contact the manufacturer of your set top box.”

>click<

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GuitarSuperstar

Lead Maestro

Thats nice, thanks. Where does it say that it won’t work with Apple TV over ARC?

You bolded two lines in there to call my attention to them. The first one says nothing about Apple TV. I’m still trying to find where Apple says the aTV4k has “Dolby MAT”, never mind the Sonos docs.

The second line you bolded has nothing to do with what we’re talking about. I never once said I was using optical.

No need to get angry. We are just trying to help and inform you. It’s probably best for you to return the Arc and go with a different solution. A sound bar isn’t worth getting angry about. Hopefully you now have enough information that you can find a sound bar that will better work for your setup and meet your expectations. Good luck.

"Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you." - Rashi

Ken_Griffiths

If I goto the Apple TV sound-out in its settings, the ‘uncompressed’ multichannel LPCM codec is shown on the screen display too (see attached). I guess that too shows/infers that an HDMI eARC port is going to be needed by the connected TV.

Arcana is (currently) the cheapest way to get around the issue if the TV only has HDMI-ARC, but I also don’t understand why Apple TV doesn’t support DD+ (Atmos), as many of the major streaming services appear to have chosen to go down that route.

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ForstalAuthor

Collaborator II

Thats nice, thanks. Where does it say that it won’t work with Apple TV over ARC?

You bolded two lines in there to call my attention to them. The first one says nothing about Apple TV. I’m still trying to find where Apple says the aTV4k has “Dolby MAT”, never mind the Sonos docs.

The second line you bolded has nothing to do with what we’re talking about. I never once said I was using optical.

No need to get angry. We are just trying to help and inform you. It’s probably best for you to return the Arc and go with a different solution. A sound bar isn’t worth getting angry about. Hopefully you now have enough information that you can find a sound bar that will better work for your setup and meet your expectations. Good luck.

How did you get “angry” out of what I said?

I am getting frustrated, however. The first response to my thread was a bot from Sonos that essentially repeated the manual and then told me to wait for community members who would do Sonos’ job for them. The second response was yours, and you did fine. You gave me a few things to look at. About the only thing I could say anything negative about was your focus on the thing about the TV not passing Atmos.

BMF clarified the stuff that I just plain couldn’t see, maybe it was the gray type. (I’d still like to know where he found that the aTV had that “Dolby MAT” circuit, because I haven’t seen anything about that anywhere I’ve looked.)

What really burned my steak, so to speak, was when I jumped on the support chat right after that, and after fighting with the chat bot (don’t get me started on that thing), I got a human on the line who responded to my complaint about the aTV and Atmos with “I do apologize for that, yes, there's a known issue with that Apple TV 4K, it required eArc for Atmos audio format.”

That right there did it for me.

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