Apple Broke Dolby Digital 5.1 Output on Apple TV 4K

Before the update, my Apple TV defaulted to DD5.1 audio when set to auto. Sound came from all channels. After the update non Atmos sources play as PCM stereo. Nothing from rears or surrounds. The only thing that has changed was the update. Therefore, I think it's reasonable to suggest that the update is the culprit.

Just to be sure - my soundbar informs me that the sound being played is not in Dolby (red light instead of green). But does that mean that the sound is not necessary stereo? So a movie recorded in Dolby will be played as multichannel and I will hear the sound in the speaker in which I should hear it? It doesn't sound bad, but I'm worried that I just had Dolby sound (green light) before the update. This is all very weird to me.

Having a similar issue since I’ve downloaded TV iOS 18, my Yamaha digital set was giving me 5.1 digital sound with optical out and now it’s only giving me ProLogic. However, when I use the Apple TV app, Disney app, etc., on my LG TV, I’m getting 5.1 digital sound so clearly it’s the Apple TV unit and the download. I hope Apple comes up with a patch.

Same :/

Have had my Apple TV 4k work flawlessly for years until tvOS 18. Only PCM coming out of it now. Can verify that everything else connected to my Sony AVR sees all other codecs fine.

C’mon Apple…

The email from apple instructs me to use Atmos on my receiver or sound bar. As my perfectly functional, until the update, receiver predates this by several years that is not an option for me. Hope Apple solves this. Perhaps creating an option do go back to whatever setting was before this current update. Or make that setting for 5.1 actually output a 5.1 signal.

I have the same problem with my AppleTv 4thgen herein Rio, Brazil. Only Stereo via Apple TV to my Receiver Pioneer, not Dolby Digital 5.1 anymore. After the last update, who knows?

How to fix this Apple people ????

I took the 2015's Apple TV back to the other apartment where i normally sleep, so i can test that only tomorrow, but, i checked the 2017 and 2022 versions. Neithers can plays back 5.1 audio on the tested contents, which was the trailer for "The Family Plan" and for the "Kingsman: The Secret Service".

But according to the previous checks, the 2015's version will plays back it with 5.1 audio (i will get back tomorrow).

In the past, I never tried to play anything with 5.1 audio from the Apple's own services, so I did not know if it was worked in the past or not.

Edit: Are you sure that the trailers has any 5.1 audio?

Thank you so much. We should indeed continue to send feedback to Apple on this. The number of Apple TV 4K 1st gen, 2nd, gen and 3rd gen users who seem to be affected by this extremely annoying bug is simply too large for Apple to ignore this.

I’ve had the same experience on my Apple TV HD. tvOS 18 seems to break Dolby Digital playback. I downgraded to 17.6 and it was all ok. Stupidly I forgot to switch off auto update 😩. So now all audio is stuck Stereo PCM and it sounds awful.

I know that it was working before 18.0 for two reasons. First, I've been bitten by similar issues before, and I have a button on my Marantz AVR's remote that shows me the input schema and the output schema. I used that almost daily. Second, I change the setting almost daily for my Apple TV HD. I'm switching sound output devices, and have to know which setting gives me surround sound.

I have left my update settings on auto, but for reasons I don't understand, I always have to apply updates manually on both my HD and 4K units of Apple TV. That part of it is a huge question mark for me.

I'm posting a subsequent reply, but due to some gray area concerning posting guidelines, I'm not sure whether it's permitted. If you see it, great, if not, then this will have to suffice.

I was also interested in trying a version of tvOS that comes after alpha, and it appeared to work momentarily. When I turned off after alpha updates, then enabled subtitles, the issue returned. That is very much vexing for me, and I found it difficult not to become flamingly livid.

None of my Apple TV's (A1625, A1842, A2843) will produce an 5.1 sound when watching trailers from the Apple TV+ application (Kingsman: The Secret Service; The Family Plan). The "Change Format" setting still configured to "Dolby Digital 5.1".